Isabelle Sprague Smith, also Isabelle Dwight Sprague Smith (November 11, 1861 – December 28, 1950) was an American artist, teacher, and school principal until the mid-1920s. Her students donated the Isabelle D. Sprague Smith Studio to the
MacDowell Colony, where she was a member, by 1918. She was director of the
People's Institute of New York. Sprague Smith was president of the
Bach Festival in New York, and the founder of the Bach Festival in Winter Park, Florida in 1935.
She married
Charles Sprague Smith, a
Columbia University professor and a social progressive, on November 11, 1884, in
Clinton, New York. They had a daughter, Hilda,[1] on September 18, 1885,[4] and lived at 29 W. 68th Street in
Manhattan beginning by 1903.[5][6] The Sprague Smiths were on the New York Social Register.[7] Charles was seriously ill with pneumonia[8] and died on March 29[1] or 30 in 1910.[9]
Hilda attended Velton School for Girls.[10] She studied politics, history and economics and graduated from
Bryn Mawr College in 1909.[11][a] On November 1, 1915, she married Victor Starzenski, the son of Polish Count Maurice and Countess Anna Starzenski.[6][b] where he worked at General Electric as an engineer.[10] She was back to Hilda Sprague Smith in 1929.[c]
In 1935, Sprague Smith had a Spanish-style house built for her in
Winter Park, Florida, that was designed by
James Gamble Rogers II.[14] Hilda died in 1942.[11] Isabelle established the Hilda Sprague-Smith Fund for the purchase of books about history at the Bryn Mawr College Library in her memory.[15] After a brief illness, Sprague Smith died on December 28, 1950.[16][17]
She worked as an artist, and had a
Carnegie Hall studio by 1903.[5] Sprague Smith was a director of the
MacDowell Club[1] and by 1903 was a member of the
Woman's Art Club of New York.[5] She was director of Arden Studios at 160 W. 74th Street (the same location as Veltin School) by 1915.[18] She was a member of the MacDowell Colony[1] and by 1918, 31 of Sprague Smith's students funded the creation of the Isabelle D. Sprague Smith studio at the MacDowell Colony, an artist colony in
Peterborough, New Hampshire.[19]
She helped found[2] and was director of the People's Institute,[1] which was founded by her husband. He was its director until his death in 1910.[20][9]
Sprague Smith was a member of the
Cosmopolitan Club, a private social club for women, and the Barnard Club.[1] She was president of the New York Bach Festival.[21]
Florida
She founded the
Bach Festival in
Winter Park, Florida, in 1935.[11][22] Through "sheer force of will, [she] created the choir, soloists, musicians, audience and funds necessary for the project."[23] The annual concert has been held the months of February and March at the
Knowles Memorial Chapel at
Rollins College[24] and beginning in the late 1940s was broadcast over a national broadcasting station.[2]
She received an honorary degree from Rollins College in 1939.[25] She managed the festivals activities until 1950. It is Central Florida's oldest operating performing arts organization and the third-oldest continuously operating Bach Festival in the United States.[22]
Notes
^Isabelle and Hilda traveled throughout Europe following the 1909 graduation.[10] Hilda documented her travels to Europe and other family events in 31 scrapbooks and journals that were donated to
Berea College in 1942, the year she died.[11]
^She also married him by contract in 1916, because she desired a method where she was not "given away" in marriage.[10] They lived in Schenectady, New York,[6][12]
^Hilda Sprague Smith resided at the family house on W. 68th Street by 1929, when she traveled to Europe with Isabelle and
Louise Veltin.[13]
^"Hilda Sprague Smith, Passport Application", NARA Series: Passport Applications, January 2, 1906 - March 31, 1925, Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), January 19, 1910
^
abEdward Thomas Devine; Paul Underwood Kellogg (1910).
The Survey. Survey Associates. p. 80. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the
public domain.
^
abcd"Wedded by Contract". The Washington Post. February 28, 1916. p. 5. Retrieved February 3, 2017 – via newspapers.com.
^"Studios". The Musical Monitor. Mrs. David Allen Campbell, Publisher. 1918. p. 357.
^Fronc, Jennifer (December 2009). New York Undercover: Private Surveillance in the Progressive Era (First ed.). University of Chicago Press. p. 123.
ISBN9780226266091.