Plummer, Gail

Maud May Babcock (1867-1954) was Utah's first lady of the theater and of physical education. She founded the University of Utah departments of speech and of physical education, and during her lifetime she personally produced more than 300 plays.

Babcock was born in East Worchester, New York. She received a BA degree from Wells College and a Bachelor of Elocution degree from the National School of Oratory of Philadelphia. She also studied at the Lyceum School of Acting (now the American Academy of Dramatic Arts) in New York, at the University of Chicago, and also for two years in London and Paris. After beginning her career teaching at Ingleside School for Girls in Connecticut, she moved on to Rutgers College and New York public schools before coming to Utah in 1892 at the invitation of Susa Young Gates. Gates had attended one of Babcock's summer classes at Harvard and she persuaded her to come to Utah as a professor of oratory and speech at the Social Hall.

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