Guide to the Eloise Ellery Papers, 1870-1959 (bulk 1923-1958)

Collection Summary

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Biographical Note

Born in Rochester, NY in 1874, Eloise Ellery (1874 - 1958) was the only child of Frank M. and Mary Alida Alling Ellery. Frank Ellery was a rising member of the Rochester business community. He became Secretary and later trustee of the Security Trust Company in Rochester. Miss Ellery attended the Rochester Free Academy and entered Vassar College as a freshman in 1893. A history student under the tutelage of Vassar's own Lucy Maynard Salmon, Miss Ellery graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar in 1897. That was the beginning of an association which would span her lifetime. Upon graduation from Vassar, she went to Cornell as a Babbott Fellow to do graduate work in history and political science. Fellowships from Vassar, Cornell, and the Association of Collegiate Alumnae allowed Miss Ellery to study at the Sorbonne and do research at the Bibliotheque Nationale from 1899 to 1900. Returning to Vassar in 1900 as an assistant in history, Miss Ellery long remained a vital force in the History Department as well as the College. In 1916, she became a full professor, was department chairman from 1923 to 1932 and retired in 1939 as professor emeritus of history. She served as Secretary of the Faculty from 1910 to 1923.

Miss Ellery traveled extensively -- most notable was a trip taken in 1923-1924. On leave from Vassar, she traveled around the world with her father. Stopping in Shanghai, China to visit a former student, Sophia Chen Zen, '19, Miss Ellery met with prominent leaders of Young China. A typescript written by Zen and included within the Collection records the highlights of this visit.

A vigorous scholar and experienced traveler, Miss Ellery made for a devoted teacher who demanded top quality work from every student. For many years, Miss Ellery taught Renaissance and Reformation, French Revolution and Contemporary Western Europe as a three year-long course. Writing about Ellery's teaching, Helen D. Lockwood, a student and later colleague of Miss Ellery's, wrote "E.E. drew out and expected to be expressed with thoroughness and polish the would capacity of every student whether the specially able and gifted, the sensitive, problem student or the ordinary run."

Innovative in her teaching methods and a devotee of Miss Salmon's philosophy of using primary source materials, Miss Ellery required of all her students a long paper to be done over the whole term. Out of this exercise, Lockwood wrote, "…came the profound inner change in a student's thinking, the toughness and delight of intellectual adventure...."

In a letter to Frank Ellery, Vassar's President MacCracken also spoke of Miss Ellery's teaching: "There is no one among the whole one hundred and twenty-five [faculty] who seems to have the ability to lift students up to the best that is in them and keep them steadily and enthusiastically at work as does your daughter..."

Yet devotion to her students did not end upon their graduation from Vassar. Amusing and constant, Miss Ellery took her role as correspondent seriously. She oftentimes labored over letters, keeping them informative but at the same time safe from censors. Evidence of this can be found in correspondence form Ilse Hecht '29, a former student teaching in East Germany, Sophia Chen Zen '19, teaching in China, and Irene Mott '22, the wife of a High Court judge living in Nagpur, India. She also wrote frequently to Rebecca L. Lowrie '13, a close personal friend and trustee of Vassar.

Outside of teaching, Miss Ellery served as an associate on the staff of Current History from 1921 to 1931, reporting monthly on political developments in Italy, Spain and Portugal. She also wrote many articles for the American Historical Review. Her one book was published in 1915 in a series commemorating Vassar's 50th Anniversary. Expanding her doctoral dissertation into a full-length biography, Miss Ellery published an authoritive work. Brissot de Warville, A Study in the History of the French Revolution was called by one reviewer "the only biography in existence of the Chief of the Girondin party in the French Revolution."

Upon her retirement in 1939, Miss Ellery went to Washington, D.C. for a year to study Spanish literature and to follow Congressional matters. She returned to Poughkeepsie in 1940, and remained a familiar and striking figure on campus until her death in July 1958. She was 84.

In October, 1958, as part of the College's $25,000,000 Development Program, the Eloise Ellery Chair of History was established. The Chair memorialized "her outstanding service to the College as a teacher, scholar and benefactor."

For more biographical information see:

Barbour, Violet. "Memorandum on Professor Eloise Ellery," 1958.

Lockwood, Helen D. "Some Notes on E.E.'s Teaching," 1958

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Scope and Content Note

Correspondence, diaries, manuscripts and typescripts, newspaper clippings, travel documents, legal and financial papers, family papers, photographs, printed materials and miscellaneous items relating to the life and work of Eloise Ellery. There is also significant collection of items which belonged to Frank Ellery.

Correspondence is the largest portion of the papers and consists primarily of letters received from her father Frank Ellery, 1891-1929; from Ilse Hecht on teaching in East Germany, 1947-1957; from Rebecca L. Lowrie, friend and Vassar colleague, about personal and professional issues, 1936-1956; from Irene Mott, wife of a High Court Judge in India, about political situations there, Indian people, and World War II, 1924-1951; from C. Mildred Thompson, friend, colleague, and former Dean of the College, about teaching duties, an education conference in London (1944), professional and social life at the University of Georgia, and teaching in Europe, 1941-1952. There is also correspondence regarding the estate of Mary Frazer, family affairs, and other matters, 1929-1958; as well as a few family and personal letters by Ellery, 1899-1957.

Ellery's diaries include records of daily activities, 1940-1957, health records, 1953-1955, reading and quotation journal, 1919-1956, and grade books, 1926-1939. Manuscripts and printed materials include an account of Ellery's trip to China, 1923-1924, by her former student Sophia Chen Zen; her published articles, 1928-1929; and articles and clippings about Ellery and her father, Frank Ellery, 1897-1929, and his diaries for 1910-1929; and estate papers, receipts, and inventories for Abby M. Alling, Eloise Ellery, and Mary Frazer, 1929-1958.

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Arrangement

This collection is arranged in 9 series. Whenever possible all letters have been dated. Undated letters or fragments from a known correspondent are placed at the end of that file. All unidentified correspondence is at the end of the Correspondence series. Frank Ellery's materials have not been separated, but rather have been placed at the end of the appropriate series.Top

Access and Use

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Related Material

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Encoding Information

Encoded by Elizabeth Clarke, March 2007.

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Administrative Information

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