Ariel Dougherty

Ariel Maria Dougherty was born May 21, 1947, in Danbury, Connecticut, to Frazer and Page Huidekoper Dougherty. Frazer Dougherty was a pilot in the South Pacific during World War II; after the war he was a test pilot for a company attempting to build an automobile-airplane, the Airphibian. It's maiden flight was the day of Ariel's birth. Page Huidekoper was a secretary to British Ambassador Joseph Kennedy before the war; she later worked as a photographer, a society and political columnist, and for liberal political organizations, including Americans for Democratic Action. The family had four children (Ariel's older brothers Frazer and Rush, and her younger sister Page Independence) and lived in Sierra Madre, California, in the early 1950s. Frazer and Page Dougherty separated in 1957 and Page moved with the children to Washington, D.C.; the divorce was finalized in March 1958. Later that same year Page married Thomas Wilson, a diplomat. Frazer Dougherty married Frances Ann Cannon and lived in New York City, with a second home in East Hampton, New York. Ariel attended Georgetown Day School, then went to Washington, D.C., public schools Gordon Junior High and Western High School. From 1962 to 1964, while in high school, she was a member of High School Students for Better Education, a student-run organization that lobbied the U.S. Congress for more money for the Washington, D.C., public school system. During 1964 and 1965, Ariel lived in Indonesia with an American family stationed at the U.S. Embassy. She completed high school by taking correspondence courses, and returned to Washington, D.C., to graduate with her classmates in June 1965.

With thoughts of becoming an artist, Dougherty enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College in the fall of 1965. She continued to study art, but became more interested in film after taking the college's first film course and teaching filmmaking to children in Bronxville, New York, during 1968 and 1969. Upon graduating from Sarah Lawrence in 1969, Dougherty moved to New York City, where she continued to teach filmmaking skills: to high school students in Queens (1969-1970), to Chinese immigrant elementary school students (1970-1971), and to teachers and high school students through the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1971-1972). She also made her first film, Sweet Bananas, in 1972. In 1973 she taught film to women inmates at the Bedford Hills prison in Mt. Kisco, New York. In addition, Dougherty taught film production to women through Women Make Movies, an organization she co-founded. During this period, Dougherty met other young people who taught film skills in community settings, including Jamie Barrios, with whom she lived beginning in 1969. He was a founder of Young Filmmakers Foundation, through which Dougherty met Sheila Paige.

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