Mary Helena Zachos (March 5, 1856 – February 28, 1951) was an author, dramatic reader, playwright, professor, and

elocutionist Elocution is the study of formal speaking in pronunciation, grammar, style, and tone as well as the idea and practice of effective speech and its forms. It stems from the idea that while communication is symbolic, sounds are final and compelli ...

. She was the daughter of abolitionist and women's rights activist

John Celivergos Zachos John Celivergos Zachos ( el, Ιωάννης Καλίβεργος Ζάχος; December 20, 1820 – March 20, 1898) was a Greek-American physician, literary scholar, elocutionist, author, lecturer, inventor, and educational pioneer. He was an ea ...

. Her father also wrote countless books in the field of elocution and was the library curator and a professor at Cooper Union twelve years after the founding of the institution. Helena followed in her father's footsteps. She was a faculty member at the same institution for over forty-two years from 1897 to 1939 teaching elocution, oratory debate, and

parliamentary procedure Parliamentary procedure is the accepted rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings of an assembly or organization. Its object is to allow orderly deliberation upon questions of interest to the organization and thus to arrive at the sense ...

. Helena was born in

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater D ...

to a prominent family her mother was Harriet Tompkins Canfield and her father was John Celivergos Zachos. She had three sisters and two brothers. During the American Civil War, her father was an active participant in the education of freed slaves during the

Port Royal Experiment The Port Royal Experiment was a program begun during the American Civil War in which former slaves successfully worked on the land abandoned by planters. In 1861 the Union captured the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and their main h ...

. The family briefly lived in Pennsylvania where her father was a Unitarian minister and also lectured at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York before permanently moving to New York City in 1871. By 1871, Helena and her sister Margaret Altona Zachos enrolled at

Wells College Wells College is a private liberal arts college in Aurora, New York. The college has cross-enrollment with Cornell University and Ithaca College. For much of its history it was a women's college. Wells College is located in the Finger Lakes ...

. Helena continued her studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and settled in New York City with her parents and became associated with Cooper Union for the rest of her life. She was the president of the Eastern Association of Wells College and a member of the New York Teachers of Oratory. In honor of her excellence and outstanding achievements, Wells College established an award in 1900 in her honor entitled the M. Helena Zachos 1875 Prize. The prize is awarded every year to the student who has submitted the best written English

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the ...

. She retired at 83 years old and died twelve years later at 94 years old in New York City. She was buried with her parents in Boston at Newton Cemetery.

Early life

Mary Helena Zachos was born in

, the daughter of

and Harriet Tompkins Canfield Zachos. Her father was born in

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya ( Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...

of Greek parents, and brought to the United States by American educational reformer

Samuel Gridley Howe Samuel Gridley Howe (November 10, 1801 – January 9, 1876) was an American physician, abolitionist, and advocate of education for the blind. He organized and was the first director of the Perkins Institution. In 1824 he had gone to Greece to ...

. The elder Dr. Zachos also taught oratory at Cooper Union. Helena Zachos attended

, graduating in 1875; she pursued further training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts."Dr. Helena Zachos of Cooper Union, 94"
''New York Times'' (March 2, 1951): 25.

Career

Helena Zachos taught English, oratory, debate, parliamentary procedure, and elocution classes at Cooper Union beginning in 1897, with very popular classes in the school's extension catalog. She was the coach of the school's debating teams, and advised student commencement speakers until 1939. For some of her tenure at Cooper Union, she also taught "expression" at the Friends Seminary in New York. Zachos also wrote one-act plays, poems, and pieces for recitation. On October 16, 1922, Helena copyrighted four plays with the U.S. Patient Office. ''The Magic Peacock Feather'', ''A Persian Play'', ''The Sculptor of Athens'' and ''The Wizard''. ''The Magic Peacock Feather'' was a play set in Ancient China in two acts and featured two scenes. ''A Persian Play'' was set in two acts and featured six scenes. It was adapted from two stories taken from Arabian Nights. ''The Sculptor of Athens'' was a one-act play set in three scenes. ''The Wizard'' was a one-act play that featured three scenes set in a tiny Russian village. Her own performances as a dramatic reader were admired for their "penetration and magnetism". She was president of the Wells College Club of New York, and a trustee of the Library Lecture Association. She also served on the executive board of the National Association of Elocutionists.

Personal life

Zachos died in 1951, just before her 95th birthday, in New York City. Wells College awards the M. Helena Zachos 1875 Prize for excellence in prose composition.

Literary works

Plays

References

Bibliography

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Zachos, Helena Cooper Union faculty Wells College alumni American people of Greek descent People from Dayton, Ohio 1856 births 1951 deaths Elocutionists 20th-century Greek Americans 19th-century Greek Americans