Isabel Mary Skolfield Whittier was born in Brunswick, Maine to Frank and Eugenie Harward Skolfield Whittier on April 10, 1986. Mr. Whittier was a distinguished professor of bacteriology at Bowdoin College. Isabel Whittier received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Bryn Mawr Collge in 1920. She then attended the University of Pennsylvania and received her Masters degree in 1922. Her post-graduate work was done at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University where she started work on her Ph. D., Wisconsin University, and at Oxford University in England. She taught English and History in two high schools, Hazelton and Glen Nor, at one junior college, Chevy Chase, between the years 1922 and 1929. In 1929 she began teaching History at Hunter College in New York City. Miss. Whittier was transferred to Brooklyn College when it was founded in 1930. Between October 1939 and March 1940, the Board of Higher Education for the City of New York held hearings to determine her competency as a History instructor. The committee of three that the Board of Higher Education elected found her to be incompetent and dismissed her on June 24, 1940. On July 23, 1940 Miss. Whittier appealed her case to the Chairman of the Board, Mr. Ernest E. Cole, with the intention of being reinstated. Before Mr. Cole was given opporunity to render his decision, the committee attempted to block hearing in the case. The case of the Committee vs. the Chairman then went to the State Supreme Court on March 13, 1941, where the committee lost. On June 20, 1942 Chairman Cole reinstated Miss. Whittier. Mr. Whittier continued as history instructor at Brooklyn College while also writing children's books and travel lore. She contributed to many journals mostly writing essays on early Protestant sects, and articles for Forward, the Presbyterian Sunday School paper. After teaching at Brooklyn Collge for thirty three years, Miss. Whittier retired on February 19, 1963.
From the description of The Isabel M.S. Whittier Trial Papers ; 1939-1942. (Brooklyn College). WorldCat record id: 424644585
