RG 09. Faculty and Staff

Abstract

Ada M. Dinkleman was born on May 22, 1881, in Madisonville (Hamilton County), Ohio.  She graduated from Denison in Ohio and taught at Berea from approximately 1908-1911.  in 1912, Dinkleman married Emil Bracker, who had served as the acting superintendent of the College gardens and forests during the same time that Dinkleman was faculty at Berea.  Dinkleman died in January, 1984 in Illinois.

Abstract Ada Simpson was born on January 25, 1861 in Carlton, New York but spent most of her early life in rural Michigan.  At the age of sixteen, she obtained a teacher’s certificate and became a rural school teacher while at the same time working toward the high school diploma. She married Alva Sherwood in 1888. In 1905 she was tragically widowed; this event marked the next phase of Sherwood’s career during which she would begin her life-long dream of higher education.  Along with her son and...

Abstract

Wright was the chair of Natural History at Berea College from 1870 to 1872. A few years after leaving Berea, he would be appointed professor of Geology and Natural History at Oberlin College.  While at Berea College, Wright also served as the faculty meeting clerk. On September 21, 1874, he married Mary Lyon Bedortha (1846-1877), of Saratoga Springs, New York.  Professor Albert Allen Wright died April 2, 1905.

Abstract Albert Greer Weidler (1882-1957) served as Berea College’s Dean of Labor (1918-1948) and professor (primarily of Economics and Sociology) (1918-1952). Weidler organized and expanded Berea’s labor program and began the tradition of a campus wide Labor Day celebration. Weidler’s wife, Josephine Mary Corbin (1877-1961) taught at Berea in the Academy and Foundation schools. Weidler received his undergraduate degree from Westminster College, New Wilmington, Pa., in 1902.  He completed post...

Abstract Dr. Alice Van Krevelan served as a guest lecturer at Berea from 1936-44, and after earning her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Rochester, she taught at Hollins College and Grinnell College. She returned to Berea in 1961, serving as professor and chair of the psychology department until her 1980 retirement. She was elected to Sigma Xi, a society devoted to research in science, was a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, president of the Council of Undergraduate...

Scope and Contents This collection contains personal items of Anna Ernberg, director of Fireside Industries at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. Anna Ernberg was one of the most visible proponents of the Appalachian weaving revival in the early 20th century. Included in the collection is a Redpath Chautauqua poster, a personal photograph book, a scrapbook of weaving drafts, correspondence, a piece written about the history of Fireside Industries by Ernberg and Fireside Industries brochures, a scrapbook of...

Abstract Augustus Noah May (1876- 1944), a Magoffin County native, graduated from the Berea College Normal School in 1902 and went on to attend the Sloyd Training School in Boston in 1903. May returned to Berea in December of 1903 to teach Sloyd and Model School studies. May would hold positions at Berea, in the Model and Foundation Schools, teaching woodwork, Sloyd, and manual training and drawing until 1919 when he became a professor of Industrial Education at the University of Kentucky. Noah May...

Abstract

Bruce Fairchild Barton (August 5, 1886 – July 5, 1967) was an author, advertising executive, and politician. He served in the U.S. Congress from 1937 to 1940 as a Republican from New York.  Barton enrolled in Berea College during 1903 and later transferred to Amherst College in Massachusetts, where he graduated in 1907.

Abstract Clara Chassell Cooper (1893–1993), an author of several books and psychologist, served as Head of the Berea College Department of Psychology from 1951 to 1961. Cooper is perhaps best known in Berea College history as the originator and librettist of the Children of God Oratorio. Cooper (and twin sister, Laura) were born in Sundance, Wyoming to Reverend Olin B. Chassell and Ella Buckingham Chassell.  She graduated from Cornell College with a B.A., earned a...

Abstract Born in 1884 in South Dakota, Edwin Michael Hoffman, known as Michael, graduated from Oberlin College in 1907 with a B.A.  Following graduation, he worked for the YMCA and, in 1914, married Mary Lindsay (Oberlin, 1910).  During WWI, he served on a mission to Manchuria as a YMCA officer attached to US forces.  In 1925, Hoffman joined the staff of the Foundation School of Berea College where he was an instructor in Science and Bible.  In 1936, he received his MA from Columbia University (Union...