The Allegheny Preparatory School: School Year 1904-1905

Pittsburgh: Allegeny Preparatory School, 1904. Paperback. 8 x 7 inches, wraps, bound with red cord, very good, 36 unnumbered pages, signed on cover by Jean Thoburn, a junior at the time, and with a few notations by her in pencil. With history of the school, description of it, course guide, curriculum, list of faculty and students of each grade, etc., with frontispiece of the school building and picture of the gymnasium. The school was founded in 1898 by 25 prominent citizens, some of the First Families of Pittsburgh at the time: Scaife, Harmar Denny, Dalzell, Rea, Darlington, Moorhead, Atwood, Walton, B. F. Jones, et al. From the list of students, it is clear this served as a prep school for children and grandchildren of those families as well. The building was rather small and it was rare that each grade had more than fifteen students. By 1911, competition from other schools as well as the restrictions of its size, forced the school into debt, and by 1917 it had closed altogether, for lack of funding. Included is a clipping from a 1904 newspaper "Society Folk Represent Old Masterpieces" in which the Ladies' Aid society for Homeopathic Hospitals put on a benefit in which women posed as figures from well known paintings. Ruth Thoburn was among the participants. Very Good. Item #H15027

Price: $75.00