Margaret Booth, intellectual and cultural mentor for the Montgomery
area for almost forty years, is remembered for the advances she made in
education for women. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, on September 21, 1880, she
was educated in Montgomery public schools and at Agnes Scott Institute, which
was said to have received college status on the basis of her College Board
score. Later, she became the first Alabamian enrolled at Mt. Holyoke College in
South Hadley, Massachusetts. However, when her father died in 1901, Margaret
withdrew and returned to teach. At age twenty, she became the first principal
of the newly established Demopolis High School. She also founded the Demopolis
Public Library with the donation of a single volume. When she relinquished the
project five years later, there were 2,500 carefully selected volumes in the
collection. Later she taught English and Latin at Sidney Lanier High School in
Montgomery.
In 1914, Miss Booth established the Margaret Booth School,
a college preparatory school for girls, in her own home. In the Margaret Booth
School Bulletin (1914-1915), Miss Booth stated, "It is my hope to be the
instrument in the hand of Providence of founding an institution which shall
accomplish for young women in Alabama what our college preparatory schools are
accomplishing for boys." The success of Miss Margaret's school is well
documented by the number of students who attended Eastern colleges. During the
first year of operation, Wellesley, Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Agnes Scott
certified her school for admission of college preparatory graduates without
taking the College Boards; by 1916 the list included Vassar and Goucher. Highly
regarded for her lectures on the history of painting and art, she conducted
annual tours to Europe and other countries. It was on one such tour that she
died in London on August 14, 1953.
An imposing woman with a commanding presence, Margaret Booth possessed a
cultivated mind, a strong character, and a kind heart. She sought to prepare
young women not only for college, but for life.
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