Mary C. Wheeler
{{Other uses|Mary Wheeler (disambiguation)}}{{Infobox artist
| name = Mary Colman Wheeler
| image = Mary Colman Wheeler.jpg
| imagesize =
| caption = Mary Colman Wheeler as a young woman
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth date|1846|5|15|mf=y}}
| birth_place = Concord, Massachusetts
| death_date = {{death date and age|1920|3|10|1846|5|15|mf=y}}
| death_place = Providence, Rhode Island
| nationality = American
| education = Abbot Academy
| field = Education, Painting
| training =
| movement =
| works =
| patrons =
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| spouse =
| partner =
}}
Mary Colman Wheeler (May 15, 1846 – March 10, 1920) was the founder and first head of the Wheeler School in Providence, Rhode Island.
Early life and education
Born in Concord, Massachusetts, on May 15, 1846, to Abiel Heywood Wheeler and Harriet Lincoln, she was the youngest of five children. Concord was at the time of Wheeler's early life a progressive community engaged with Transcendentalism, abolitionism, education reform, and women's rights. Her father Abiel was involved in a local Underground Railroad effort and their family provided refuge to escaped slaves on their way to Canada throughout the 1850s.{{Cite book|title=Mary C. Wheeler: Leader in Art and Education|last=Williams|first=Blanche E. Wheeler|author-link=Blanche Wheeler Williams|publisher=Wheeler School|year=2000|location=Providence, R.I.|pages=23, 35–36, 42–43, 46, 54, 57|orig-year=1934}}
Intellectual figures in the community at that time included Amos Bronson Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Horace Mann, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, among others. Local feminist Margaret Fuller died before Wheeler's time, but the "audacious" woman "left [an] impress on the village." Wheeler's ethical and intellectual beliefs were influenced by contact with women such as Mary Moody Emerson and the sisters Elizabeth Peabody, Mary Peabody (Mrs. Horace Mann), and Sophia Peabody (Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne).
Wheeler was an enthusiastic artist and took drawing lessons with her friend May Alcott beginning in 1858. Notably, May was youngest sister of writer Louisa May Alcott and inspired the character of Amy March in her novel Little Women.{{Cite book|title=May Alcott: A Memoir|last=Ticknor|first=Caroline|publisher=Applewood Books|date=June 2012|isbn=978-1-4290-9312-5|pages=31}}
She graduated from Concord High School in 1864 and Abbot Academy in Andover, Massachusetts in 1866.
Career
In 1866, she started teaching mathematics and Latin at Concord High School and in 1868 moved to Providence, Rhode Island to teach mathematics at a Miss Shaw's, a finishing school.{{cite web|url=http://www.wheelerschool.org/podium/default.aspx?t=6648 |title=List Detail |publisher=The Wheeler School |access-date=2017-01-14}} In the 1870s, she traveled to Germany, Italy and France to study art, while staying in Concord and teaching intermittently in Providence. She returned to Providence in 1882 to teach painting to women.{{cite web|title=Mary C. Wheeler|url=http://www.riheritagehalloffame.org/inductees_detail.cfm?iid=683|publisher=Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame}} In 1889, she founded the Wheeler School.
In 1887, Wheeler started a practice of taking groups of students to France during the summer to learn the French language and study painting and art history. She and the young women who accompanied her leased a property next to Claude Monet in Giverny, and became dinner companions of the Monet family. One of these young women was the painter Louise Herreshoff.{{cite book|author1=Eleanor Tufts|author-link=Eleanor Tufts|author2=National Museum of Women in the Arts (U.S.)|author3=International Exhibitions Foundation|title=American women artists, 1830–1930|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EvxPAAAAMAAJ|year=1987|publisher=International Exhibitions Foundation for the National Museum of Women in the Arts|isbn=978-0-940979-01-7}}
Death
Wheeler died on March 10, 1920, after falling on an icy street. She is buried at Author's Ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.{{cite web |url=http://www.wheelerschool.org/podium/default.aspx?t=112097&rc=0 |title=Wheeler School ~ History of the School |website=www.wheelerschool.org |access-date=17 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728175030/http://www.wheelerschool.org/podium/default.aspx?t=112097&rc=0 |archive-date=28 July 2011 |url-status=dead}}
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
{{Rhode Island Women's Hall of Fame}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wheeler, Mary C.}}
Category:Founders of American schools and colleges
Category:People from Concord, Massachusetts
Category:Educators from Providence, Rhode Island
Category:American school principals
Category:Educators from Massachusetts
Category:19th-century American educators
Category:20th-century American educators
Category:Accidental deaths from falls
Category:American women artists
Category:Concord-Carlisle High School alumni
Category:Women school principals and headteachers
Category:19th-century American women educators
Category:20th-century American women educators
Category:Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (Concord, Massachusetts)