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Thomas Hunter |
Order: 1st Dates: 1870-1906 Compelled to leave Ireland because he was “a republican and revolutionist,” Thomas Hunter arrived in New York in 1850 and, for lack of other employment, soon found himself teaching drawing, then reading, writing, and arithmetic at “No. 35,” a public grammar school for boys. He had found his métier; historians of American education rank his work, both practical and theoretical, with that of John Dewey. Rising swiftly in his now chosen profession, he soon became the school’s principal, then also founder and principal of the first free evening high school in America. He became president of the newly established “Female Normal and High School” on Fourth Street and Broadway when it opened on St. Valentine’s Day in 1870. The original Park Avenue building, for which he himself drew the plans, opened in September 1873. This first publicly supported college for women in America took on the name of its founder in 1914. |
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