Virginia Crocheron
Gildersleeve (October 3 1877 – July 7 1965) was an American academic, the long-time Dean of
Barnard
College
, and the sole female US delegate to the April 1945
San
Francisco
United
Nations Conference on International Organization, which
negotiated the UN Charter and created the
United Nations.
Biography
Gildersleeve was born in New York City
, she attended the Brearley School
and following her graduation in 1895 went on to
attend Barnard
College. She completed her studies in 1899 and
received a fellowship to undertake research for her MA in medieval
history at
Columbia University.
She taught English part time at Barnard for several years, she
declined a full-time position and took a leave of absence to
undertake her Ph.D. in English and comparative literature at
Columbia in three years. When she completed her studies in 1908 she
was appointed a lecturer in English in 1908 by Barnard and
Columbia; by 1910 she had become an assistant professor and in 1911
was made dean of Barnard College.
In 1918 Gildersleeve,
Caroline
Spurgeon and
Rose Sedgwick met
while the two English women were on an academic exchange to the
United States. They discussed founding an international association
of university women, and in 1919 founded the
International
Federation of University Women.). She shared an "intimate"
relationship with the British Spurgeon, with whom she annually
shared a rental summer home (see
[171264] -
Our Story)
Following
World War I she became
interested in international politics. She campaigned for
Al Smith and
Franklin D. Roosevelt. During
World War II she chaired the Advisory Council
of the navy's women's unit, the
WAVES and
following the war she was appointed to the United Nations Charter
Committee. She was involved in the reconstruction of higher
education in Japan. For this work she received France's
Legion of Honor.
Dean of Barnard College
One of Gildersleeve's prime concerns as Dean was to reduce the
number of Jewish students admitted to Barnard in favor of admitting
young women of Protestant background. Ironically, her efforts to
reduce the number of Jewish students succeeded only in producing a
proportionate increase in the numbers of Catholic students.
Politics and foreign affairs
At the 1945 San Francisco UN conference, Gildersleeve was
instrumental in writing the
Preamble to the United
Nations Charter, drafting its beginning, with much of
Jan Smuts' earlier text attached at the end. But
perhaps her "most enduring accomplishment at the conference" was
her leading role in creating the
United Nations
Commission on Human Rights.
Some historians consider Gildersleeve to have been "the most
influential leader" of the Christian "
anti-Zionist lobby"
of her era. Gildersleeve wrote that "after (her) retirement from
the Deanship at Barnard, (she) devoted (her)self mainly to the
Middle East," describing herself as "struggling ardently against"
the creation and, later, the continued existence of the Jewish
State. She blamed her failure to prevent the creation of the State
of Israel on "the Zionist control of the media of
communication."
Gildersleeve was a trustee of the American
University of Beirut
and a leading figure in the Christian opposition to
Israel
's statehood in 1948. She helped found and
chaired the
Committee for
Justice and Peace in the Holy Land, which merged into the
American Friends of
the Middle East.
According to historian Robert Moats Miller, of the University of
North Carolina
, the group was funded by the Central Intelligence Agency and
ARAMCO. Miller states that
Gildersleeve's "sympathies were indeed overwhelmingly with the
Arabs."
Tributes
In 1969 eleven members of the International Federation of
University Women founded the Virginia Gildersleeve International
Fund (VGIF).(See http://www.vgif.org). The Fund to date has awarded
more than 250 grants for a total project aid disbursement of over
$1 million USD to women’s groups in low per capita income
countries. Priority is given to income generation and community
development projects which enhance and utilize women’s educational,
vocational, and leadership skills. Project activities range from
seminars, conferences, and training workshops to community-action
projects.
References
- Changing the subject: how the women of Columbia shaped the way
we think about sex and politics, Rosalind Rosenberg, Columbia
University Press, 2004p 139-40.
- Christian attitudes towards the State of Israel, Paul Charles
Merkley. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 2001, p. 6.
- Gildersleeve, Virginia Crocheron, Many a Good Crusade:
Memoirs of Virginia Gildersleeve, Macmillan, New York, 1959,
p. 187.
- Gildersleeve, Virginia Crocheron, Many a Good Crusade:
Memoirs of Virginia Gildersleeve, Macmillan, New York, 1959,
p. 289.
- Gildersleeve, Virginia Crocheron, Many a Good Crusade:
Memoirs of Virginia Gildersleeve, Macmillan, New York, 1959,
p. 412.
- Harry Emerson Fosdick: preacher, pastor, prophet, Robert Moats
Miller, Oxford University Press US, 1985, p. 192.
- Harry Emerson Fosdick: preacher, pastor, prophet, Robert Moats
Miller, Oxford University Press US, 1985, p. 192.
- Brown., C.F. 2000 Gildersleeve, Virginia Crocheron.
American National Biography Online. Oxford University
Press
Works
- (reprint of 1954 edition)
- (essays)
External links
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