Like many of their contemporaries, both Dorothy Whitney and Willard Straight had, when younger, tried to change the world they knew, and they both succeeded within limits.

Gerda Lerner (née Kronstein, 1920–2013) was an author, historian, and seminal figure in founding of women’s history. Lerner spent more than 50 years working to grow and define this field, also creating the first formal women’s history graduate programs.

Clara Woolie Mayer (1895-1988) is possibly the most important forgotten figure in New School administrative history.

Dorothy Payne Whitney was born in 1887, the youngest child of Flora Payne and William C. Whitney. By the age of 17, her mother, stepmother, and her father had all died, leaving Dorothy with an enormous inheritance and a sense of urgency to make her life have meaning.

Social Justice at The New School—a talk by Julia Foulkes, Mark Larrimore, and Maya Wiley at the 4th Annual Staff Development Day. Mark Larrimore and Julia Foulkes’ presentation emerges from their ongoing research into the history of The New School.

The Human Relations Center began in 1951 at the behest of Clara Mayer, the infamous right-hand woman of Alvin Johnson, the long-time director of the school.