Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf

This article is about Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf. For other uses, see Helen Metcalf.

Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf (1830-1895) was a founder and director of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence, Rhode Island.

Biography

Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1831.^[1] In 1852 she married Jesse Metcalf, who was a cotton buyer in the South for several years prior to the Civil War and then became a textile manufacturer in Providence, co-founding the Wanskuck Company in 1862 in Wanskuck, in the city's North End.^[2] Helen Metcalf taught at Sunday school and was an organist.^[3]

Helen Metcalf helped to found RISD in 1877 after she and a group of Rhode Island women traveled to the 1876 Centennial Celebration and were impressed by the arts displayed there. The group returned to Rhode Island with excess funds (in the amount of $1,675) which the group decided use to start an art school in Providence. The first class was mostly composed of women, who received education in "useful arts, as, for example, designing for calico printers, for jewelers' designs, for carriage and furniture making."^[3]

Metcalf directed the school until her death in 1895. Her involvement was direct and hands-on, and she took a keen interest in everything from teaching methods of the faculty, encouraging the students in their work, arranging the furniture in the most effective ways, and driving school fundraising efforts.^[3]

She was buried in the Swan Point Cemetery.^[4]^[5] Metcalf's daughter Eliza Greene Metcalf Radeke, served as president of the school after her mother's death. Metcalf's son, U.S. Senator Jesse H. Metcalf also served as a RISD trustee. She was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 1996.^[1]

References

1 2 "Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, Inducted 1996". Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame. Retrieved 2016-03-08.
↑ Dunn, C. (2010, Sep 12). A mill-village heritage woven in. The Providence Journal.
1 2 3 McCabe, C. (1994, Mar 14). WOMEN IN R.I. HISTORY making A difference expo inspires school for 'useful arts' HELEN A. R. METCALF 1830-1895. Providence Journal
↑ "Notable Persons Interred at Swan Point Cemetery". Swan Point Cemetery. Retrieved 2016-03-08.
↑ "Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf (1830 - 1895)". Find A Grave Memorial. Retrieved 2016-03-08.

Rhode Island Women's Hall of Fame

1966–1969

Glenna Collett Vare Eileen Farrell Ruth Hussey E. Doris Brennan Paula Deubel Carole Garnett-Wheeler Clara LaMore Janet Moreau Albina Osipowich Lois Ann Testa JoAnne Carner June Rockwell Levy Mary Tucker Thorp

1970–1979

Jean Madeira Ruth Buzzi Ida Silverman Margaret F. Ackroyd Catherine S. Robinson Gertrude Meth Hochberg Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones Antoinette Downing Frances G. Knight Princess Red Wing

1980–1989

Diane L. Coutu Florence K. Murray Anna Tucker Katherine Urquhart Warren Eleanor Slater Katharine Gibbs Olive F. Wiley Eleanor M. McMahon Sister Mary Bernard Sister Eileen Murphy Marion F. Avarista

1990–1999

Ade Bethune Gladys Williams Brayton Mary P. Brennan Nancy A. J. Potter Mary Crowley Mulvey Lizzie Murphy Barbara-Jeanne Seabury Helen A. Bert Catherine Tilley Hammett Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf Arlene Violet Mary Dyer Sylvia K. Hassenfeld Anne Hutchinson Margaret Langdon-Kelly Maria Spacagna Helen Metcalf Danforth Ann Smith Franklin Sarah Updike Goddard Beatrice Oenslager Chace

2000–2009

2010–2019

Kathleen S. Connell Susan Farmer Caroline Hazard Jane Stuart Karen Adams Eileen Slocum Mary C. Wheeler Wilma Briggs Billie Ann Burrill Martha McSally Lucy Rawlings Tootell Catherine O'Reilly Collette Isabelle Ahearn O'Neill Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Margaret A. McKenna Noreen Stonor Drexel

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