The Journal of San Diego Volume 54 Fall 2008 Number 4 • The Journal of San Diego History History : he Bishop’s School T ebrating 100 Years Cel Publication of The Journal of San Diego History has been partially funded by generous grants from the Joseph W. Sefton Foundation; Natale A. Carasali Trust; Quest for Truth Foundation of Seattle, Washington, established by the late James G. Scripps; the Dallas and Mary Clark Foundation; Philip M. Klauber; and an anonymous friend and supporter of the Journal. Publication of this issue of The Journal of San Diego History has also been supported by a grant from “The Journal of San Diego History Fund” of the San Diego Foundation. PRESERVE A SaN DIEGO TREASURE The San Diego Historical Society is able to share the resources of four museums Your $100 contribution will help to create an endowment for and its extensive collections with the community through the generous support of the following: City of San Diego Commission for Art and Culture; County of San The Journal of San Diego History Diego; foundation and government grants; individual and corporate memberships; corporate sponsorship and donation bequests; sales from museum stores and Please make your check payable to The San Diego Foundation. Indicate on reproduction prints from the Booth Historical Photograph Archives; admissions; the bottom of your check that your donation is for The Journal of San Diego and proceeds from fund-raising events. History Fund. The San Diego Foundation accepts contributions of $100 and up. Your contribution is tax-deductible. Articles appearing in The Journal of San Diego History are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life. The San Diego Foundation The paper in the publication meets the minimum requirements of American 2508 Historic Decatur Road, Suite 200 National Standard for Information Science-Permanence of Paper for Printed San Diego, CA 92106 Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. (619) 235-2300 or (858) 385-1595 [email protected] Front Cover: The Bishop’s School Tower designed by Carleton Monroe Winslow and placed above the chapel in 1930. Photo by Allen Wynar. Back Cover: Open Day, 1921. Returning students perform in front of Bentham Hall, which originally featured El Miradero, a lookout tower designed by Irving Gill. It was removed in 1930. Photo courtesy of The Bishop’s School. Cover Design: Allen Wynar The Journal of San Diego History Volume 54 Fall 2008 number 4 IRIS H. W. ENGSTRAND MOLLY McCLAIN Editors THEODORE STRATHMAN DAVID MILLER Review Editors Published since 1955 by the SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1649 El Prado, Balboa Park, San Diego, California 92101 ISSN 0022-4383 The Journal of San Diego History VOLUME 54 FALL 2008 NUMBER 4 Editorial Consultants Published quarterly by the San Diego Historical Society at 1649 El Prado, Balboa MATTHEW BOKOVOY Park, San Diego, California 92101. University of Nebraska Press A $60.00 annual membership in the DONALD C. CUTTER San Diego Historical Society includes Albuquerque, New Mexico subscription to The Journal of San Diego WILLIAM DEVERELL History and the SDHS Times. Back issues University of Southern California; Director, are available at www.sandiegohistory.org. 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Southern Methodist University ii CONTENTS VOLUME 54 FALL 2008 NUMBER 4 ARTICLES The Bishop’s School, 1909-2009 Molly McClain 235 Irving Gill’s Vision for The Bishop’s School Nicole Holland, Ashley Chang, and Pieter Stougaard 268 Artists in La Jolla, 1890-1950 Jean Stern 281 Village Memories: A Photo Essay on La Jolla’s Past Jeremy Hollins 300 BOOK REVIEWS 311 DOCUMENTARIES 321 BOOK NOTES 324 iii The University of San Diego and The San Diego Historical Society congratulate The Bishop’s School on its 100th Anniversary Year 2008-2009 The Bishop’s School Centennial Celebration Exhibition Series 2008-2009 Staged in the Wheeler J. Bailey building on Bishop’s campus, these exhibitions are open to the public without charge: • The Bishop’s School History Exhibition September 16 – December 15 “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” features photographs, uniforms, student trophies and awards, letters, yearbooks, and other items from Bishop’s 100-year history • California Plein Air Art Exhibition January 19 – March 1 “Visions of San Diego” featuring California Impressionist paintings from The Irvine Museum • Irving Gill Architecture Retrospective Exhibition March 16 – April 30 Images and designs from the work of the renowned early 20th century architect, Irving Gill The Bishop’s School, 1909-2009 Molly McClain The Bishop’s School in La Jolla, founded in 1909, has a long tradition of celebrating birthdays. In the early twentieth century, a party was held each year to honor the school’s founder, Episcopal Bishop Joseph Horsfall Johnson. Ellen Browning Scripps, an important benefactor, described it in a 1916 letter to her sister, Virginia. She wrote that there was ice cream, an “immense birthday cake,” speeches and toasts “with the occasional outbreak of college cries from the side tables.”1 Scripps, too, was honored on her birthday, an event now known as “EBS Day.” Every year, alumni and friends sing “Happy Birthday” while a representative from the Scripps Foundation blows out the candle on her cake. In 2009, The Bishop’s School celebrates another birthday, its own. For the past one hundred years, the school has prepared young women and men to meet the demands of a college education. An independent day-school affiliated with the Episcopal Church, it values intellectual, artistic, and athletic excellence. It also maintains a tradition of community service that dates back to World War I. This article focuses on the early years of The Bishop’s School. It explores the collaboration between Bishop Johnson and the Scripps sisters, emphasizing their exceptional vision for women’s education at a time when few girls finished high school, much less prepared for college. The article also points out the importance of Progressive-era attitudes on the development of the school. The founders’ passion for efficiency, economy, and social justice influenced the school’s culture and curriculum. It also led them to patronize Irving Gill, an advocate of a reformed style of architecture. The result would be a campus of remarkable simplicity and serenity. Women’s Education The Bishop’s School was founded at a time of expanding educational opportunities for women. Between 1870 and 1900, the number of women enrolled in colleges and universities multiplied eightfold, from 11,000 to 85,000. Women’s colleges such as Vassar (1865), Wellesley (1875), Smith (1875), and Bryn Mawr (1884), became national institutions. Seminaries such as Mount Holyoke, Mills, and Rockford, were re-chartered as colleges in the 1880s. Women attended private co- educational institutions including Boston College, Cornell, Oberlin, Swarthmore, the University of Chicago, and the University of Southern California. They also enrolled at large state universities in California, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Molly McClain, associate professor and chair of the History Department at the University of San Diego, is co-editor of The Journal of San Diego History. She was a boarding student at The Bishop’s School in the late 1970s. She is very grateful for the assistance of Judy Harvey Sahak, Librarian, Ella Strong Denison Library, Scripps College, and the staff of The Bishop’s School. 235 The Journal of San Diego History The Bishop’s School offered an innovative curriculum designed to help students pass the rigorous entrance exams required by women’s colleges like Vassar and Smith. In this photo, members of the Class of 1917 read outdoors. Courtesy of The Bishop’s School. Missouri, and Wisconsin. Although elite men’s colleges such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia did not admit women, reformers continued to press for access. Their efforts resulted in the creation of Barnard (1889) and Radcliffe (1894) as affiliated women’s colleges.2 In the early years, however, relatively few women took up the challenge of higher education. Some public high schools prepared their students to attend teacher-training normal schools at state colleges and universities. Most, however, did not offer a curriculum that would help their students pass the rigorous college entrance exams required by elite institutions. Private girls’ schools, meanwhile, 236 The Bishop’s School, 1909-2009 generally emphasized the kind of female “accomplishments” that would prepare women for good marriages and lives of leisure. According to Andrea Hamilton, “The new women’s colleges faced the reality that very few young women had adequate academic preparation to undertake true college-level work.”3 At the turn of the century, educational reformers established independent girls’ schools that would prepare women for college.