815 North Broadway
Saratoga Springs,
New York, 12866
SKIDMORE PHONE
518-580-5000
The Skidmore School of Arts
Lucy Scribner was fifty at the time she began the Young Women’s Industrial Club. ...
In early 1910, facing imminent blindness, she went
abroad for a lengthy stay to consult specialists in Germany. On her return to Saratoga,
her eye troubles at least temporarily arrested, she began to plan a significant expansion
of the work of the club. What had been a sort of settlement house now became a self-supporting
school of industrial arts, including domestic art, domestic science, music, and
commercial business.
In her memoir, Mrs. Scribner said she was often asked whether it
had always been her intention to take this path. Her answer was that it was not and that
she had thought only of "bettering present conditions" but was fortunate in "having
among her staff of workers women of broader ideas."
What Lucy Scribner now faced was not so much a step into independent action as
a leap into the unknown. She did not need to take such a leap. Having established the
Young Women's Industrial Club to give social service and uplift but feeling unqualified to provide leadership in
education, she might well have refused. To her credit, she did not—any more than she
had refused those challenges that had come earlier in her life. But she did reject the
board’s suggestion that the new institution take her name. This, she felt, would bring her
forward "in a way which she had always shunned." Instead, she agreed that it should be
named for her father and stepmother.
But whatever it was called, a school of arts succeeded
the YWIC. Once again, supported by her deep religious faith, Lucy Scribner
came to terms with change. As her memoir explained: "Her chief advisor was not of this
earth. To Him she brought every problem, every new step to be taken... . She did not
always get her answer for some time but she did obtain it and having been convinced that
she had obtained it she pursued that course without question."
The Skidmore School of Arts was chartered in August 1911, and classes began that
September. The New York State Regents gave provisional authorization for the new institution
to operate "as a school of domestic arts and sciences and self-helpful occupations,
of music in all its branches, and of such fine arts as ... [the] trustees shall from time
to time decide to have included in its curriculum." It could prepare students to teach at
the elementary, secondary, and undergraduate college level, was listed among recognized
state technical schools, and could qualify graduates for state positions.
