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The Sociocultural Context of Cleveland’s Miss Mittleberger School For Girls, 1875-1908

Pinzone, Sharon Morrison

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2009, Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Education, Cleveland State University, College of Education and Human Services.

Augusta Mittleberger (1845-1915) was a prominent educator and owner/director of the Miss Mittleberger School for Girls (1875-1908) in Cleveland in the American Victorian period, defined here as 1876-1915. Using the journalism of Mittleberger’s students, this dissertation provides a social and educational profile of upper middle and upper class girls within Cleveland’s Victorian sociocultural context, with the eye to understanding the impact of Mittleberger’s entrepreneurship, the lives of Victorian girls, the opportunities for women, and the school’s urban context.

This study looked for evidence of whether these girls, kindergarten-college preparatory, were aware of their social position, whether they exercised its privilege and proclivities as described by the tenets of studies on American class, and how their school experiences impacted their futures as women in the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. This study provides evidence that Mittleberger’s use of contemporary methods and advanced curriculum transitioned many of her students to higher education and careers, taking them beyond the traditional roles of their mothers – marriage and motherhood, Protestant benevolent work, and family philanthropy. Sources for profiling this private school, set in one of the most elite, powerful, Protestant enclaves of the late 1800’s, include Cleveland newspapers, biographies, private papers, church and business records, city directories, county records, census records, maps, atlases, Gilded Age histories, education histories, Cleveland histories, and school records – particularly the issues of the school’s journal/newspaper, The Interlude, written by the articulate students themselves.

James Carl, PhD (Committee Chair)
David Adams, PhD (Committee Member)
Rosemary Sutton, PhD (Committee Member)
Connie Hollinger, PhD (Committee Member)
Dwayne Wright, PhD (Committee Member)
235 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Pinzone, S. M. (2009). The Sociocultural Context of Cleveland’s Miss Mittleberger School For Girls, 1875-1908 [Doctoral dissertation, Cleveland State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1248799957

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Pinzone, Sharon. The Sociocultural Context of Cleveland’s Miss Mittleberger School For Girls, 1875-1908. 2009. Cleveland State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1248799957.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Pinzone, Sharon. "The Sociocultural Context of Cleveland’s Miss Mittleberger School For Girls, 1875-1908." Doctoral dissertation, Cleveland State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1248799957

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)