Charlotte Partridge
Charlotte Partridge was an artist, arts educator, and community organizer. She was the co-founder and director of the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from 1920 to 1954, with her life partner Miriam Frink. They were credited with having developed a nationally accredited art school. Partridge also served as state chair and director of Wisconsin's Works Projects Administration, and published a national survey of art institutions and contemporary art for the Federal Works Agency in 1940. She received many awards recognizing her contributions to "the cause of art".
Life and career
1882–1919: Early life and education
Partridge was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on November 24, 1882 to Frederick and Carrie Partridge. Partridge spent her childhood in Duluth, MN. She was enrolled in Dana Hall, a preparatory school in Massachusetts paid for by her mother's wealthy brother, and returned home after her father's death. Her mother, sister and brother relocated to Illinois where her mother later remarried. Partridge graduated from the Northern Illinois State Normal School in 1905 and taught second grade at the Whittier School in Oak Park, IL. In 1910, she enrolled in Emma Church's Chicago School of Applied and Normal Art and received her diploma in 1912 for a two-year course in normal art. Partridge taught at the Church School of Art one year after receiving her diploma and also taught at the Francis Parker School in Chicago and the Chicago Kindergarten College. During this time, Partridge also had a studio where she devoted herself to design work, freelanced as a commercial artist, and studied painting at the traditional Chicago Art Institute night school. In 1914 she joined the Fine Arts Department faculty at the Milwaukee Downer College and later became head of the Fine Arts Department where she initiated one of the first occupational therapy courses in the country, and remained on staff there through 1922. Partridge taught art as self-expression, a new concept in art education at the time. She also taught summers at Commonwealth School of Art and Industry in Boothbay Harbor, Maine until 1916 with her mentor and former teacher, Miss Emma M. Church. In 1915 Partridge met her life partner Miriam Frink who had returned to Downer College to teach freshman English.1933–1940: Works Projects Administration (WPA) and Federal Art Project (FAP)
The Works Projects Administration (WPA) was a public program that included funding for arts with the purpose to provide employment for American's during the depression. One of the WPA projects was Federal Project Number One, under this umbrella were five additional programs focusing on different areas in the arts including the Federal Art Project. The FAP was federally funded in Wisconsin from 1935 to 1939, when it became state funded and was renamed the Wisconsin WPA Art Program. One of the public works projects active in Wisconsin under the WPA that interacted with the local FAP chapter was the Milwaukee Handicrafts Project that was praised by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who visited in 1936, writing about her experiences in her newspaper column, "My Day": "I have just come back from one of the most interesting mornings I have ever spent. Milwaukee has a handicraft project for unskilled women which gives one a perfect thrill. They are doing artistic work under most able teachers", Roosevelt wrote.From 1933 to 1934, Partridge served as the Wisconsin State Chair for the Federal Art Project. In 1935 she was appointed director of the Wisconsin Federal Art Project and held that position until 1939. In 1940, Partridge produced a Federal Works Agency report that surveyed art institutions and contemporary art in the United States.
1955–1975: Clubs, organizations, awards and retirement
Partridge was involved in numerous clubs and organizations over the course of her life including; a member and the first president of Wisconsin Designer Craftsmen, American Institute of Architects, Delta Kappa Gamma, the College Arts Association, Wisconsin Painters and Sculptors, president of the Women's Club of Wisconsin, and member and president of the Zona club. Partridge was awarded a distinguished service award by the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, who cited her for "a lifetime of activity in promoting the cause of art".Partridge and Frink were honored by the Milwaukee Common Council for having built an "art school nationally accredited and recognized for the excellence of its work" and The Layton Art League established the "Charlotte Partridge-Miriam Frink Scholarship" awarding $500 annually to a Layton School of Art student of merit. She received the Wisconsin governor's award for "individual support of the arts" and an honorary PhD of Fine Arts from Lawrence University in 1969. University President Thomas S. Smith called her contributions farsighted, even prophetic, "beyond the field of art into industry and the general cultural and social life of the state".
In the early 1950s Partridge pitched a proposal to her fellow Zonta Club members for housing middle-income elderly women in independent living rental apartments called Zonta Manor. As president of the Zonta Service Committee, she led the Zonta Manor project working with architects Willis and Lillian Leenhouts. From 1957 to 1965 Partridge served as president of Zonta Manor Inc. In 1967 the Zonta Manor ran into financial difficulty and ownership transferred to the American Baptist Management Corporation which carried on its original purpose. Partridge was a board member of the Walnut Area Improvement Council, a grassroots organization made up of local Black residents working to improve their neighborhood. She did "whatever was asked of her" which included guiding the group in parliamentary procedure and recruiting artists to teach at the community house. Partridge was also an advocate of community gardens as a community organizing tool in order to inspire what was later named "Operation Green".
Personal life
Partridge met fellow teacher Miriam Frink at Downer College in 1915. Frink was born on August 4, 1892, in Elkhart, Indiana, and had joined the school's faculty a year prior. In 1920, they jointly opened the Layton School of Art and became co-directors of the school while continuing to teach at Downer until 1922. They co-directed the Layton School of Art for 34 years. Partridge once said: "Miss Frink is the head and I am the feet of the school."In 1930, Partridge and Frink built a studio summer cottage in Fox Point, designed by Partridge, where they wrote their initials in wet cement of the fireplace. The couple, however, lived most of their lives in a home designed by architect Harry William Bogner in 1938 according to sketches drawn by Partridge. In 1973, Partridge entered the Mequon Care Center. After her death on February 25, 1975, at the age of 92, Frink continued to work with her niece Susie Habenicht to write a history of the Layton School of Art, though it was never published. Frink moved out of the couple's home to live in the Mequon Care Center in 1977. She died on August 23 of that year, at the age of 85.