Happy Birthday, Mrs. Hackley!
Every year on October 27th, the Hackley Community gives a great big Happy Birthday Hurrah! to our founder, Frances Hackley, who was born on that day in 1820. The tradition of Founder's Day began in 1911 on the occasion of her 91st birthday. These days, we celebrate with a Hackley Spirit K-12 Dress Down Day...and birthday cake! Click headline to read on for details.
Legend has it that Mrs. Hackley personally chose the colors, Black & Grey, for Hackley School upon visiting the opening of the Armory Exhibit at the Metropolitan Musuem, where she appreciated the "Black & Steel" armor of Edward, the Black Prince. While we suspect Mrs. Hackley, a proper Victorian matron, would not fully approve of the way we celebrate her birthday today, we like to think she'd appreciate the spirit behind the remembrance.
Friday, October 27th, therefore, is a Hackley Spirit Dress Down Day, K-12. Students are encouraged to don their Black & Grey in her honor.
Mrs. Hackley founded Hackley School in 1899 and for many years kept an apartment on the second floor of original Quad buildings, above what is now the Lindsay Room. A wealthy widow and prominent philanthropist of the time, evidence suggests that she was inspired to found the school by her friend and neighbor at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, Maria Hotchkiss, who had recently founded Hotchkiss School. She was also a founding benefactor of Barnard College, was a regular donor to Booker T. Washington and Tuskegee Institute and other black schools in the south, and supported vocational training schools and urban kindergarten programs. Her New York Times obituary in 1913 described her as "one of the best known philanthropists in the country."
Cheers to our founder!
Hackley School
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