2 Quotes & Sayings By Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

Ernestine was born Oct. 15, 1876, in Pennsylvania. Her father was a farmer and her mother was a seamstress and dressmaker. She had five brothers and sisters and four of them became school teachers Read more

Ernestine decided she wanted to be a teacher and began her college education at the age of fourteen. She graduated from the State Normal School in Reading, Pennsylvania, with a degree in elementary education. Ernestine married Adolph G. Carey who became an architect and contractor in Philadelphia.

They had one son named John Henry Carey who was born in 1907. John Henry Carey became an engineer and worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad for over twenty-five years. He helped to plan the construction of the new Pennsylvania Railroad Terminal in Philadelphia that opened in 1902 and is still one of the largest train stations in the world today. Ernestine worked as a schoolteacher until 1906 when she began teaching at Cooper Union Art School (now Cooper Union).

In 1912 she opened her own school for women called the Associated Instructional School (also known as the Institute) where she taught all age groups from 1st grade through adults until 1969 when she retired due to failing health. Ernestine was interested in art and sculpture from an early age and became an instructor at Vassar College's Summer Art School where she instructed sculptors such as William Zorach, Alice Neel, George Grosz, Kenneth Noland, Philip Evergood, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Marion Snyder, Gottlieb Kallman, David Smith, Marc Chagall, Isamu Noguchi, Lyle Wright, Joseph Cornell, Mark Rothko and Joan Mitchell among others. In 1913 Ernestine joined the board of directors for the National Association of Women Painters & Sculptors (NAWPS). She served on that board for twenty-five years beginning when it was founded by Alice Boughton under the name The Society of Women Painters & Sculptors. In 1936 she became President of NAWPS . In 1911 Ernestine won a competition sponsored by Thomas Edison to create a statue of him based on his likeness which stands today at West Orange High School in West Orange, New Jersey. In 1968 Ernestine suffered a stroke which left her paralyzed on one side of her body and confined to a wheelchair until 1971 when she moved into a nursing home where she lived until 1983 when she moved into an assisted living facility called "The House".

In 1991