Henrietta Meeteer
{{short description|American classics professor (1857–1956)}}
{{Use American English|date=October 2022}}
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{{Infobox person
| name = Henrietta J. Meeteer
| image = HenriettaJosephineMeeteer1921.png
| alt = A middle-aged white woman with her hair in a bouffant updo, wearing eyeglasses and a high-collared white lace-trimmed blouse or dress
| caption = Henrietta J. Meeteer, from the 1921 yearbook of Swarthmore College
| other_names =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth date|1857|06|01|mf=y}}
| birth_place = La Porte, Indiana, United States
| death_date = {{death date and age|1956|11|18|1857|06|01|mf=y}}
| death_place = Haddonfield, New Jersey, United States
| occupation = College dean, professor of Greek and Latin
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
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}}
Henrietta Josephine Meeteer (June 1, 1857 – November 18, 1956) was an American classics professor and philologist. She taught Latin and Greek at Swarthmore College, and was a dean of the college from 1906 to 1918.
Early life and education
Henrietta "Nettie" Meeteer was born in La Porte, Indiana, the daughter of Joseph Chamberlin Meeteer and Henrietta Churchman Meeteer. She trained as a teacher at the University of Pennsylvania,{{Cite news |date=1906-03-17 |title=Gifted Scholar Appointed Dean of Women at Swarthmore College |pages=27 |work=The Indianapolis News |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/111146286/gifted-scholar-appointed-dean-of-women/ |access-date=2022-10-12 |via=Newspapers.com}} then earned a bachelor's degree from Indiana University Bloomington in 1901.Gerda, Janice Joyce. "A history of the conferences of deans of women, 1903–1922" (PhD dissertation, Bowling Green State University 2004): 65, 292–293 {{ProQuest|}} She held the Frances Sargent Pepper fellowship in classical languages at the University of Pennsylvania from 1901 to 1904.{{Cite news |date=1902-04-05 |title=Women Win Fellowships |pages=7 |work=The Philadelphia Times |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/111166056/women-win-fellowships/ |access-date=2022-10-12 |via=Newspapers.com}} She completed doctoral studies there, in her forties, with a dissertation titled The Artists of Pergamum (1904).{{Cite book |last=Meeteer |first=Henrietta Josephine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rAwFAAAAMAAJ&dq=Henrietta+Meeteer&pg=PP4 |title=The Artists of Pergamum |date=1904 |publisher=New Era Printing Company |language=en}}
Career
Meeteer taught school as a young woman. She was Dean of Women at the University of Colorado from 1904 to 1906.{{Cite book |last=Boulder |first=University of Colorado |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n7fOAAAAMAAJ&dq=Henrietta+J.+Meeteer&pg=PA5 |title=Biennial Report of the Regents |date=1904 |pages=5 |language=en}} She joined the faculty of Swarthmore College in 1906, as Dean (later Dean of Women),{{Cite news |date=1913-03-12 |title=Swarthmore's New Office |pages=10 |work=Pittston Gazette |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/111152625/swarthmores-new-office/ |access-date=2022-10-12 |via=Newspapers.com}} succeeding Elizabeth Powell Bond.{{Cite news |date=1906-03-14 |title=Dean Bond's Successor Selected |pages=3 |work=The Philadelphia Inquirer |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/111152941/dean-bonds-successor-selected/ |access-date=2022-10-12 |via=Newspapers.com}} Her Opening Day address to the student body in 1906 included this declaration:
I come here as your friend, your co-worker. Not to look on from the outside, but to stand shoulder to shoulder with you always. If you need a mother, my heart is ready to respond to that call; if you need a sister, a friend, a comrade in pleasure, that is what I want to be — what I am here to be. Everything that concerns you concerns me — your work, your pleasures, your difficulties. Nothing that affects you is too trivial to claim my interest, my sympathy. Whatever the limitations and deficiencies I bring to my work as your dean, I can promise a deep and unfailing sympathy.{{Cite journal |date=September 29, 1906 |title=Opening Day at Swarthmore |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_friends-intelligencer_1906-09-29_63_39/page/608/mode/2up?q=Henrietta+Meeteer |journal=Friends' Intelligencer |volume=63 |issue=39 |pages=608 |via=Internet Archive}}She helped to organize the first national conference of deans of women at state universities in 1905,{{Cite news |date=1905-12-19 |title=Women Deans to Meet Today |pages=13 |work=Chicago Tribune |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/111152725/women-deans-to-meet-today/ |access-date=2022-10-12 |via=Newspapers.com}} and served on the executive committee for another national conference of deans of women in 1914. She resigned as dean in 1918, but continued at Swarthmore as a professor of Latin and Greek.{{Cite news |date=1916-03-25 |title=Acting Dean at Swarthmore |pages=1 |work=Delaware County Daily Times |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/111165164/acting-dean-at-swarthmore/ |access-date=2022-10-12 |via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite news |date=1918-03-29 |title=Resigns as Swarthmore Dean |pages=12 |work=The Philadelphia Inquirer |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/111153073/resigns-as-swarthmore-dean/ |access-date=2022-10-12 |via=Newspapers.com}}
Publications
- The Artists of Pergamum (1904)
- "The Value of Higher Education in the Home" (1908){{Cite journal |last=Meeteer |first=Henrietta Josephine |date=January 1908 |title=The Value of Higher Education in the Home |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002205740806700303 |journal=Journal of Education |language=en |volume=67 |issue=3 |pages=62–64 |doi=10.1177/002205740806700303 |s2cid=169611234 |issn=0022-0574|url-access=subscription }}
Personal life
Meeteer died in 1956, at the age of 99, in Haddonfield, New Jersey.{{Cite news |date=1956-11-20 |title=Henrietta Josephine Meeteer (death notice) |pages=26 |work=Courier-Post |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/111166140/obituary-for-henrietta-meeteer-josephine/ |access-date=2022-10-12 |via=Newspapers.com}}
References
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Category:20th-century American philologists
Category:People from La Porte, Indiana
Category:University of Pennsylvania alumni
Category:Indiana University Bloomington alumni
Category:University of Colorado Boulder faculty