Introducing Miss Snow and Mr. Froehlich

Inspired by the book, A Hundred Things a Girl Can Make (1922), I've done a little digging into the authors of the book, the times they lived in, and their importance to their field.

So, I’d like to introduce two people who have become quite special to me. Meet Miss Bonnie E. Snow and Mr. Hugo B. Froehlich, co-authors of The Textbooks of Art Education (1905), Art Education for High Schools (1908), The Progressive Drawing Book (1910), The Industrial Art Textbooks (1917), The Theory and Practice of Color (1918), and, of course, A Hundred Things a Girl Can Make. Their books laid the foundations for public school art education in the United States in the early decades of the 20th century.

Miss Snow grew up in Batavia, Illinois, where she also started her teaching career as a public-school art teacher. After a stint teaching art in Aurora, Illinois, she served as supervisor of art in the public schools of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

It was in Minneapolis that Snow gained a national reputation for her work, and she came to the attention of the Prang Educational Company, the leading publisher of art education textbooks. In 1903 Prang hired her as an editor, along with Mr. Froehlich, and their fruitful collaboration over the next two decades produced numerous books and articles.

However, by the early 1910s, Snow expressed her dissatisfaction with her field. “Something is wrong with our methods of teaching Art,” she concluded in “A Supervisor’s Confession.” “In making my course of study have I considered the citizen and his needs? I have not!”

“What shall I do with my course of study? First and foremost I believe it must be made to fit the needs of my community. The needs of my community are industrial needs, and therefore point to Industrial Art, which is based upon Design. Design is arrangement. That arrangement must be orderly and beautiful. In Design we deal with lines, shapes and colors. We work toward construction and decoration, rather than toward representation. Why then, begin with representation of the clover blossom or the seed pod? Why not begin with the simplest forms of arrangement and the definite study of color?” --From Industrial-Arts Magazine, Volume XIV, April, 1925, No. 4, p. 143.

Snow’s vision of art education is a departure from earlier times when only the upper class could expect to pursue training in art. And it’s certainly different from today’s perspective in which art is appreciated as a form of personal self-expression.

Snow was a product of the Progressive era. She firmly believed that art could help improve society. “I believe in the service of Art,” she wrote. “I know that all Art has relation to life, and I am convinced that The life of Art is to be found in service.”

Art was definitely put in service to society during the first World War (1914-1918; the United States entered the war in 1917). The United States mobilized an army of millions of American men, and civilians patriotically united to support the war effort. In classrooms across the country, schoolchildren knitted afghans; sewed clothes, bags, and other items for soldiers; constructed furniture for camps and hospitals; assembled and designed books for convalescing soldiers; and designed posters to promote War Gardens, Liberty Bonds, Red Cross drives, and military enlistment.

In “War-Time Activities in the Schools,” Snow and Froehlich encouraged wartime efforts but also advised art teachers to keep aesthetic issues a central part of their objectives:

“All articles made in the school must be well constructed, of suitable material, and as beautiful as it is possible for those articles to be. This applies to a loaf of bread, a hospital cot, a dress for a Belgian baby or a poster. While attempting to meet the demands of the time, the schools can render the highest kind of patriotic service by keeping ever in mind their right to educate. In our zeal to accomplish we have often forgotten to train taste, to cultivate judgment and to develop skill.” --From Industrial-Arts
Magazine, Vol. VII, October 1918, No. 10, p. 370

During her very full life, Snow was able to combine her teaching with her personal creative efforts. In 1915, Snow achieved her long-held dream of opening an art studio in her home. Perched on a hill in Millburn, New Jersey, and surrounded by gardens, the Snow Studio became a gathering place for friends and teachers. I can imagine it as an ideal spot, with its views stretching all the way across Newark Bay to the Atlantic Ocean.

During these years, Snow continued her public role promoting art education. She edited Everyday Art, a magazine for public school art teachers, and contributed articles to the Industrial-Arts Magazine, some of which were later incorporated into the Hundred Things book. In addition, Snow spent the winter months giving lectures and her summers teaching art teachers at the School of Industrial Art.

On January 9, 1925, Snow chaired a meeting of the Art Section of the New York Society for the Experimental Study of Education. That night, she died in her sleep, a peaceful end to a life in service to art and her community.

“If today the teaching of art in our schools has reality and purpose, if we recognize in our teaching that art is universal and has a universal appeal, if art’s message of beauty is going out through the children, not to the privileged few alone, but to every life, it is due, in very great measure, to the clear vision, the strong belief, the enthusiasm and unselfish devotion of Bonnie E. Snow.” --From Industrial-Arts Magazine, Vol. XIV, March 1925, No. 3, pg. 116.

Next post: Mr. Hugo B. Froehlich