Mary Porter Beegle

Mary Porter Beegle was born in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, the daughter of William Henry Beegle and Lavinia B. Johnson Beegle.{{Cite news|date=1916-05-31|title=Grove Woman was 'Caliban' Leader|pages=1|work=Asbury Park Press|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4848127/caliban-beegle/|access-date=2020-05-23|via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite news|date=1916-05-06|title=Obituary Record Mrs. William H. Beegle|pages=2|work=Asbury Park Press|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51964125/obituary-record-mrs-william-h-beegle/|access-date=2020-05-23|via=Newspapers.com}} Her father was a newspaper publisher.{{Cite news|date=1931-11-01|title=WILLIAM H. BEEGLE, PUBLISHER, IS DEAD; Proprietor of Far Rockaway (L.I.) Journal for 31 Years-- Founded If With His Father.|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1931/11/01/archives/william-h-beegle-publisher-is-dead-proprietor-of-far-rockaway-li.html|access-date=2020-05-23|issn=0362-4331}} She earned a bachelor's degree from Columbia University in 1909.{{Cite news|date=1914-07-25|title=In the Colleges|pages=15|work=Brooklyn Life|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51960850/in-the-colleges/|access-date=2020-05-23|via=Newspapers.com}} She attended the Chalif Normal School of Dancing, and pursued further dance studies in Germany.{{Cite web|title=Mary Urban|url=http://newschoolhistories.org/people/mary-urban/|last=Szanyi|first=Agnes|date=May 31, 2018|website=Histories of the New School|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-23}}

A relative, whose married name was Mary Porter Beegle (1818-1888),{{Cite web|title=Mary Porter Beegle|url=https://hymnary.org/person/Beegle_Mary|website=Hymnary|language=en|access-date=2020-05-23}}{{Cite news|date=1888-12-19|title=Mrs. Mary Porter Beegle Dead|pages=1|work=The Times|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51962410/mrs-mary-porter-beegle-dead/|access-date=2020-05-23|via=Newspapers.com}} wrote hymns and published two books of poetry, Alethea (1886){{Cite book|last=Beegle|first=Mary Porter.|url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100484195|title=Alethea: miscellaneous poems|date=1886|publisher=Published by Mrs. M.P. Beegle|location=Ocean Grove N.J.}} and Ocean Spray (1876).{{Cite book|last1=Beegle|first1=Mary Porter.|url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005946342|title=Ocean spray: poems.|last2=Cairns Collection of American Women Writers.|date=1876|publisher=[s.n.]|location=Ocean Grove, N.J.}}

Beegle taught dance and physical education at Manhattan Trade School for Girls from 1904 to 1911,{{Cite news|date=1910-05-29|title=They Dance for Flatfoot|pages=58|work=New-York Tribune|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51962741/they-dance-for-flatfoot/|access-date=2020-05-23|via=Newspapers.com}} and at Barnard College from 1910 to 1916. She wrote an academic article, "Hygiene and Physical Education in Trade Schools for Girls" (1914), about the physical education side of her work,{{Cite journal|last=Beegle|first=Mary Porter|date=1914-02-01|title=Hygiene and Physical Education in Trade Schools for Girls|journal=American Physical Education Review|volume=19|issue=2|pages=73–93|doi=10.1080/23267224.1914.10651377}} but she advised elsewhere that "the dance must not be taught as a species of athletic hygiene," but "for the sheer joy of doing, the joy of creation and expression."{{Cite journal|last=Beegle|first=Mary Porter|date=March 1916|title=Dancing and the Community Spirit|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NstBAQAAMAAJ&q=Mary+Porter+Beegle&pg=PA100|journal=The Newarker|volume=1|pages=100–101}}

At Barnard, she was also active in the school's Greek Games event, an annual celebration of Greek language and culture. She was involved in planning and staging pageants inspired by Greek dance and drama.{{Cite book|last=Simonson|first=Mary|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ecs4AAAAQBAJ&q=Mary%20Porter%20Beegle&pg=PA48|title=Body Knowledge: Performance, Intermediality, and American Entertainment at the Turn of the Twentieth Century|date=2013|publisher=OUP USA|isbn=978-0-19-989803-9|pages=48|language=en}} She chaired the festival committee{{Cite journal|date=March 1916|title=Mary Porter Beegle|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lbNAAAAAIAAJ&q=Mary%20Porter%20Beegle&pg=PA311|journal=The Theatre|volume=23|pages=136|last1=Rich|first1=Mabel Irene}} of the Drama League of America's New York chapter{{Cite news|date=1916-05-28|title=MISS BEEGLE MADE MASQUE A SUCCESS; Idea Originated with Barnard Teacher, Who Worked Hard to Carry It Out. SHE OVERCAME OBSTACLES Associates in Enterprise Call Her "Soul, Mind, and Heart" of the Whole Undertaking.|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1916/05/28/archives/miss-beegle-made-masque-a-success-idea-originated-with-barnard.html|access-date=2020-05-24|issn=0362-4331}} when it marked Shakespeare's tercentenary with an original production, Caliban by the Yellow Sands (1916), directed by Beegle.{{Cite book|last1=Drama League of America|url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001018456|title=The Shakespeare tercentenary. Suggestions for school and college celebrations of the tercentenary of Shakespeare's death in 1916|last2=Meyer|first2=Herman H. B.|last3=Bohn|first3=Wm. E.|last4=Hinman|first4=Mary Wood.|last5=Beegle|first5=Mary Porter|last6=Chubb|first6=Percival|date=1916|publisher=National Capital Press|location=Washington, D.C.}}{{Cite journal|last=Fitch|first=Clara|date=September 1916|title=The Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebration|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eNw9AQAAMAAJ&q=Mary%20Porter%20Beegle&pg=RA1-PA29|journal=Drama League Monthly|volume=1|pages=29}}{{Cite book|last=Rich|first=Mabel Irene|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lbNAAAAAIAAJ&q=Mary%20Porter%20Beegle&pg=PA311|title=A Study of the Types of Literature|date=1921|publisher=Century Company|pages=311|language=en}}

She co-authored a book, Community Drama and Pageantry (1916, with Jack Randall Crawford), outlining her work on outdoor pageants.{{Cite book|last1=Beegle|first1=Mary Porter|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lDU_AAAAYAAJ|title=Community Drama and Pageantry|last2=Crawford|first2=Jack Randall|date=1916|publisher=Yale University Press|language=en}} Also with Crawford, she wrote The Book of the Pageant of Elizabeth (1914). She spoke at a conference on pageantry in New York in 1914.{{Cite journal|date=May 1914|title=The New York Conference on Pageantry|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zotXJWznNUEC&q=Mary%20Porter%20Beegle&pg=PA17|journal=The Drama|volume=4|pages=313}} She created The Romance of Work (1914), featuring dances based on women's factory work,{{Cite book|last=Shales|first=Ezra|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pqYqD2imaWwC&q=Mary%20Porter%20Beegle&pg=PA237|title=Made in Newark: Cultivating Industrial Arts and Civic Identity in the Progressive Era|date=2010-06-30|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=978-0-8135-4992-7|pages=237|language=en}} and directed a similar dance component of a 1916 pageant in Newark.{{Cite journal|date=May 1916|title=Newark: Social Benefits of Making a Pageant|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tcliFsQXuQsC&q=Mary%20Porter%20Beegle&pg=PA597|journal=The American Review of Reviews|volume=53|pages=597|last1=Shaw|first1=Albert}} "Pageantry's whole point lies in the fact that it is not, and cannot be, the work of a single individual," she explained. "It is a co-operative art in which there is opportunity for all to share according to the measure of their time and skill."{{Cite book|last=Blair|first=Karen J.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wP5pq2aBYBAC&q=Mary+Porter+Beegle&pg=PA227|title=The Torchbearers: Women and Their Amateur Arts Associations in America, 1890-1930|date=1994-02-22|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-11253-8|pages=124|language=en}} Beegle was among the founders of Camp Fire Girls, an American youth organization.{{Cite book|last=Gulick|first=Luther|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FvqDbf4az0IC&q=Mary%20Porter%20Beegle&pg=PA2|title=Camp Fire Girls|date=2009|publisher=Applewood Books|isbn=978-1-4290-9103-9|language=en}}

From 1934 to 1939, she ran a community arts center, Waverly Terrace Auditorium, in Yonkers. She started working at the New School for Social Research in 1939, in various administrative roles, including Assistant Treasurer, Director of Promotion, and Director of Public Relations. She retired from the New School in the 1950s.

Beegle survived the sinking of the SS Andrea Doria in 1956, but lost much of her work, and her late husband's papers, in the accident. She sued the ship lines for $350,000 for the irretrievable losses.{{Cite news|date=1956-08-04|title=148 Off the Stockholm Sail Again for Sweden|pages=67|work=Daily News|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51965384/148-off-the-stockholm-sail-again-for/|access-date=2020-05-23|via=Newspapers.com}}

Beegle married Viennese architect and theatrical designer Joseph Urban in 1919, as his second wife.{{Cite news|last=Keir|first=Alissa|date=1932-01-23|title=Snapshots|pages=150|work=Daily News|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51963067/snapshotsalissa-keir/|access-date=2020-05-23|via=Newspapers.com}} She was widowed when he died in 1933.{{Cite news|date=1933-07-10|title=Urban, Stage Designer, Dead|pages=2|work=The Indiana Gazette|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51961982/urban-stage-designer-dead/|access-date=2020-05-23|via=Newspapers.com}} She and her step-daughter donated Joseph Urban's surviving papers to Columbia University. Some of her professional papers are in the archives of the New School for Social Research.{{Cite web|title=Mary Porter Beegle Urban|url=https://digitalarchives.library.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/people/id:3472|website=The New School Archives|access-date=2020-05-23}}

{{reflist}}

{{Subject bar|portal1=Biography}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beegle, Mary Porter}}

Category:1880s births

Category:1960s deaths

Category:Barnard College faculty

Category:American dancers

Category:People from Neptune Township, New Jersey

Category:Year of birth uncertain

Category:Year of death uncertain