Helen Storrow

Family and progressive roots

Born Helen Osborne on September 22, 1864, in Auburn, New York, she was the youngest of David Munson ("Munson") Osborne and Eliza Wright's four children. Her parents were raised in modest circumstances, but by the time of Storrow's birth, Munson Osborne had become one of the most prominent men in Cayuga County. Storrow and her siblings enjoyed a happy and privileged upbringing, attending private schools, traveling through Europe, and spending summers at their home on Owasco Lake at Willow Point, New York. The Osborne mansion at 99 South Street served as a cultural center in Auburn.

Storrow's eldest sister, Emily (1854–1944), married Springfield banker Frederick Harris; her next eldest sister, Florence (1856–1877), was described as a gentle girl, extremely fond of animals, who died of typhoid fever, leaving behind a fiancée, Samuel Bowles; her only brother, Thomas Mott Osborne (1859–1926), inherited his father's business, and became a stalwart advocate of prison reform.

Their father, Munson Osborne, was a farmer's son from Rye, New York. His ancestors were once prosperous landowners, but they became impoverished, having lost their fortune in the aftermath of the American Revolution. Osborne left his father's home at the age of fifteen, accepting work wherever it could be found. After several failed business ventures, Osborne founded D. M. Osborne & Co. in 1856, and made a fortune manufacturing agricultural machinery. Osborne's life revolved around his work. He was an exacting, but fair employer, and years after his death his former employees still spoke of him with admiration. One of Auburn's most respected citizens, Osborne served three terms as mayor (1877–1880); a position later held by both his son and one of his grandsons.

Munson Osborne was described as a loving husband and father, though he had a tendency to behave like a "benevolent autocrat." He respected his wife, and happily entertained her more liberal friends and relations. However, Osborne expected Eliza to conform, for the most part, to the traditional Victorian ideal of wife and mother. This meant virtually abandoning suffrage work after her marriage, and devoting the bulk of her time to domestic affairs.

Having been raised in a family of social reformers, Eliza (Wright) Osborne was stubborn, self-reliant, witty and outspoken, a far less conventional figure than her spouse. She was the eldest child of David and Martha (Coffin) Wright. Both parents were descended from Quakers who traveled to the new world with William Penn. The Wrights were not practicing Quakers, but they still adhered to many tenets of their parents' faith – a belief in simplicity, equality, and individual dignity. They were staunch abolitionists, whose home served as a stop on the Underground Railroad. The Wrights and their daughter, Eliza Osborne, were loyal friends of the Underground Railroad's famed “conductor," Harriet Tubman. They helped Tubman settle in Auburn in 1860, and provided Tubman with odd jobs, enabling her to support her family.

Death of Munson Osborne

In the mid-1880s, Munson Osborne sued Cyrus McCormick for patent infringement. The case proved to be difficult and protracted, with McCormick ultimately agreeing to settle out of court, paying Osborne $225,000, an enormous sum at the time. However, the stress of the case had a terrible effect on Osborne. On July 6, 1886, Osborne suffered a massive coronary. Storrow and her mother, having witnessed his collapse, tried fruitlessly to revive him, but he died later that evening.

Following her husband's death, Eliza resumed her suffrage work, going on to become vice president of the New York State Woman's Suffrage Association, and first vice president of the Cayuga County Political Equality Club. A tireless worker, at age eighty, Eliza led a delegation of women to Albany where they spoke before the State Legislature, lobbying for suffrage. Eliza was also involved in numerous philanthropic endeavors. In 1882, Eliza helped found the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, an institution that may have inspired Storrow's interest in settlement work. Modeled on an organization of the same name in Boston, the institution provided young working women with classes in practical subjects, such as sewing and cooking, later adding more intellectually gratifying classes in modern languages and literature.

Storrow was sent away to boarding school at the age of eleven. At the time of her father's death, she was spending most of each year at a boarding school in Springfield, Massachusetts run by a Miss Katherine Howard. In youth, her main interest was music, a love she shared with her brother Thomas. After boarding school, she spent time in Germany continuing her musical studies, later going on to graduate from Smith College.

Marriage to James J. Storrow

Helen met her future husband, James Jackson Storrow Sr., in 1882, while touring Europe with her relatives. Though James was just one year behind her brother Thomas at Harvard, the Storrows met not in Massachusetts, but in Switzerland, while attempting to scale the Matterhorn. They were married, after a lengthy engagement, in 1891.

The shy and studious James, was described as "unassuming," but "magnetic", "a born leader and a keen judge of man; unassuming, yet in his quiet way exerting a strong influence over his fellows...a dominating personality." Temperamentally, he was the polar opposite of the out-going, effervescent Storrow. However, behind his stiff mien lay an idealistic nature and a keen sense of humor. Their marriage was described as "a perfect partnership” of equals, and Mr. Storrow's biographer claimed that “no two people ever saw more completely eye-to-eye on all the things that count."

James was descended from a long line of Boston Brahmin families, including the Jacksons, Higginsons, Tracys, and the Cabots who famously "talk only to God." His father, also named James Jackson Storrow, was a prominent attorney, whose clients included Alexander Graham Bell and the government of Venezuela; his mother, Ann Maria Perry, was the grandchild of naval hero Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, and a distant cousin of President Thomas Jefferson.

James graduated in 1888 from Harvard Law School, and for twelve years was employed as a corporate lawyer. In 1900, he disbanded his law firm and accepted a position at Lee, Higginson & Co., an investment bank. James proved to be an astute businessman, quickly achieving the position of senior partner at Lee, Higginson & Co., and accumulating a vast personal fortune. Though he was employed by one of America's most conservative banks, James remained politically moderate and socially progressive, positions that set him at odds with other members of his social milieu.

The Storrows longed for a large family, but had only one child, James Jackson Storrow Jr., who was born on November 20, 1892, in Boston, Massachusetts.

When the hoped-for larger family did not materialize, they extended the mantles of "Aunt" and "Uncle" to include not only their own nieces and nephews, but also their son's companions and the children of friends. Helen wrote warmly of those precious years and the activities they sponsored for a stream of youthful guests at the country home she and Jim eventually built on a hillside in Lincoln.

Philanthropic endeavors and social reform

Storrow was involved in a wide variety of charitable activities during her life ranging from settlement work to land conservation. Storrow's initial focus was on children's charities, beginning with the playground movement. Distressed by the number of children being killed and injured in accidents while playing in the streets, Boston philanthropists began constructing playgrounds. It was also hoped that if the children had a proper place to play, rather than congregating in the streets, they would be less likely to become involved in gang-related criminal activities.

The North End of Boston during the late 19th century was an impoverished, over-crowded, filthy, disease ridden area, reminiscent of the London slums depicted by Dickens. The ward suffered from the highest infant mortality rates, child mortality rates, and homicide rates, in Boston. Many affluent Bostonians blamed conditions in the North End on the residents themselves, immigrants, who were predominantly Jewish and Italian. Massachusetts state legislator Edward C. Chandler voiced the opinion of many in Boston when he stated that "the personal habits of the tenants are largely responsible for such conditions…Undoubtedly many a suitable tenement house is turned into a place of misery by the ignorance and vice of its occupants."

Storrow agreed that further education was necessary, and should be encouraged in immigrant communities, but she rejected the notion that immigrants were inherently inferior, and disliked the condescension shown by many of her peers toward immigrants. She took a genuine interest in the women and children of the North End, joining the North Bennet Street Industrial School's board of managers in 1898, and serving as secretary of the institution. The school was founded in 1885 by Pauline Agassiz Shaw. The daughter of scientist and Harvard professor, Louis Agassiz, Shaw pioneered the kindergarten movement in the United States. The school provided classes in printing, pottery, stone carving, woodwork, woodcarving, woodturning, cement work, sewing and dressmaking; there was also an athletic club, a debating club, a drama club, music lessons, reading rooms, a kindergarten, and a nursery for infants belonging to working mothers.

Saturday evening girls

It was at North Bennet Street Industrial School that Storrow met Edith Guerrier. Guerrier, then a young art student, arrived at the school in 1899, looking for a position in the nursery. She approached Storrow with a letter of introduction from her uncle, William Garrison Jr., who was an old friend of Guerrier's father. Not long after coming to the school, Guerrier was tasked with the job of maintaining the school's reading room. Her story-hour quickly gained immense popularity with young women at the school, forming the foundation of what in 1901 became the Saturday Evening Girls' Club (S.E.G.). The club derived its name from the fact that its members were mainly young working-women, and high school students, who could only attend on Saturdays.

The weekly story-hour was soon expanded to include discussions about history, politics, civics, economics, art, literature, and lectures given by well-known figures. Guerrier managed to attract a wide range of individuals to speak before the club:

Edward Everett Hale, Reverend Paul Revere Frothingham, Charles Eliot Norton, activists Paul Davis and Meyer Bloomfield, social reformers Vida Scudder and Robert Woods, and many doctors, lawyers, judges, librarians, artists, rabbis, clergy, performance artists, suffragists, business leaders, and writers spoke to the S.E.G. on a variety of classical and contemporary issues.

Seven additional clubs were eventually formed, each named for the day of the week when members met. There was a club for girls as young as ten, another for working women in their mid-twenties, and clubs for girls every age in between. At a time when many first and second generation immigrants failed to graduate, or even attend high school, clubs like the Saturday Evening Girls played a vital role in educating their members. One young woman, Vanessa Casassa Bruno, described her experience as a member of the Saturday Evening Girls during the 1910s:

The S.E.G. talks that I have attended have helped me a great deal, in that I learned from them what other girls learned in high school, and I was thus given a general idea of the literature at different periods, civic and social problems in different countries, [the] fine arts...Through the club I became connected with the Branch Public Library. During my work there I was able to help children and foreigners to read proper books...to make them better citizens and scholars, as well as increasing my knowledge of books and authors.

Scouting

Storrow was introduced in 1915 to the founder of scouting in America, Juliette Gordon Low. It may have been this encounter that sparked her interest in the scouting movement. Whatever the reason, not long afterward, Storrow began holding Girl Scout training courses at her summer home in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

In 1917, Storrow founded the Pine Tree Camp, on her property at Long Pond, in Plymouth, which became the First National Girl Scout Leaders' Training School. Decades later, Scouts were still flocking to the camp for training.

In July 1932, Storrow provided the Girl Scouts with a retreat in Switzerland. She purchased a chalet just outside Adelboden, in the Bernese Oberland. Known simply as Our Chalet, the retreat remains in the hands of the Girl Scouts, and hosts "Helen Storrow Seminars", focusing on international education.

Storrow served for many years as First Vice President of Girl Scouts, Inc., the national organization of American Girl Scouts, and as chairman of the executive committee of Massachusetts Girl Scouts, Inc. Serving as Second Vice President of the national organization was none other that Lou Henry Hoover, wife of future president, Herbert Hoover.

After the initial founding of the American Girl Scouts organization, there were numerous squabbles with the older organization of British Girl Guides, including arguments over uniforms, territorial disputes, and an unsuccessful attempt by the Girl Guides to convince the Girl Scouts to change their name; the British organization considered the term "Scout" too masculine for a girls' movement. Storrow responded to the latter argument by suggesting that, instead, the Girl Guides should refer to themselves as Scouts:

In spite of the initial tension between the British and American organizations, the Storrows became close personal friends of Lord Baden-Powell, who founded the Scouting movement, and his wife, Lady Baden-Powell. James Storrow's interest in the Boy Scouts mirrored his wife's interest in the girls' movement; he served as the second national president of the Boy Scouts of America.

In Storrow's honor, the Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts Council presents individuals who have made "outstanding contributions to Girl Scouting" with the Helen Storrow Heritage Award.[1]

Folk dancing

Storrow's interest in dance began in the early 20th century, when several middle-aged Boston socialites organized a dance class to "amuse themselves and their friends." Storrow later said:

For several years we considered it only funny that we should be pirouetting and hopping about it in arabesque positions, and were ashamed to try to dance really well; but gradually we lost the feeling of self-consciousness and enjoyed it too much not to try to do our best.

During her travels in Europe, Storrow developed a passion for folk dancing, becoming a staunch devotee of Cecil Sharp, aiding him in his efforts to popularize folk dance in the United States. Storrow devoted increasingly lengthy amounts of time to providing lessons in English folk dance. In 1911, during a benefit for the Playground Association of America, Storrow could be found in the ballroom of the New Willard Hotel in New York City, leading a "practical demonstration" in folk dancing for those in attendance. A year later, she volunteered to instruct the Fathers' and Mothers' Folk Dancing Club at the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston. In 1915, Storrow helped found, and served as director, of the American branch of the English Folk Dance Society, now known as the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre.

She believed that everyone's life, be they young or old, male or female, could be enriched by dance. She wrote:

Combining her love of dance with her passion for scouting, Storrow arranged for teachers from the Country Dance Society to organize a summer dance camp at Long Pond in 1932. Pinewoods Camp operated independently, alongside the Scouts' Pine Tree Camp. Lily Conant later operated the camp, which was willed to Conant's family after Storrow's death, becoming Pinewood Camp Inc., in 1975.

Storrowton Village

Storrow oversaw the "home department" of the Eastern States Exposition, an annual fair occurring in New England. In 1927, Storrow purchased Gilbert House, a structure built in the 18th century, transporting the home from West Brookfield, to serve as a permanent headquarters for the department. From 1927 to 1930, Storrow invested nearly half-a-million dollars constructing the village of Storrowton, transporting authentic Revolutionary and pre-Revolutionary buildings and restoring them.

The village quickly became a popular tourist attraction.

Storrowtown, which is to Old Colony what Williamsburg is to the Old Dominion, was visited by more than 250,000 persons from all parts of the country last Summer [1940] and Fall...the buildings include, besides the church, a village hall, a country store, a tavern, a smithy, a lawyer's office and several mansions – all enhanced by the old-fashioned gardens, shrubs and picturesque carriage sheds. Antique furnishings grace the rooms, and rare hand-carved paneling, corner cupboards and hand-hewn beams are distinctive features...

Among the buildings reconstructed at Storrowton were: the Potter House (1776); the Atkinson Store (1799); the legal office of Zachariah Eddy (1810); and the Salisbury church (1834). The church contained one of the oldest hand-crafted pipe organs in existence. As a birthday present for Storrow, in 1935, Girl Scout volunteers planted a large herb garden near the Gilbert House, known as “Aunt Helen's Herb Garden,” filled with herbs commonly used in the Revolutionary period. The village was renamed Storrowton by the Trustees, in her honor, in 1944.

The village is currently run as a living history museum.

Further club and settlement work

In 1903, they helped found the West End House, a club for boys, mainly immigrants, providing classes and lectures on numerous subjects, including history, literature and physical education. Begun as a settlement house, it now serves as a Boys and Girls Club. In 1908, the Storrows provided the boys at West End House with a summer camp in East Parsonfield, Maine. West End House, like the Saturday Evening Girls

Club, aimed to keep youths in poor immigrant neighborhoods off the streets, by providing them with educational and recreational opportunities. Their athletics contests gained both wide popularity and participation:

A central feature of the West End House was the development of a number of athletic teams and contests. West End House teams helped to increase neighborhood solidarity through the development of a string of intracity rivalries...The Thanksgiving day race was a community event in the West End. Huge crowds lined the streets to watch the boys run for neighborhood glory...

Another of her husband's endeavors was the Boston Newsboy's Club, which he played a prominent role in founding, in 1909. The club's stated mission: "To befriend in every possible way the newsboys and other boys of the city of Boston, without distinction as to race, color, or creed." As with the Storrows' other clubs, it provided Newsboys – youths who were then a common sight, selling newspapers on corners throughout the city – with an outlet for education and recreation, helping the boys graduate high school, and in some instances, go on to attend university.

Frustrated by the monotony of the activities sponsored by most women's clubs in Boston, in 1913, Storrow founded the Women's City Club, "to promote a broad acquaintance among women through their common interest in the welfare of the city…" She served as the club's first president. Her goal was to gather members from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, allowing for a diversity of views, to discuss relevant political and social issues.

The Storrows supported America's entry into the First World War, and Storrow presided over the War Service Committee organized by the Women's City Club, raising funds for the war effort. At the war's end, the Storrows converted their summer home into a sanatorium for wounded soldiers:

Notes and references

"Mrs. Storrow dies; Girl Scout leader". The New York Times. November 12, 1944. p. 50. Retrieved July 19, 2022.

Scouting Round the World, John S. Wilson, first edition, Blandford Press, 1959, p. 86