Someone's decided to produce an e-book of Pioneer's Progress, the 1952 autobiography of the New School's most important early president Alvin Johnson, and my friend J and I get to write a foreword for it. That meant rereading its account of the establishment of the New School and reading, for the first time for me, much of the rest of it. It's quite a storied life, though Johnson's a little tediously the hero of every story. But even in the bits I'd read before there were things I'd forgotten.The most embarrassing oversight - what am I saying, a most welcome rediscovery! - was the name of the person who nudged the New School into becoming a center for education about the arts in the mid-1920s. She (of course!) appears in a paragraph detailing how important student initiative was in arranging courses in the school's early years.
To return to the activity of the students. A committee called on me to urge an invitation to Alfred Adler, then in the country. He too gave a course that was immensely popular, the attendance consisting largely of teachers and social workers. Another committee asked me to bring over Leo Stein to lecture on art. An enterprising friend of the New School, Mrs. Otto C. Sommerich, proposed a series of lectures
on modern art, poetry, music. I hesitated, because the course would cost a lot and I did not know where to find students. Mrs. Sommerich proceeded to find students enough to make the course a great success. This was the beginning of the New School series of lectures and performances in painting, poetry, music, the dance, the theater. (285-6)
Edith Wise Sommerich was in her late forties at the time: typical New School! She continued to be important at the school for some time as head of the New School Associates, a student/benefacter group which offered luncheon talks and proposed classes. Articles from 1926 and 1974 and a portrait from 1962 confirm her formative role was no secret. Nice to meet you!
