Manumit School

The Manumit School ("manumit" in Latin means freedom from slavery) was an "experimental" Christian socialist boarding school in Pawling, New York. and, in 1944, Bristol, Pennsylvania.

Founded on purchased farm land in 1924 by Rev. William and Helen Fincke, it was formally called The Manumit School for Workers' Children. An early promotional flyer for the school asked parents if they'd like their kids to grow up "to become men and women who can think for themselves, stand on their own two feet, and fight injustice and oppression." Its teachings were meant to provide a "progressive," "workers education" slant during a time of increasing soclialist optimism in America. Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn worked here as an English and Drama teacher until 1929.

A former student, Robert Shnayerson, is quoted in a Time Magazine article in 1961, describing the Manumit experience: "We drove trucks at nine years and plowed with tractors, slaughtered pigs and took care of the cows. But I didn't learn anything about anything."*1

Another former student, actress-comedienne Madeline Kahn , is quoted by TV news anchor Sue Simmons: “she told me that every artistic bone in her body was born at Manumit.”

Also see different comments by other former students on <manumitschool.com.>

Manumit School: brief chronology

1924 -- Rev. William Mann Fincke and his wife, Helen Hamlin, founded Manumit as an elementary level, co-educational, boarding school on a working farm in Pawling, NY. [It was closely associated with a number of NYC labor unions. A. J. Muste was Chair of Manumit Associates for a number of years. See: “A New Community School,” The Survey, 10/15/24. Rev. W. M. Fincke, “Elsie Wins a Point and We Get a View of Manumit,” Labor Age, November 1925.) “an alliance of progressive labor and progressive education.” See: Scott Walter, “Labor's Demonstration School: The Manumit School for Workers' Children, 1924-1932,” 1998. 26 pp. (ERIC: ED473025). See: Threescore: The Autobiography of Sarah N. Cleghorn, 1936. pp. 253–81.Cleghorn, a poet, taught at Brookwood, then Manumit from 1924 to early 1930s.]

1926 -- Henry I. Lineman became interim Director upon illness of Rev. Fincke. [“The Manumit Yearbook: 1927,” 38 pp. includes group activity descriptions, lists of staff and of current and former students.]

1927 -- Rev. Fincke died. [See: “GALLANT SPIRIT passed from us…” The Nation, 6/15/1927. NY Times, 6/1/1927. Memorial Service notes, 24 pages, June 7, 1924 at Timiment Library.]

1927/28 -- Nellie M. Seeds became Director. [See: Nellie Seeds, “Democracy in the Making at Manumit School,” The Nation, 6/1/1927; Seeds, “Labor’s Laboratory School,” The Survey, 6/15/1927, Seeds, “Manumit’s Contribution to Social Reconstruction,” Progressive Education (May 1931). Annual Conferences of the Manumit Associates: ”Learning Through Doing;” (1928), “Creative Education,” (1929), “Educational Groundwork for a Changing Social Order,” (1931. Resigned in 1933, joined NY State Education Department. Died, 1946.]

1933 -- William Mann Fincke [son of WMF & Hamlin] assumed Co-Directorship, with wife, Mildred Gignoux [both experienced with “experimental/progressive” education in NYC. On his background re progressive education see: W. M. Fincke, “History” in Manuscript, 1949.] [[“By 1933 the school was debt-ridden…and only a half dozen pupils remained....” “Sometimes the children’s welfare seemed subordinated to indoctrination of pet political and social ideas favored by directors or staff members…” (See: William L. Stephenson, “A Brief Note on Manumit School,” 1943).]]

1938/39 -- Progressive Schools' Committee for Refugee Children formed under leadership of Mildred and William Fincke. [At least 23 Jewish refugee children attended Manumit. (Time magazine, 3/27/39). (See also: records of German-Jewish Children's Aid, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, NYC.) Manumit “... contacts with European underground and resistance groups, and with Jewish groups, both dating back to 1935, later contacts with British groups (during the blitz of 1940) greatly enriched the enrollment with interesting evacuee children.” (WMF fund-raising document, c. 1945-46)]

1942 -- First two years of high school added to the elementary school. [“Broad Meadows” campus. See: Barbara Dutton Dretzin 2006 e-mail recollections, Web-site; Steve Stevenson “Manumit” evocative 11 page recollections Web-site.]

1943 -- William I. Stephenson became Director. [W. M. Fincke attended Yale Univ. to pursue doctorate.]

1943 -- Fire destroyed major school building, the “Mill.” [Fire: 10/25/43. Most school records destroyed.]

1944 -- William M. Fincke (“Billy”) resumed directorship with wife, Amelia Evans. [W. M. Fincke, “A Philosophy of Discipline” (1941). W. M. Fincke, “Memorandum on Manumit School” (n.d. probably late 1940s)] [On Amelia re Manumit see:WMF, "Histoyr" in "Manuscript," 1949, Web Site. In mid-1960s Amelia was Superintendent of Eastern Star Home for the Aged in Somerville, NJ. Died, December 1972.]

1944 -- School moved to Bristol, Bensalem Township, Bucks County, PA. [On move: Barbara Dutton Dretzin e-mail, 5/5/06. W. M. Fincke: “The staff is as cosmopolitan as the student body. It … has included Chinese, Nisei, American Negro, American Indian, English, Czechoslovakian, Scandinavian….German and Austrian anti-nazis [sic.] along with many members of the so-called old American group…Judaism, Catholicism, Quakerism and Ethical Agnosticism as well as Protestantism are stimulatingly included in the backgrounds…” (W. M. Fincke fund-raising document, c. 1945-46.).]

1947 -- Benjamin C. G. Fincke (“Ben”) [son of founders], with wife, Magdalene (“Magda”) Joslyn, became Co-Director.

1949 -- Final two years of High School created.

1950 -- School adopts “work project” experiment. [See: report by W. M. Fincke to Board of Directors of School, Nov. 27, 1950; & Dixon Addison Bush, “An Experimental Study of Techniques for Instituting Cooperative Work Programs with Adolescent Students," Education Doctoral Dissertation, New York University, 1951. 313 pages.]

1951 -- First full High School graduation. [1950-57—approx. 43-50 graduates: of 42 on a list, 29 attended college, 3 art schools, 1 technical school, others employed. (See: graduates list, “Manumit Closes” documents, 1957-58.) Note: one student graduated in 1950.]

1954 -- Benjamin Fincke resigned. [Later: Co- Director then Director of Buxton School, Williamstown, MA. He died in Williamstown, MA, 2/18/2008.(See: NY Times, 6/1/2003) Magda, co-director and art teacher at Buxton, died 8/13/2004]

1954 -- John A. Lindlof, student at Pawling and teacher at Bristol, became Co-Director.

mid-‘50’s – “Manumit … growth toward its interracial ideal was no mere token thing…” [“Negro children had reached 14%;” children of Asian descent had reached 8%. (See: fund-raising memorandum by WMF, c. mid-1950s) "The complete respect for human beings as human beings and for their backgrounds as important parts of their personalities, the lack of prejudice of racial nature…are so taken for granted that the administrator whose job it is to maintain this enriching heterogeneity is often the only person who continues conscious of it.” (WM Fincke, fundraising document, c. 1945-46. Web site)]

1956 -- Overt external attacks on school began. [Fire hazard inspections: “Local political manipulations are suspected because housing projects have recently surrounded the school and certain residents may object to the interracial status of the school, or local promoters may see the value of the school property…” (See: telegram to President Eisenhower, September 26, 1956)]

1957 /58 -- School closed following denial of license renewal for 1958 by the State Board of Private Academic Schools, PA Department of Public Instruction. [Subsequently, school records were destroyed.][The Board inspector ”has singled this school out for complaint over a long period of time, and there is every reason to believe that she is prejudiced against an integrated school, and against its director…” (See: “Respondent’s Brief” and testimony by William M. Fincke, December 1957.) See: Mike Speer (c. 2006 email) link of attacks to Brown v. Bd. of Ed, backlash, “Manumit Ends,” Web Site.]

[NOTE: William Mann Fincke died on January 4, 1968 in Stonington CT, where he had been teaching remedial reading. William Mann Fincke, "The Effect of Asking Questions to Develop Purposes for Reading on the Attainment of Higher Levels of Comprehension in a Population of Third Grade Readers." Education Doctoral Dissertation, Temple University, 1968. 140 pages. Completed in 1967.)]

[NOTE: John A. Lindlof became Professor of Education at the University of Maine at Orono in 1961, where there is now a “John A. Lindlof Learning Center.” He died in 1982 in Maine.]

[NOTE: In 2005, and after, many former Manumit students rediscovered each other via the Web, and a web-site includes: documents, photographs, lists, contemporary e-mail exchanges) was created by one of them. (<manumitschool.com>)]

[Source: Manumit School Web Site <manumitschool.com> & Manumit archive, New York University, Tamiment Library]

[Prepared by Michael Speer – 4/2010; rev. 6/2010]

Notable students

• John Herald, folk and bluegrass musician - "Greenbrier Boys."
• Lee Marvin, Hollywood star, westerns and tough guy roles
• Jean Rosenthal—Broadway theatrical lighting expert ("Profiles: Please Darling, Bring Three to Seven" by Winthrop Sargeant, New Yorker, February 4, 1956,pp. 33–59.)
• Charlotte Gercke—as Susan Oliver – actress: for example, “Butterfield 8,” also airplane pilot, author: Odyssey: a Daring Transatlantic Journey, 1983
• Frank Conroy --- author: Stop-Time: A Memoir, 1967. Director: Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa for 18 years, from 1987–2005.
• Eric Darling – banjo and 12-string guitar player/folk singer, replaced Pete Seeger with “The Weavers,” etc.
• Gabrielle Kirk McDonald—civil rights lawyer, law professor, federal judge, President for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
• Sue Simmons—TV news anchor at WNBC-TV in New York since 1980.
• Robert (Bobby) Sengstacke—prolific & award winning photo journalist, photographer of Civil Rights Movement
• Barry Schenker—Victorio Korjhan, known simply as Victorio, a former soloist of The Metropolitan Opera Ballet.
• Madeline Khan—actress-comedienne. “she told me that every artistic bone in her body was born at Manumit.” (Sue Simmons)

References

Scott Walter, “Labor's Demonstration School: The Manumit School for Workers' Children, 1924-1932,” 1998. typescript, 26 pp. (ERIC: ED473025)

• History of Manumit by Scott Walter

see www.manumitschool.com

Manumit archive, New York University, Tamiment Library]