Margaret Bailey Speer (November 20, 1900 – September 21, 1997) was an American educator and teaching missionary. She was dean of the Women's College of
Yenching University
Yenching University (), was a university in Beijing, China, that was formed out of the merger of four Christian colleges between the years 1915 and 1920. The term "Yenching" comes from an alternative name for old Beijing, derived from its status ...
in
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
from 1934 to 1941, and headmistress of the
Shipley School
, motto_translation = Courage for the deed; Grace for the doing
, address = 814 Yarrow Street
, location =
, region =
, city = Bryn Mawr
, county =
, st ...
in Pennsylvania from 1944 to 1965.
Early life
Margaret Bailey Speer was born in
Englewood, New Jersey
Englewood is a city in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, which at the 2020 United States census had a population of 29,308. Englewood was incorporated as a city by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 17, 1899, from por ...
, the daughter of
Robert Elliott Speer
Robert Elliott Speer (10 September 1867 – 23 November 1947) was an American Presbyterian religious leader and an authority on missions.
Biography
He was born at Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on 10 September 1867. He graduated from Phillips Academy ...
and Emma Doll Bailey. Her father was a Protestant leader, secretary of the
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. Her mother was active in
YWCA
The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) is a nonprofit organization with a focus on empowerment, leadership, and rights of women, young women, and girls in more than 100 countries.
The World office is currently based in Geneva, Swi ...
national leadership during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Her grandfather,
Robert Milton Speer
Robert Milton Speer (September 8, 1838 – January 17, 1890) was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.
Robert M. Speer was born in Cassville, Pennsylvania. He attended Cassville Academy, taught school, stu ...
, was a Congressman.
Speer attended the
Dwight-Englewood School
The Dwight-Englewood School (D-E) is an independent coeducational college-preparatory day school, located in Englewood, Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. The school teaches students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade in three ...
, graduating in 1917;
she graduated from
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United St ...
in 1922. At Bryn Mawr, she was president of the Christian Association and active in the YWCA.
She later earned a master's degree at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
.
Career
After college, Speer taught at
Sweet Briar College, and served as secretary to British suffragist
Maude Royden
Agnes Maude Royden (23 November 1876 – 30 July 1956), later known as Maude Royden-Shaw, was an English preacher, suffragist and campaigner for the ordination of women.
Early life and education
Royden was born in Mossley Hill, Liverpool, the ...
while she toured in the United States. The Presbyterian Mission Board assigned her to teach English at the Women's College of Yenching University in 1925. She became dean of the college in 1934, took a furlough in 1937, and stayed at Yenching until 1941, when her job ended among the increased tensions of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. She reached home in 1943, after some time in a Japanese-run internment camp for enemy aliens in China.
Back in the United States, she was a popular speaker at church women's events.
She became headmistress of the Shipley School, a nonsectarian girls' boarding school in
Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
Bryn Mawr, pronounced ,
from Welsh for big hill, is a census-designated place (CDP) located across three townships: Radnor Township and Haverford Township in Delaware County, and Lower Merion Township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It i ...
,
in 1944. During her tenure, the school began enrolling African-American and Jewish students. She retired in 1965. In 1979 she traveled to Yenching University with a group of American students.
Speer was president of the Headmistresses Association of the East (1950 to 1952), the National Association of Principals for Girls (1959 to 1961), and the
Lower Merion Township
Lower Merion Township is a township in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It is part of the Philadelphia Main Line. The township's name originates with the county of Merioneth in north Wales. Merioneth is an English-language transcription of the ...
Human Relations Council (1966 to 1968). She served on the session of the
Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church.
Personal life
Speer lived, worked, and traveled with fellow American teacher
Augusta Bertha Wagner in China and in the United States, from the 1930s into the 1970s. Wagner died in 1976; Speer died in 1997, aged 96 years, in
Gladwyne, Pennsylvania
Gladwyne is a suburban community in Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States along the historic Philadelphia Main Line. In 2018, Gladwyne was ranked the sixth richest ZIP code (using 2015 IRS data) in the country in a ...
.
Her papers are in the Speer Family Papers at Bryn Mawr. Her letters from China were published in 1994 as ''Like Good Steel: The China Letters of Margaret Bailey Speer, North China, 1925-1943.'' The Shipley School presents a Margaret Bailey Speer Award to a distinguished alumna.
Among the recipients of the Margaret Bailey Speer Award is activist
Torie Osborn
Torie Osborn (born July 27, 1950 Copenhagen, Denmark) is a community organizer, activist, and author.
Education
Osborn attended Barnard College, received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Middlebury College and earned her MBA at the ...
.
References
External links
A photograph of Margaret Bailey Speerin middle age, from the collection of the Lower Merion Historical Society.
A photograph of Margaret Bailey Speer in the 1930s from the International Mission Photography Archive, University of Southern California Digital Library.
* Marjorie Jane Harris, ''American missions, Chinese realities: An historical analysis of the cross-cultural influences on the development of North China Union Women's College/Yenching Women's College, 1905-1943'' (PhD. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1994). Dissertation focuses on four women's leadership at Yenching, including Speer's.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Speer, Margaret Bailey
1900 births
1997 deaths
People from Englewood, New Jersey
Dwight-Englewood School alumni
Bryn Mawr College alumni
American educators
Academic staff of Yenching University
American women civilians in World War II
American Presbyterian missionaries
20th-century American people
American headmistresses