Mary Helena Zachos (March 5, 1856 – February 28, 1951) was an American author, dramatic reader, playwright, professor, and elocutionist. She was the daughter of abolitionist and women's rights activist

John Celivergos Zachos John Celivergos Zachos (; December 20, 1820 – March 20, 1898) was a Greek-American physician, literary scholar, elocutionist, author, lecturer, inventor, and educational pioneer. He was an early proponent of equal education rights for African A ...

. Her father also wrote countless books in the field of elocution and was the library curator and a professor at

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly known as Cooper Union, is a private college on Cooper Square in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-s ...

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 procedures are the accepted Procedural law, rules, ethics, and Norm (sociology), customs governing meetings of an deliberative assembly, assembly or organization. Their object is to allow orderly deliberation upon questions of inte ...

. Helena was born in

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 137,644 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Dayton metro ...

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. They were given the chance to be paid wages and this was a good test for the reconstruction ...

. 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 was a private liberal arts college in Aurora, New York, a village in the Finger Lakes region of the state. From its founding in 1868 until it became coeducational in 2005, Wells was a women's college. The college maintained acad ...

. Helena continued her studies at the

American Academy of Dramatic Arts The American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) is a Private college, private drama school with two locations, one in New York City and one in Los Angeles. The academy offers an associate degree in occupational studies and teaches drama and related ...

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 language that follows the natural flow or rhythm of speech, ordinary grammatical structures, or, in writing, typical conventions and formatting. Thus, prose ranges from informal speaking to formal academic writing. Prose differs most n ...

. 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 Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

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

."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 People from Dayton, Ohio 1856 births 1951 deaths Elocutionists 20th-century American people of Greek descent 19th-century American people of Greek descent