ZITA LILLIAN THORNBURY
1888 - 1969
Zita Lillian Thornbury, Director Emeritus of the Voca-
tional Bureau, died on March 17, 1969 at the age of 81.
She was born and brought up in Poughkeepsie, and for
65 years she was continuously associated with Vassar
College - entering as a freshman in 1904, graduating
in 1908, from 1908 to 1914 serving as assistant in the
Departments of History and Philosophy, then as assistant
to the Dean. She left only once, to earn a Master's
degree at Columbia in 1921. In 1923 the Vocational
Bureau was established, and Miss Thornbury became its
first director, a post she held until her retirement
in 1953. Even after that she remained close to the
College and its alumnae, unfailingly interested in all
that went on.
She liked to recall that the Vocational Bureau began
as a file in a tin box on Dean Ella McCaleb's desk. It
was, she said, "a lively but diminutive teacher's
registry with few applications for other kinds of jobs."
When the tin box became officially the Vocational Bureau
in 1923, it was one of the first such services established
anywhere, and Miss Thornbury was one of the early pioneer-
ing group in the then new field of vocational guidance -
a field which is today still somewhat undefined and often
frustrating.
The 30 years of her directorship saw vast changes in the
opportunities for women and the life pattern of the educa-
ted woman. Business, industry, the government, the pro-
fessional schools began to come to the campus in the search
for talented womanpower. Undergraduates shifted from the
summer beaches and tennis courts to summer jobs and in the
shift became far more knowledgeable about the working world
It was a busy and complex period, and Miss Thornbury
occupied a special observation post. The many Vassar alum-
nae whom she helped remembered her with warmth and affection
an efficient, friendly, ever-present figure in the top floor
of Main Building's old porte-cochere, one who had a profound
ZITA LILLIAN THORNBURY (continued)
interest in Vassar College and a genuine, outgoing
interest in Vassar girls of all eras. Those of us
who saw her on her almost daily visits to the College
were always impressed by the depth of her loyalties.
She was a dedicated Vassar woman, a fervent Roman
Catholic, and a devoted adherent of the Democratic
party.
Edward R. Linner
Robert E. McArthur
Jane T. Johnson, Chairman