History of Masters "Some girls will learn a great deal in this school. Others will stay just as long and get nothing." — Eliza Masters
August 9, 1877.
The Misses Masters’ Boarding and Day School for Young Ladies and Children officially opened its doors. Since then, this small ‘finishing school’ has moved, built, rebuilt, expanded and flourished into The Masters School today. Whether it is the stained glass windows of Masters Hall, or the creaking steps of the old stairwell, this place has witnessed the history that is taught in its classrooms.
So what really is the impact of the larger historical contexts on Masters? And how did it become the school it is today?
1914 — 1918
World War I
In 1917, as the U.S. became officially involved in the First World War, Dobbs girls knitted 658 pairs of socks and 294 sweaters for servicemen, while the school team names (now Delta and Phi) were changed from Princeton and Yale to Army and Navy. Beyond Dobbs Ferry, Masters alumnae were serving in the Red Cross and volunteering for the war efforts around the world. Margret Benedict, Masters alumna, wrote in her July 1917 letter back to “Dobbs”, “We are actually at the front now within sound of anon and we frequently see the airplanes, which is most exciting. We are living in a tent and it certainly looks like a circus. Eighteen of us eat and sleep in the same tent. We have a bulldog, Cheeky, two kittens and a magpie. They are quite friendly and awfully cunning.”
On Armistice Day in November of 1918, students “marched through the village and back to Estherwood where we sang the National Anthem and saluted the flag,” according to a letter a student at the time wrote home.
1920 — 1935
The Great Depression
In the 1930s, as the depression set in, all Masters faculty salaries were reduced by 5%, and were cut once again in 1933. During the same time, the very first scholarship amounting to 25,000 dollars was created and tuition was lowered in the face of decreasing enrollment.
1941 — 1944
World War II
In September of 1941, Ann Atkins (now Ann Atkins Clarke) joined The Masters School in the class of 1944. Coming from Indianapolis, Clarke was anxious about joining a school on the East Coast at first. But now, nearly 80 years later, she looks back at her time at Masters fondly, “It was a dream, I was on my own, and it turned out wonderful.”
In describing a day in her life in the 1940s at Masters, many rules and routines may seem unfamiliar to a current Masters student. The school was made up of mostly boarders at the time, and the girls lived and ate together every day of the week. “I was in the Hill House, then I lived in Estherwood my senior year, right across the hall from the Headmistress. Only seniors were allowed to go up the staircase, and there were a lot of seniors in Estherwood, which was very special and great fun,” Clarke recalled.
On Sunday nights, speakers would come on campus to represent different religious backgrounds as well as educate the girls on world events at the time.
While the weekends were slow in the dormitories, the weekdays for Clarke were filled with courses and rules. For Clarke, the Communications Rule stood out: “When we went from one class to another, we were not allowed to smile or communicate in any manner. It was ridiculous, but I found it very nice because if you smiled at one person and forgot to smile and wave hi to another, they might think you were snubbing them or something.”
Academically, Clarke said she enjoyed many of her courses and found it to be a highlight of her time at Masters, though chemistry gave her some trouble. She said, “I remember I was given special permission by the academic dean. I was allowed to stay up as late as I wanted to to be assisted by a very smart classmate in chemistry, which I was flunking. But I managed to get a D+, and she got me through the test, that was a good thing.”
Outside of class, Clark was also a part of the Dobbs Athletics Association (DAA) “I was president of the DAA, and that was a big deal. And the Phi and Deltas competed against each other, which was great fun, because we couldn’t travel to other schools because of the gas rationing and so forth,” Clarke said.
Due to the Second World War, the girls were not able to leave campus, so sports and clubs afterschool became the main hub for activities. Clarke said, “I had very very good friends, and one particular friend who later worked at Dobbs [Masters] and we would play a lot of sports together. We’d play ping pong, or badminton, or do anything athletic. So that was fun.”
Having joined Masters only a few months before Pearl Harbor, the historical context affected Clarke's entire time at the school. “I will never forget. We were listening to the radio when Pearl Harbor occurred. And I think it did make us all much more of a community. Because everyone had someone they knew, a friend, a brother, who was serving in the armed forces.” Due to a shortage of manpower as well as resources, the students, including Clarke, washed their dishes and waited tables themselves during their years at Masters.
Beyond their school years, Clarke said that her generation was affected by both before and after their time in the Masters community. “My brother was in WWII, and my son was in Vietnam, and my father was in WWI, so I don’t think there’s ever been a time in my long life that someone hasn’t been in a war.”
After leaving Masters, Clarke went to Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York and married her husband, Charles Clarke, with whom she had seven children. She then lived in both New York and New Haven, working as a teacher and coach in schools including Yale University.
Now 97 years old, Clarke paused after recounting the above, and said, “It’s been a good life.”
1972 — 2005
Notable Events:
1972: The Masters Hall fire damaged the building, leading to its reconstruction.
1987: Affected by the economic environment, former infirmary was named the Francis R. Masters Science Center.
1996: Masters turns co-ed and opens campus to male students for the first time after experiencing under-enrollment.
1996: The harkness table was introduced to Masters.
2001: September 11. The school gathered in the dining hall to receive the news. Fortunately, no member of the Masters community was lost.
2005: The Middle School building opens with 15 initial classrooms.
Today
2023 Masters Reunion Weekend
This past weekend, May 19 to May 20, Masters student and faculty alumni from 1944 - 2019 gathered in Dobbs Ferry for a range of events. On Friday, May 20, they arrived on campus greeted by a 50th-year reunion dinner and were invited to watch Macbeth, the spring play. The next day there was a range of activities and classes for the alumni to attend. Starting off with a lunch and an address from Laura Danforth, then moving into more events. Among these were Gold Key tours, highlighting the changes on campus for those who hadn’t visited in years, class of 1973 tree-planting sessions, current Masters classes, and more. Ann Atkins Clarke, featured in the above article, received the Eliza Bailey Masters award for spearheading Dobbs alumni branch in New Haven.
Photo credits to: Ellen Cowhey, Masterpieces 1976 and Katherine Horn, Masterpieces 1944, Emily Brumming, and Xavier Rolston.
Design courtesy of Xavier Rolston.