Phoebe by Chris Bennett 1985

This sculpture of Phoebe Sudlow is made of reinforcement rod. It is a slightly larger than life figure. Sudlow, the first female superintendent in the United States lived in Davenport, near this middle school which is named after her. This work is the result of the Grounds Beautification Project sponsored by the school district, St. Ambrose College and the Quad City Art's Council. The artist, Chris Bennett, was in residence for three weeks. During this tiime, the students at Sudlow assisted him in creating his design. Bennett's home is in Fairfield, Iowa                   ---   http://www.qc-art.com/html/sudlow.html

Sudlow Middle School 1414 East Locust Street Davenport, Iowa 52803

It seems odd that a woman who can claim so many firsts, and who touched so many lives, should have a first name so constantly and consistently misspelled. According to her grandniece and namesake, who claims to have documents with full signatures as proof, ‘Phebe’ is correct, and ‘Phoebe’ is not. But her several local obituaries included the ‘o’, as do almost every one of her biographies, and even recent awards in her honor. Some confusion might be understandable; Miss Sudlow often used the simple (and possibly gender-obscuring) "P.W. Sudlow" for professional correspondence and even author credits, so many people apparently chose, and continue to choose, the more familiar spelling. However, the bronze marker at the Sudlow Intermediate School, which was presented on October 1, 1936, by the Hannah Caldwell Chapter of the D.A.R., and the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame (into which Miss Sudlow was inducted in 1993) correctly spell the unusual name of this exceptional woman. http://www.qcmemory.org/QCHistory/People/Sudlow/phebe_sudlow.htm

HISTORY OF DAVENPORT AND SCOTT COUNTY IOWA                                                         VOL. 1                                                           1910                                                 by Harry E. Downer                                   The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company                                                         Chicago Page 745 Club of Eight For sixteen years has the Club of Eighty-Nine flourished and the enthusiasm  that marked its early years has only increased as time rolled on.  Miss Phoebe Sudlow is founder of the organization which evolved from a reading circle of congenial women, a history class as it was styled in the beginning, into a full fledged study club that has some good meritorious work to show on its balance sheet for the years.  Its members have through its medium delved into Roman and Italian history, Latin literature, one year took a trip through Mexico, last year reviewed English literature and this year are enjoying a delightful study journey entitled "A Trip to Europe."  The various countries of the world and their literature have furnished them interesting topics for research and discussion.  Meetings are held bi-weekly at the homes of the members. Page 790 she is listed as a member of the library association and then further down the page is reads: Of the 100 ofr more women who labored for the success of the library during the period that it was under their exclusive management living today in Davenport are Miss Phoee Sudlow, Mrs. W. C. Wadsworth, Mrs. John C. Bills, Miss Alice French, Miss Ellen M. Gould and Mrs. W. F. Peck. Page 793 In the spring of 1892, Mr. F. H. Griggs, Mr. E. E. Cook, Mrs. W. C. Wadsworth and Mrs. W. F. Pck, all original appointees of Mrs. Cook, retired from the board od trustees, also Miss Phoebe Sudlow who had been elected to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Mrs. Goe. H. French. Page 933 lists Miss P. W. Sudlow, 1st Asst. Gram. Sch. No. 2 and Dist. Sch. No. 3.....$350 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [The top of the page tells of a book:] Volume No. I of the Iowa Instructor, an educational journal published by the  Iowa State Teachers' association in 1859 - Luse, Lane & Co. Page 939 tells of "The Training School" The principals of the Training school have been:  Mrs. M. A. McGonegal, 1863-1870; Miss Kate S. French, 1870-1872; Miss P. W. Sudlow, 1872-1874; Miss Belle S. Thompson, 1874-1892. This information was given  by: Debbie Clough G-erischer Roots Web Donor G-erischer Family Web Site  http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/ Assistant CC, Iowa Gen Web,  Scott County IASCOTT-L  - G-erischer-L - D-encker-L - Fitzpatrick-L V-lerebome-L  - Huntington-L - Otis-L - Algar-L EIGS-L, Eastern Iowa Genealogical Society - List Manager A special THANK YOU to the members of the Scott County, Iowa list (IASCOTT-l@Rootsweb.com) for finding all of this wonderful information

English at Iowa in the Nineteenth Century JOHN C From Books at Iowa 51 (November 1989) Copyright: The University of Iowa As early as 1875 the regents determined that the University  should have a "lady professor," but it was not until 1878 that  their search committee came up with a nominee: Phoebe Sudlow  of Davenport, Iowa. Although Sudlow had no academic degrees, she was apparently prepared to teach a number of subjects, and was appointed to the chair of English Language and Literature primarily because it was the first to become vacant. Her salary was set at $1700, standard for new professors. The same year, Grinnell awarded her an honorary M.A. As curious as her appointment in English seems to have been, Sudlow was by no means unequipped for the position. She had collaborated on a book on language and composition, had been principal of the Davenport Training School for Teachers, and in 1877 had served as president of the Iowa State Teachers' Association. With no assistants she single handedly had to carry the load in English literature, composition, rhetoric, oratory, and elocution. As with Pinkham, her health failed, and in 1881 she was forced to resign.. In 1888 she served as principal of Davenport School No. 1, where she had as a student John G. Bowman, later to be the ninth president of the university.   During Sudlow's tenure, President Christian W. Slagle divided the Collegiate Department into the School of Letters and the School of Science, believing that by formalizing the split between Hinrichs and his foes he might defang them all. (He didn't). English, of course, fell in the School of Letters. Sudlow continued most of the program Pinkham had started, though she gave greater emphasis to composition and dropped American literature altogether. With their stress on narration, description, and argumentation her composition courses anticipated those of a much later date. For sophomores she taught a philologically oriented course that attempted to include nothing less than the origin and growth of the language together with the "lives and literary labor of distinguished English authors from the earliest times to the present." For juniors she offered a course in Chaucer Spenser, Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, and others, which according to the catalog devoted considerable time to "'syntactical analysis, and to tracing words to their origin in the Anglo Saxon or other tongues." [7] Sudlow seemed to have gained the respect of her colleagues on the faculty and certainly maintained the work in English at a higher level than did her successor, Susan F. Smith.

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