Weather Update
Due to the storm, Barnard College will close at 4pm today, for non-essential personnel. “Essential personnel" include staff in Facilities, Public Safety and Residence Halls.
Friday evening and weekend classes are cancelled but events are going forward as planned unless otherwise noted. The Athena Film Festival programs are also scheduled to go forward as planned but please check http://athenafilmfestival.com/ for the latest information.
Please be advised that due to the conditions, certain entrances to campus may be closed. The main gate at 117th Street & Broadway will remain open. For further updates on college operations, please check this website, call the College Emergency Information Line 212-854-1002 or check AM radio station 1010WINS.
3:12 PM 02/08/2013
Mary Harriman Rumsey, 1905
Trustee, social justice pioneer
Mary Harriman Rumsey, ca. 1905.
Courtesy of the New York Junior League.
Mary (Harriman) Rumsey '05 attended Barnard at a time when very few women pursued higher education, and she continued to break barriers throughout her life. Rejecting the convention that the affluent should remain within their elite circles, she founded the Junior League to mobilize young, upper-class women to help the underprivileged. Read more...
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Juliet Stuart Poyntz, 1907
Suffragist, Feminist, Spy
Juliet Stuart (Points) Poyntz '07, circa 1906.
From The Mortarboard 1907, courtesy of the Barnard College Archives.
Juliet Stuart Poyntz (nee Points) '07 is unique among Barnard alumnae of her generation for the radical path she chose in life. Her fate sharply separates her from most American women of her age, and especially from her classmates at Barnard. Read more...
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Kang Tung Pih, 1909
Noble Daughter, Global Activist
From The Mortarboard 1909, courtesy of the Barnard College Archives.
Today, Barnard College, like many American colleges and universities, prides itself on its many international students. In the fall of 2007, it boasted an undergraduate population that represented 45 foreign countries. But before World War I, there was hardly a foreign student to be found on the Barnard campus. Read more...
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Zora Neale Hurston '28
Paradoxical Genius of the South
Zora Neale Hurston '28; November 11, 1934; Chicago, Illinois. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten. Courtesy of the Van Vechten Trust and the Barnard College Archives.
Zora Neale Hurston is one of the most prominent literary figures of the 20th century thanks to her extraordinary contributions to fiction and anthropology, as well as her role in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Read more...
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Helen Gahagan Douglas
Broadway Star, Singer, Politician
Helen Gahagan Douglas, ca. 1953.
Courtesy of the Barnard College Archives.
It is no wonder that the autobiography of Helen Gahagan is titled A Full Life. Talented, vivacious, and confident, she accomplished more than most women of her time in spite of considerable discouragement and hostility from those close to her. Read more...
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Virginia Hall
World War II Spy, Code Name 'Diane'
Virginia Hall of the Special Operations Branch receiving the Distinguished Service Cross from General William J. Donovan, September 1945.
Courtesy of World Wide Photos.
On her application to Barnard College in 1925, Virginia Hall wrote that she was interested in a career with the diplomatic service and in foreign trade. "Both vocations would bring me into contact with many interesting persons and give me the opportunity to make use of foreign languages," she wrote. What she could not have known then was that her interest would lead her to become one of the Allies' most valuable and courageous spies in occupied France during World War II. Read more...
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Diana Chang
Rediscovering the Self
Diana Chang beside a Marc Chagall lithograph she purchased in Paris.
From the Barnard Alumnae Monthly, October/November 1951, courtesy of the Barnard College Archives.
Diana Chang was born in New York City to a Chinese father and a mother of Chinese and Irish descent. Soon after, her family moved to China, where Chang spent the majority of her childhood and adolescence. Read more...
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Elise Nada Cowen '56
In the Shadow of Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg and Elise Cowen, ca. 1956.
Photograph by Sheila, courtesy of Leo Skir.
Little-known Beat Generation poet Elise Nada Cowen '56 was born in 1933 in Long Island, the daughter of wealthy Jewish parents. Read more...
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Maria Hinojosa
The path from Barnard to CNN
Maria Hinojosa, ca. 2001.
Photograph by Kyle Christy, courtesy of the Barnard College Archives.
Born in Mexico City, Maria de Lourdes Hinojosa was the youngest of four children. When she was one year old, her father moved the family to the United States, and Hinojosa spent her childhood in Chicago. At the time that she attended Barnard, Hinojosa was living in Washington Heights, the populous and culturally rich Manhattan neighborhood in the shadow of the George Washington Bridge. Read more...
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Edwidge Danticat '90
Unifier of Strands
Edwidge Danticat, ca. 2000s.
Photograph by Jill Krementz, courtesy of the Barnard Alumnae Magazine.
Edwidge Danticat '90, one of Barnard's most prominent alumnae authors, has published three novels to date, as well as numerous articles and an acclaimed memoir, Brother, I'm Dying (2007). Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 1969, she was raised by her aunt while her parents lived in New York City. Read more...
