Dora Erway
Dora Wetherbee Erway was an artist and home economist on the faculty of Cornell University from 1921 to 1958. She is best remembered today for the Dora Erway Doll Collection, a set of 37 dolls in elaborate historical costumes, made by her students in the 1920s.
Early life and education
Dora Ella Wetherbee was born and raised in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, the daughter of Vernon Wetherbee and Iola E. Wetherbee. Her father was a contractor. Her parents divorced in 1894.She graduated from Massachusetts Normal Art School in 1912, and attended summer programs at the Commonwealth Art Colony in Boothbay Harbor, Maine for several years. She traveled widely and made further studies as possible, ranging freely across disciplines and institutions. Her art teachers included Cyrus Edwin Dallin and Albert Henry Munsell.
Career
Erway taught art at the high school and college level as a young woman. She was a professor of color and design in the College of Home Economics at Cornell from 1921 to 1958. She was acting head of the Household Art Department in 1944 and 1945. She served on the advisory board of the Journal of Home Economics, and chaired a national committee of the American Home Economics Association. She lectured on textile history and other subjects to community groups.She spent much of a sabbatical year in 1955 in South America, studying "Inca civilization and culture." She also made wood carvings, and painted in watercolors and oils, and exhibited her paintings and carvings in several gallery shows, including a one-woman show in New York City.