New Lincoln School

The New Lincoln School was a private experimental coeducational school in New York City enrolling students from kindergarten through grade 12.

New Lincoln School
Address
31 West 110th Street New York , New York 10026 United States
Information
School type	private, progressive
Established	1948
Status	closed
Closed	1988
CEEB code	333845
Grades	K-12
Average class size	20
Color(s)	blue and gold
Newspaper	Lincoln Live Wire
Website	http://www.newlincoln.org/

History

New Lincoln's predecessor was founded as Lincoln School in 1917 by the Rockefeller-funded General Education Board as "a pioneer experimental school for newer educational methods," under the aegis of Columbia University's Teachers College.^[1] In 1941 Teachers College merged Lincoln School with Horace Mann School, which it operated as a demonstration school. When Teachers College closed down the combined school in 1946, parents of Lincoln School enrollees established the New Lincoln School in 1948 as "an extension of the philosophy which made those [predecessor] schools famous," i.e., to carry on the tradition of progressive, experimental education, concentrating on the individual child, offering an interdisciplinary core program as well as electives in elementary grades, and emphasizing the arts.^[2]

In 1956, the school acquired the former Boardman School on East 82nd Street and moved its Lower School (through second grade) to that campus, under the coordination of Terry Spitalny.

In 1974, the school moved to 210 East 77th Street.^[3] The school merged with the Walden School in Fall 1988 to become the New Walden Lincoln School,^[4] which ultimately closed in Summer 1991.

The progressive education movement had a significant impact on curriculum and instruction in American schools.^[5] For example, as a demonstration school, New Lincoln, like its predecessors, attracted widespread attention, including about 1,000 visitors each year.^[6] Eleanor Roosevelt attended the school’s tenth anniversary celebration and conference and wrote in her syndicated newspaper column that “this day was one of the most stimulating that I have spent in a long time.”^[7]

Campus

The New Lincoln School building had previously been the 110th Street Community Center.^[8] An eight-story building that had been recently renovated and had a swimming pool in the basement, it was further renovated to meet the new school's needs of a cafeteria, classrooms, laboratories, and a library.

After the school closed the West 110th Street site became home to the Lincoln Correctional Facility, a minimum-security work-release center,^[9] which itself closed in 2019. The East 77th Street campus has been occupied by the Birch Wathen School since 1989.^[10]

Curriculum

The curriculum was centered on Core, a combination of Social Studies and English. Other subjects were tied in to Core as much as possible, for instance, songs chosen for Music class or projects chosen for Home Economics. Each class put on a play each year arising from their Core studies. Core was designed to focus on the real world as experienced by the students. Thus when the 5th-6th grades studied their city, New York, there was a section on Tunnels and Bridges, as well as one on History; and when a 7th-8th grade class studied Japan they built a “house” of homemade shoji screens in their classroom. Science, Art, and Math were generally not linked to Core, but still emphasized hands-on approaches to learning.

Instruction was individualized, with individual exploration and small work groups greatly encouraged. Seating plans were generally informal, and most teachers were called by their first names. Foreign language instruction, French and Spanish, began in the eighth grade.

The arts were stressed. An extensive studio art program explored many media. The ceramics program used kilns and a wide range of materials. The school used a great variety of instruments in teaching, and students played on autoharps, temple blocks, marimbas, and gongs. Singing ranged from folk and work songs to Broadway tunes. Besides Music and Art, all students, regardless of gender, took Wood Shop and Home Economics.

While grade levels were conventional, the Middle School combined fifth and sixth grades and seventh and eighth into two or three groups each. Groups were identified by letters, not by grade level, so that first grade was called Group A, second grade Group B, up to 7th-8th grades, Groups K, L, and M. This was intended to de-emphasize age and grade differences.

Racial integration

Prominent educator William Heard Kilpatrick (a student of John Dewey’s) assisted in founding New Lincoln and became chair of its board. He believed that education was critically important to combat the evil of prejudice.^[11] Consequently, in the 1950s New Lincoln’s board included several prominent black people, including Kenneth Clark, psychologist, and Ralph Bunche, Undersecretary of the United Nations.^[12] One of the goals for the school was to help students become competent “in relating constructively with a variety of human beings from different economic levels, religions, races, and nationalities.”^[13]

Starting in the 1950s, a number of influential Black people enrolled their children at New Lincoln including Harry Belafonte (singer, songwriter, activist and actor), Robert Carter (a prominent civil rights lawyer and judge), Faith Ringgold (painter, writer, sculptor and quilter), and Eileen Jackson Southern (the first black woman to be tenured at Harvard).^[14]

Following the Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education desegregation decision, Minnijean Brown was one of the students who integrated the Little Rock, Arkansas public schools. In 1958, after she was expelled from Little Rock’s Central High School, and at the urging of director John Brooks, New Lincoln offered her a scholarship to attend the school, which she accepted.^[15]

Initially only a small percentage of New Lincoln students were Black or members of other minority groups. By 1970, however, New Lincoln had among the highest percentages of minorities in New York private schools (22%) and more than 60% of its scholarship fund was spent to support minority students.^[16] In his memoir, then-director of the school Harold Haizlip wrote that, “New Lincoln was firmly committed to integration. Over time, the board, faculty, and parents decided to increase the minority presence in the school beyond a token level and set fundraising priorities and targets to make this possible.”^[17] As a result, many notable alumni, such as some of those listed below, are people of color.

Several important leaders of the school were Black. Dr. Mabel Smythe, who was head of the high school from 1959 to 1969, “went to various churches all over Harlem” to look for potential students from that community.^[18] (Before joining New Lincoln in the mid-1950s, Smythe assisted Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and after leaving New Lincoln she became Ambassador to Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.^[19]) Harold Haizlip, director of the school from 1968-1971, later became Commissioner of Education for the U.S. Virgin Islands for eight years.^[20] Verne Oliver had a distinguished teaching career at New Lincoln starting in 1957, and became director of the school from 1971–1974. In 1963, Oliver arranged for Ralph Ellison to speak with the senior class about his award-winning book Invisible Man. That same year Kenneth and Mamie Clark (founders of the Northside Center for Child Development, housed on one floor of the New Lincoln School) arranged with Malcolm X for Mamie to take two 12th grade students, one Black and one white, to meet with Malcolm X at a Black Muslim coffee shop on Lenox Avenue, in Harlem. This was a period when Malcolm X seldom spoke to white people.^[21]

Notable alumni

• Lisa Aronson Fontes, psychologist and author
• Robin Bartlett, actress
• Shari Belafonte, actress
• Minnijean Brown of the Little Rock Nine^[22]
• Alan S. Chartock
• Shirley Clarke, filmmaker^[23]
• Suzanne de Passe, film and television producer
• Brandon deWilde, actor
• Donald H. Elliott, urban planner^[24]
• Bonnie Erbé journalist and television host
• Tisa Farrow, actress
• Maria Foscarinis, founder of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty
• Thelma Golden, curator^[25]
• Deborah Holland, singer-songwriter and film composer
• Wendy Jedlička, designer, educator, author, sustainability advocate ^[26]
• Charles Kadushin, psychologist and professor^[27]
• Steve Knight, musician
• David Lowenthal, geographer and historian
• Dinah Manoff American stage, film, and television actress and television director.
• Robert M. Morgenthau, lawyer, New York City District Attorney (Lincoln School)
• Josh Mostel, actor
• Jill Nelson, writer
• Stanley Nelson Jr., filmmaker
• Deborah Offner, actress
• Adrian Piper, artist^[28]
• Stephen Porter Dunn, anthropologist and poet
• Mason Reese, actor
• Charles A. Reich, legal and social scholar
• David Rieff, nonfiction writer and policy analyst^{[29][circular reference]}
• Tad Robinson, American singer, harmonica player, and songwriter
• Vicki Sue Robinson singer
• David Rockefeller banker (Lincoln School)
• Nelson Rockefeller politician (Lincoln School)
• Zack Rogow, poet, playwright, literary translator^{[30][circular reference]}
• Elizabeth Sackler, philanthropist
• Victor Scheinman, robotic pioneer^[31]
• Brooke Shields, model, actress
• Andrea Simon, documentary filmmaker^[32]
• Nina Simons co-founder & co-CEO of Bioneers
• Michele Wallace, author and professor^[33]
• Matthew Wilder, musician
• Jon Wolfsthal, national security expert and journalist
• Michael Wright, actor

School Directors

• Dr. John J. Brooks (1948–1959)
• E. Francis Bowditch (1959–1960)^[34]
• Dr. Gerhardt E. Rast (1960-1963)^[35]
• Edgar S. Bley (1963-1964)
• John J. Formanek (1964–1968)
• Dr. Harold C. Haizlip (1968–1971)^[36]
• Verne Oliver (1971-1974)
• Collin Reed (1974-1987)^[37]
• George Cohan (1987–1988)^[38]

In popular culture

A benefit concert for the school on April 19, 1959, at Carnegie Hall by Harry Belafonte was one of two such concerts recorded and released as Belafonte at Carnegie Hall. The other benefit concert, for the Wiltwyck School on April 20, netted $58,000 for that school.^[39]

References

Notes

1. "New Lincoln School | school, New York City, New York, United States". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2020-12-22.
2. The New Lincoln School organization information, 1952. https://pk.tc.columbia.edu/item/The-New-Lincoln-School-Organization-Information-40193 [login required]
3. "Moves Change Tenantry At Fifth Ave. and 47th St.; News of the Realty Trade School Moving Shoe Store". New York Times. 1973-09-02. p. 242. The New Lincoln School has purchased the eight-story building at 210 East 77th Street from Felko Associates, which had recently acquired it...
4. "Private Schools". Education Week. 1988-06-22. Two New York City schools--the Walden School and the New Lincoln School--plan to merge as a way of fighting rising costs and shrinking enrollments. The schools' boards approved the merger last month, choosing as the combined institution's name the New Walden Lincoln School.
5. Cremin, Lawrence (1961). The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876-1957. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
6. Policies and Procedures for The New Lincoln School: Attendance and Tardiness. 1952. https://pk.tc.columbia.edu/item/Policies-And-Procedures-For-The-New-Lincoln-School-40033 [login required]
7. "My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, April 22, 1958". www2.gwu.edu. Retrieved 2020-12-22.
8. "New School Set Up as an Experiment; Group in Horace Mann-Lincoln Protest to Open Classes at Community Center". New York Times. 1948-07-30. p. 14. The Experimental School, Inc., will be opened Sept. 20 at the 110th Street Community Center, 31 West 110th Street...
9. Risen, Clay (2002-07-09). "Prison on the Park". The Morning News.
10. Waite, Thomas L. (1988-12-18). "POSTINGS: School Conversion; Lesson in Change". New York Times. And the Birch Wathen School will move into the New Lincoln School building at 210 East 77th Street in July when Lincoln merges with the Walden School.
11. Kilpatrick, W.H. & Van Til, W., eds. (1947). Intercultural Attitudes in the Making. Harper.
12. O’Neill Daniel, M. (2003). Race and Progressivism at the New Lincoln School. pp. 55, 57.
13. Report on the New Lincoln School. June 1953. (Login required.)
14. O’Neill Daniel, M. (2003). Race and Progressivism at the New Lincoln School. p. 8.
15. “New World Opens for Minnie Jean,” Journal-American newspaper, 2/24/1958. (Login required.)
16. “Private Schools: A Survey,” New York Post, 3/16/70. (Login required.)
17. Shirlee Taylor Haizlip and Harold C. Haizlip. (1998). In the Garden of Our Dreams, p. 162. Kodansha.
18. O’Neill Daniel, M. (2003). Race and Progressivism at the New Lincoln School. p. 47
19. “Mabel Smythe-Haith; Envoy, State Department Official,” Washington Post, 2/25/2006.
20. “In Memory: Harold C. Haizlip,” Amherst College Magazine.
21. O’Neill Daniel, M. (2003). Race and Progressivism at the New Lincoln School, Page 75.
22. Murphy, Mildred (1958-02-25). "SCHOOL WELCOMES LITTLE ROCK GIRL; Director Greets Expelled Negro Pupil Here -- She Hopes for Calm Stay". New York Times. p. 29. Minnijean Brown attended school here for the first time yesterday since her expulsion a week ago from Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.
23. "Shirley Clarke, 77; Filmmaker Who Won An Academy Award". Boston Globe. 1997-09-25. She attended the Ethical Culture School and the New Lincoln School in New York.
24. Roberts, Sam (2021-12-27). "Donald H. Elliott, Innovative Urban Planner, Dies at 89". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
25. "Golden touch; in Harlem, Thelma Golden has big plans for contemporary art". New Yorker. 2002-01-14. In her last two years of high school, when she was commuting to the New Lincoln School, on the Upper East Side, she worked as an intern at the Metropolitan...
26. Jedlička, Wendy. "Packaging Sustainability, About the Author".
27. "CHARLES KADUSHIN Obituary (1932 - 2022) New York Times". Legacy.com. Retrieved 2022-10-06.
28. Lewis, Jo Ann (1991-06-22). "Images That Get Under the Skin; Artist Adrian Piper, Fighting Racism With 3 Exhibits". Washington Post. ...and adolescence at the exclusive New Lincoln School in New York City (on which her parents lavished their limited funds)...
29. David Rieff
30. Zack Rogow
32. "Andrea Simon". IMDb.
33. Wallace, Michele (1979). Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman. London: John Calder. p. 3. ISBN 9780714537818.
34. "Former Dean at M.I.T. To Head Lincoln School". New York Times. 1959-09-04. p. 22. The New Lincoln School, 31 W 101st Street, has named E. Francis Bowditch director.
35. "Director Is Announced At New Lincoln School". New York Times. 1960-05-07. p. 13.
36. Carmody, Deidre (1968-09-01). "Negro Educator Named Director Of the New Lincoln School Here". New York Times. p. 43.
37. "New Lincoln School Names New Director". New York Times. 1973-10-28. p. 60.
38. Saxon, Wolfgang (1988-05-10). "Planned Merger to Cut Costs For Two Private Day Schools". New York Times.
39. Bollard, Bob. liner notes for Belafonte at Carnegie Hall. RCA Records LOC-6006/6006-R/07863-56006

External links

• New Lincoln School