USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1916-1955 > Part 26
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Parent-Teacher Association
In Pittsfield, as from coast to coast, one of the strongest in- fluences in the support of public education in all its aspects, cur- ricular and extra-curricular, is the Parent-Teacher Association. In 1954, PTA had almost 9,000,000 paid-up members in the country, 114,500 in Massachusetts, and 3,250 in Pittsfield. PTA
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units are active in all 21 of the city's public elementary and junior high schools.
The first local unit was formed in 1914 at Dawes School, with Mrs. E. G. Winston as president. Its first projects included buying stereographic views for use in the school, good pictures for the classrooms, chairs for the auditorium. Dues were 25 cents a year, with additional funds raised by "dime socials" and food sales. By 1924, the Dawes PTA had almost 400 members.
Meantime, a PTA had been established at Redfield School in 1921. Other units were organized at Pomeroy School in 1925 and at Crane Junior High School in 1926. These units, with that at Dawes School, organized in 1927 the Pittsfield Council of the Parent-Teacher Association, with Mrs. A. W. Pierce as president.
It appears that the PTA movement in Pittsfield then lan- guished for ten years. In 1937 the next unit was formed, at Plunkett Junior High School. Beginning in 1941, PTAs were organized in all of the public schools below the senior high school. A unit formed at the Notre Dame parochial school joined the PTA Council, but soon withdrew, finding it difficult to follow the organization's fundamental policy of being non- sectarian.
After years of quietude, the PTA Council became active again in 1940-44, under the presidency of Mrs. James F. Shipton. These were war years, and the Council sponsored and encour- aged the "Block Plan of War Services," organized home nurs- ing classes under the guidance of the Red Cross, and aided in providing bandages and other supplies for the Visiting Nurse Association.
During the war years, too, the Council initiated the "Summer Roundup," in which it offered to consenting parents a free and complete health and dental examination for every child about to enter school. With the cooperation of the Public Health and the School Departments, this program was conduct- ed until 1953, when schools were required by state law to give pupils a complete health examination every three years, render- ing the PTA program unnecessary.
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In 1942, the Council sponsored the first of the present series of gay community Halloween parties that have since become an annual event, now sponsored by the Parks and Recreation De- partment.
In 1954, members of PTA at all elementary schools per- formed the complicated clerical work involved in the test trials of the Salk polio vaccine in Pittsfield, and early in 1955 like- wise conducted the clerical work for the more general program of Salk polio vaccine injections.
PTA has set itself the primary goal of keeping the general public informed about the needs of children and youth. It has shown the way by initiating many projects, sponsoring them until they proved their value and the public assumed responsi- bility for them, leaving PTA free to consider new problems that constantly arise.
Parochial Schools
The first parochial school in the city was St. Joseph's, found- ed in 1897, when the sisters of St. Joseph opened an academy for Catholic youth in their convent adjoining the church on North Street. Two years later, a school with ten classrooms and an assembly hall was built on North Pearl Street, on the site of the old Melville School, which was moved across the street to become the municipality's tool house.
Still serving as St. Joseph's Grammar School, the North Pearl Street building opened in 1899 with some 450 pupils from all Catholic parishes attending under the instruction of the Sisters of St. Joseph. As more than 550 children had been registered, the overflow had to be temporarily sheltered in the old Academy rooms on North Street.
By 1915, enrollment had increased to almost 700 pupils, divided among eight elementary grades. A four-year high school course was soon established. The growing enrollment forced the use of the large assembly hall as classrooms.
To relieve congestion, the parish under Father Bernard S. Conaty bought the Blain house on Maplewood Avenue in 1915 for use of the high school, which then numbered 110 students.
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School facilities were expanded in 1924 by the purchase of the buildings of the Holy Family Church and of the adjoining Unity Church on Linden Street.
Succeeding Father Conaty as pastor of St. Joseph's in 1940, the Reverend Charles L. Foley undertook to bring the scattered units of the parochial school together by concentrating the lower grades in the North Pearl Street building and construct- ing a new Catholic central high school. Land was bought at the corner of Maplewood Avenue and North Pearl Street, and St. Joseph's Catholic Central High School was built, opening there in September 1942.
Designed by J. R. Hampson of Pittsfield, with Daniel O'Con- nell & Sons as general contractors, the attractive new high school incorporated the best in modern school planning and construction. On its three floors it has almost twenty large classrooms, well-equipped chemistry and physics laboratories with adjoining lecture rooms, a principal's office, a faculty rest room, a nurse's office and examination room, and a cafeteria seating almost 350 people. Well ventilated and well heated, the building is equipped with fluorescent lighting, being mod- ern throughout in all of its facilities.
Coeducational, the high school offers five courses of study: college preparatory, nurses' preparatory, commercial, technical, and general. Enrollment grew from 250 in 1920 to 400 in 1940 and to almost 520 in 1954. "St. Joe's," as it is locally known, and PHS (Pittsfield High School) have always been keen rivals in sports and other activities.
Enrollment in St. Joseph's Grammar School averaged about 350 in 1920, rising to a peak of more than 450 in 1942. It has since declined to approximately the 1920 level, due largely to the opening of more parochial schools.
The second parochial school to be established was St. Charles'. Having grown considerably down the years, it cele- brated the thirtieth anniversary of its founding in 1954, at which time it had more than 380 pupils in its eight grades under the tutelage of the Sisters of St. Joseph.
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The school was conceived by the "Father of St. Charles' Parish," the Reverend William J. Dower, who in 1910, having cleared the parish of debt, began collecting funds to build a parochial school. Collections for some years were slow. But Father Dower, as opportunity offered and means afforded, bought twelve lots and two houses on Pontoosuc and Lenox avenues. One of the houses still serves the Sisters of St. Joseph as a convent.
A concerted drive in the early 1920s brought in subscriptions for $38,500, and in 1923 ground was broken for St. Charles' School. A year later, by the opening of school in 1924, several hundred pupils entered the attractive and rather large building on Lenox Avenue, which has since served St. Charles'. The building contains nine classrooms, as well as an auditorium and dining room.
Late in August 1955, fire caused considerable damage to the school. If some of the pupils hoped for a fortuitous extension of their summer vacation, they were disappointed, for repairs were made so rapidly that school opened on schedule.
Notre Dame parish, under the Reverend Leo E. Laviolette, built and in 1937 dedicated a new building for its parochial school. It had been established in part from a desire to afford the Franco-American children of the parish an opportunity to master the tongue of their ancestors. Much of the instruction -even in arithmetic !- was in French.
Erected on Melville Street, the new Ecole Notre Dame had eleven large classrooms on the first and second floors, with a cafeteria, workshop, and rest rooms in the basement. Les Filles du Saint Esprit, or Daughters of the Holy Ghost, an order of teaching Sisters founded in France, came from their Provincial House in Connecticut to offer instruction. An adjoining building on Melville Street was remodeled to serve them as a convent.
Enrollment in the school approximated 350 at its opening in 1937. Attendance reached a peak of 420 in 1950 and has since declined to the original enrollment, largely because the kindergarten had to be closed in 1953 for want of sufficient teaching nuns.
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Though the original St. Mary's Church on Plunkett Street, dedicated in 1919, was intended to serve both as a church and a school, St. Mary's Parochial School did not open its doors until the fall of 1941, when rooms on the upper floor of the building were used for teaching the first four grades, with the Sisters of St. Joseph as instructors. The construction of a new St. Mary's Church allowed the lower floor of the old building to be transformed into classrooms. By 1944, eight grades were being taught.
The children in the school are of many national origins- Irish, Yankee, French, Italian, Polish, Arabic, Portuguese, Span- ish, and even Japanese. Enrollment has grown from less than a hundred in 1941 to more than 300 in 1955.
The latest of the parochial schools is Mount Carmel's. Early in 1954, the parish bought for $30,000 one of the older public schools, the Read, at the corner of Fenn and Second streets, adjoining the church property. Constructed in 1885, the Read school building originally had twelve classrooms. The number of classrooms was reduced to eight in the 1940s when the third floor of the structure was removed.
At a cost of $137,000, Mount Carmel proceeded to renovate the building completely. Among other improvements, it in- stalled a school hall, a cafeteria, and a blacktop playground for use as an outdoor gymnasium, the work being done by the Stonecraft Construction Company, headed by Joseph Francese, a parishioner.
In September 1954, the school opened, having sixty pupils in pre-primary and first grade classes with the Venerini Sisters as teachers. Plans call for the addition of a class a year until there are eight grades in the primary division.
Private and Other Schools
Miss Hall's School
Miss Hall's School, well and widely known as a girls' school, attracting students from all over the country, has a distin- guished history, dating back almost to 1800 when Nancy Hins- dale (the sister of William Hinsdale, of the hill town of Hins-
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dale, a few miles east of Pittsfield) founded Pittsfield's first in- stitution for the higher education of young women.
In 1806, the institution became the first incorporated board- ing school for girls in Massachusetts. At the time it had forty- one pupils. By 1813, when Miss Hinsdale left the school, en- rollment had increased to a hundred or more.
The school was acquired by Miss Mary Salisbury in 1871 and by Miss Mira Hinsdale Hall in 1898. Having been conducted for some years in a building at the corner of South and Reed streets, the school was moved to the Elmwood Court mansion on Bartlett Avenue in 1902, remaining there till 1908, when Miss Hall bought the beautiful Cutting estate of seventy-five acres on Holmes Road. Fire destroyed the wooden buildings in 1923. These were replaced by the present school building, a handsome Georgian structure completed in 1924. While it was being constructed, classes were held in the Curtis Hotel at Lenox.
In 1924, the school was incorporated as a non-profit-making educational institution owned and directed by a self-perpetuat- ing board of trustees. This enabled the school to accept the gifts which Miss Hall had scrupulously refused so long as the in- stitution was her personal property.
Upon Miss Margaret Hall's retirement in 1948, the board of trustees appointed the present headmistress, Miss Elizabeth M. Fitch, a graduate of Barnard and Radcliffe, and an educator of wide experience who came to Pittsfield from Hartford, where she had been headmistress of the Oxford School.
Under Miss Fitch, the curriculum of Miss Hall's school has been further modernized, with workshops in practical arts and crafts for students in both the college preparatory and general courses. Most graduates go to college.
From an enrollment of 84 in 1945, the school now has 110 resident students and eighteen day students. Enrollment is kept small enough to insure individual attention on the part of the faculty and individual responsibility on the part of each girl. Extracurricular activities include workshops in many creative
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fields, choirs and glee clubs, and organizations for sports and community service.
Miss Mills' School
There was another widely-known girls' school in Pittsfield down to 1930-Miss Mills' School for Girls. A Berkshire native and a graduate of Smith College, Miss Ruth A. Mills founded her small private school in 1904, first occupying quarters on Appleton Avenue, later moving to Wendell Avenue, to the large house that is now the home of the Women's Club. In 1930, Miss Mills left Pittsfield to conduct the Taconic School in Great Barrington, later teaching for many years in Philadelphia. Dying in 1951, Miss Mills was buried in Pittsfield.
Pittsfield Community Music School
Incorporated in 1940 with Mrs. Bruce Crane of Dalton as president, the Pittsfield Community Music School, one of the city's more distinctive institutions, opened early in 1941 at the famed Peace Party House on East Street, which had been com- pletely restored in the early 1930s. The first director was Miss Mary Elizabeth Jones of New York and Seattle, a professional violinist and teacher of music.
The school's purpose has always been to make available to all an opportunity to acquire a thorough training in music, not merely as an appreciator, but as a player of an instrument. To this end, it offers scholarships and student aid depending upon the financial status of the student and his family, and sufficient ability and interest on the part of the student to derive enjoy- ment from his study. The school is supported in large part by contributions from those interested in its programs.
In 1943, the Community Music School bought the large Allen H. Bagg house on Wendell Avenue, its present quarters, and remodeled it and the barn into studios and classrooms for the 150 children enrolled.
Having been on leave of absence with USO concert tours for servicemen during the war, Miss Jones resigned as director in
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1945 and was succeeded by her former teacher, Miss Nellie C. Cornish, founder of the Cornish Music School in Seattle.
Upon her retirement in 1948, the school was placed in charge of its present directors, Jan Stocklinski and his wife Marjorie. Enrollment has grown steadily until, in 1955, the number ex- ceeded 450 students in the music and dance departments.
The school has a capable faculty providing instruction in piano, strings, woodwinds, brass, voice, pipes, orchestra, piano ensemble, harmony and composition, eurythmics, ballet, and modern dance. It gives 25,000 lessons a year to all ages, from pre-school children to adults.
The school sponsors Pittsfield's Little Symphony Orchestra, now a member of the National Association of Orchestras. Through its Concert Bureau, students have given many free concerts throughout the Berkshires. To help raise money for the scholarship fund, the school presents local concerts by out- standing musicians from time to time, and concerts by faculty members. Many of its students have chosen music as a pro- fessional career. It has brought to thousands of others the joy and inspiration of sharing in the heritage of great music.
The Pittsfield Community Music School is one of only seven- teen such schools in the country, being a member of the Na- tional Guild of Community Music Schools, organized in 1937 to coordinate the work of such schools and promote the highest levels of music education. The local school functions on a very small budget which, in 1954, barely exceeded $40,000.
Other Educational Facilities
As remarked before, Pittsfield became a part-time center of higher education in 1946 when the North Adams Teachers Col- lege began holding its summer sessions at the Pittsfield High School. Another forward step was taken in 1953 when evening courses in electrical engineering leading to a college degree were offered in the high school under the joint sponsorship of the University of Massachusetts, the University Extension Service of the state, and the local School Department. Courses include not only the fundamentals of electrical engineering,
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mathematics, and mechanical drawing, but the elements of economics and modern European civilization.
One of the few of its kind in the country, the program allows students to proceed at minimum cost to a college degree while employed on a regular job.
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XIV
Health and Welfare
IN EARLY NEW ENGLAND, as elsewhere in the country at the time, health and welfare created individual or family con- cern for which the community as a whole shouldered little or no responsibility. If one were sick or in need and had no other resources, one turned to one's immediate neighbors for help, or to the parish, or to the poorhouse of the town. The concept of social welfare has greatly expanded since that day of really "rugged" individualism. There is now a much broader faith that each of us is his brother's keeper-or to put it in harder and more selfish terms, that the well-being of the community rests upon the health and well-being of every individual among us.
Union for Home Work
In Pittsfield, what would now be described as social work began in the 1870s when a severe national depression-then called a "financial panic"-caused most local factories to close down, creating serious unemployment and widespread distress. In 1878, a Union for Home Work was formed for the "relief of the poor, the reform of the bad, the prevention and decrease of pauperism and begging at the door."
Organized primarily to centralize charitable work in the com- munity, the Union was one of the first organizations of its kind in the country, being a sort of primitive Community Chest. Sup- ported by donations, with volunteers doing most of its work, the Union expanded its program as time went on. It conducted a sewing school, a cooking school, a boys' club, a day nursery,
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and other activities down to 1911, when it ceased to be active as more specialized agencies took over much of its work.
Today, there are scores of organizations in the city active in the field of community health and welfare. All of them, wheth- er public or private, now comprise the recently-created United Community Services of Pittsfield, Inc. This new body was formed early in 1955 by the merger of the Community Chest and the Community Council. These two organizations had been courting each other for some time before their union was finally effected.
Community Chest
The older of the merging organizations was the Community Chest. It was established in 1924 under the name of the Com- munity Fund Association, with Charles W. Power as the first president. It grew out of the city's experience during World War I when the Pittsfield War Chest demonstrated the ef- ficiency, economy, and convenience of concentrating money-rais- ing efforts in one joint campaign.
Thirteen local social agencies became charter members of the Community Fund, and six more had joined by 1938. In 1947, the organization changed its name to the Pittsfield Community Chest.
In its early years, under the presidencies of Charles W. Power (1924-25), General Charles B. Wheeler (1925-28), and Allen H. Bagg (1928-29), the Chest concentrated on its big- gest task-that of organizing and directing the annual fund- raising campaign that was then, as now, its principal function. But the Chest was also, as its officers and the press pointed out, "a valuable laboratory for the development of community co- operation."
The need for efficient year-round administration becoming more apparent, an office with a permanent clerk was opened in the Berkshire County Savings Bank building in 1927. By the end of 1929, after struggling for five years with organizational, budgetary, and community relations problems, the Chest was; "in a well-organized and healthy condition."
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Then came the Depression with its special and very urgent problems. Under the presidency of Henry A. Francis, who served all during the Depression, down to his death late in 1939, the Chest and its member agencies found themselves swamped with calls for help. A new and larger office was opened in the Onota Building in 1931. One of the founders of the Chest, Irvin P. Thompson, a GE executive, was persuaded to become executive secretary, serving in that post from 1932 until his retirement in 1948.
As Depression difficulties multiplied, the Chest set up an Advisory Unemployment Committee, which was very active from 1930 to 1935. With its support, the administration of gen- eral relief was gradually shifted to the Public Welfare Depart- ment. Seeing the need for case work in public welfare service, the Chest financed the first such work in the city. It financed in part the Clothes Cupboard organized by the Junior League in 1933. Its health and recreation agencies did their utmost to relieve "the hunger that asked for more than food."
As it became clear that the whole community welfare pattern had to be reviewed for intelligent future planning, experts were brought in to make recommendations. An immediate result was the establishment of the Social Service Index for the better cor- relation of all community work by both private and public agencies. Another was the formation in 1933 of a broad plan- ning organization, the Council of Social Agencies, which be- came the Community Council.
Further evaluation of local social services was undertaken in the Swander Survey of 1938, which made recommendations for increased efficiency and closer relations between Chest members and the general public.
The annual fund-raising goal of the Chest rose from $100,000 in 1924 to $163,400 in 1932, and receded slightly to $145,000 in 1940.
World War II led the Red Cross, a charter member, to with- draw from the Chest. It felt obliged to conduct its own separate financial drives in view of the tremendously increased demands
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upon it. All Chest agencies reshaped their programs to meet the war emergency.
The fund-raising goals of 1942 and 1943 were exceeded by almost $18,000, a sum placed in a much needed reserve fund. After the war, the 1945 and 1946 campaigns failed to reach their goals, forcing the use of reserve funds to make up the shortage.
In 1943, upon his retirement after three years as president of the Chest, Simon England urged that small givers should have more representation in the direction of the organization's affairs. Members of trade unions and other groups were in- creasingly contributing to community welfare. To spread broad- er knowledge of the Chest's health, welfare, and recreation services, a new year-round public relations program was in- stituted under the direction of Mrs. Gladys A. Brigham, who in 1948 became executive secretary, succeeding Irvin P. Thomp- son.
In 1948, to eliminate the many solicitations made in the Morningside plant for various purposes, the General Electric Employees' Charity Fund was established. This pattern was fol- lowed by other industrial concerns in the city. This single-fund arrangement has pleased management and employees alike. Many workers regularly contribute through a payroll-deduction plan.
As the multiplicity of fund-raising campaigns continued to be a problem, a united fund plan was adopted. The name of the directing agency was changed to the Pittsfield United Com- munity Chest. Changes were made in its constitution and by- laws to permit the admission of such national organizations as the associations to combat cancer, cerebral palsy, arthritis and rheumatism. The United Defense Fund, the Camp Fire Girls and similar groups were also included.
At the same time, the city's public schools set up their own united fund, to which students make contributions twice a year for charitable purposes. The schools, with each represented, have their own board of directors who make allocations of the fund for specific purposes.
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In 1952, the Red Cross rejoined the Chest, and a study of salaries in the Red Feather agencies was completed. The next year, the Chest and some of its member agencies realized a long- time dream when General Electric gave $30,000 for the pur- chase of one of the Stanley Club buildings on Wendell Avenue. Repaired and remodeled, the building was occupied as Red Feather headquarters early in 1955, bringing more agencies under one roof and considerably reducing overhead expenses.
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