Katharine Elizabeth McBride
Katharine Elizabeth McBride (1904- 1976) (President, 1942-1970)
Robert Brackman, 1950
Oil on canvas, 167.64 x 127 cm
1950.47
The fourth president of Bryn Mawr College, Katharine McBride (AB 1925, PhD 1932) was the second alumna to become President. Under her leadership, the size of the College and its curriculum increased dramatically at both graduate and undergraduate levels. Trained as a psychologist, McBride’s passion for research guided her lifelong scholarship in the field of education. Some students confessed feeling intimidated and alienated by this distant, “totally career-oriented academic woman” who sometimes appeared more willing to address national issues than those at the College. Others saw the “infinite care and concern for the individual” that led McBride to establish the Child Study Institute and challenge political injustice. McBride’s commitment to individual and academic freedoms motivated her protection of student rights even when it meant losing federal aid, which happened twice during her presidency: the first time in rejection of McCarthy-era legislation, and the second as a refusal to inform on student protests during the Vietnam War. McBride raised the funds to replace the lost financial aid.
Although the artist Robert Brackman replicates Sargent’s full-portrait composition in its pose-- seating this president in the same ¾ view as M. Carey Thomas-- the difference in their portrayals could not be more different. By shifting McBride’s gaze away from the viewer, he paints her introspection in this austere and unassuming portrait. In contrast to the tense grip of Thomas’ hand, McBride gestures gently toward her diploma and doctoral hood, the iconography of her scholarly identity. Brackman adopts the conventions for portraying female presidents established by Sargent, yet retains McBride’s individualism.
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