Our Schools

Schools Under Pressure

Pictorial collage of Englewood Public School Buildings



A Walk About
The above photos were taken on a tour of the outside of Englewood's Public School Buildings. Since this tour I have been on the tours described in the articles of this blog. Quarles School is not included in the slide show, because I was walking. I was losing the light and it is uphill from where I live.

Dwight Morrow High School 1950
Dwight Morrow High School 2011

Janis E. Dismus Middle School

Dr. Leroy McCloud Elementary School

John Grieco Elementary School

Donald A. Quarles Early Childhood Center

80 years since the naming of Dwight Morrow High School for this man of vision. Dwight Whitney Morrow attended the public schools, graduated Amherst, Studied Law Columbia University, Law Practice NYC, lived in Englewood, Instrumental in prison reform, Champion of the working class, Ambassador to Mexico, celebrated mediator between nations, banker, Advisor to General Pershing, and the list goes on. His life is a fantastic and engaging read.
This is a call to service for Dwight Morrow High School Graduates! Roll up your sleeves and pitch in.  Help keep the spirit of Dwight W. Morrow High alive. Did you know that Dwight Whitney Morrow spear headed prison reform in the state of New Jersey? He and his wife had a pet peeve.  They were very OCD about BUDGET and spending money. Empty pockets brought the newlyweds to Englewood, NJ. The rents in NYC were too high for Dwight and his new bride. When he passed away October 5, 1931 he was worth more than 10 million dollars. Our Alma Mater bears this man's name for a lot of reasons. I'd say he was a bleeding heart liberal in a time when it was not fashionable.
Dwight’s people came to the American frontier from Ireland. They carved out a piece of land in Hancock County Va. As armies marched by to fight they farmed. James Elmore Morrow was a school teacher from a farming family. He had 8 children.  He and his family realized that Dwight, like his father before him, was not cut out for that life. They were poor people but they raised enough money to send him off to college when he was fifteen. Dwight worked his way through. The early Morrows were working class folk.
Why does Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood, New Jersey carry the name of Dwight W. Morrow?  (1873 – 1931)
Relevant Dates
Important Events in the a life of Dwight W. Morrow
1873  – Jan 11
Born in Huntington, West Virginia
1885 - 1887
Attended High School in Allegheny, Pennsylvania
1887 - 1891
Worked as Clerk and errand boy in a Pittsburgh coal company
1891 - 1895
Attended Amherst College, Amherst, MA
1895 – Jun 26
A. B. Amherst College, magna cum laude; Phi Beta Kappa; Beta Theta Pi; Literary Monthly; Hardy Prize Debate; Bond Prize (oration)
1895 - 1896
Worked as apprentice in Scandrett & Bartlett, a Pittsburgh law firm
1896 - 1899
Attended Columbia University Law School
1899 Jun
LL.B. Columbia University (Law School)
1898 Sep
Sworn in as Attorney at Law of Pennsylvania
1899 Jun
Sworn in as Attorney at Law of New York
1899-1914
Simpson, Thatcher & Bartlett, a New York law firm
1899-1905
Worked as clerk
1905 Jan 1
Made partner
1903 Jun 16
Married Elizabeth Reeve Cutter
1904 Mar 17
Elisabeth R. Morrow born
1906 Jun 22
Anne S. Morrow born
1908 Nov 28
Dwight W. Morrow, Jr. born
1913 Jun 27
Constance C. Morrow born
1914-1927
J.P. Morgan & Co.
1913 Dec 30
Invited to join banking firm
1914 Apr 15
Entered offices of J.P. Morgan & Co.
1914 Jul 1
Made Partner with J.P. Morgan & Co., New York; Drexel & Company, Philadelphia; Morgan Grenfell & Company, London; and Morgan, Harjes & Company, Paris
1916
Negotiated Anglo-French $500,000,000 loan
1921
Represented an international banking syndicate for $50,000,000 loan to the Cuban government
1927
Represented an international banking syndicate for $50,000,000 loan to the Cuban government
1927
Sep 30 Resigned from J.P. Morgan & Co.
1915
Sep 12 Met with Financial Commissions from Great Britain and France
1916 - 1931
Life Trustee of Amherst College
1920 Jun
Chairman of the Finance Committee
1920-1927
Chairman of the Executive Committee
1921
Chairman of the Centennial Committee
1925
Morrow Dormitory donated
1926 Dec 21
Offered Presidency of Amherst College
1917-1918
New Jersey Prison Inquiry Commission
1917 Jan 26
Appointed to the Prison Commission by Gov. Edge
1917 Jul 25
Named Chairman of the Prison Commission
1918 Mar 2
Member State Board of Charities and Corrections (successor to the Commission)
1918 Mar 20
Named Chairman of State Board of Charities and Corrections (Board later re-titled State Board of Control of Institutions and Agencies)
1919 Oct 26
Awarded medal by National Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor
1920 Mar 24
Resigned as Chairman of Commission on Prisons
1922 Mar 22
Resigned as member of the Board of inquiry of Prisons
1918
Director of the War Savings Commission of New Jersey Advisor to American Shipping Mission, Allied Maritime Transport Council (Imports Committee)
1919
Awarded Distinguished Service Medal by the United States \gov.  The Society of Free States published
1923
Anson Morse's Parties and Party Leaders published, introduction by Morrow
1925 – Sep, Nov
Chairman of the President's Aircraft Board
1926 Jan 19
Named Director of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics
1927-1930
Ambassador to Mexico
1927 Sep 20
Commissioned by President Coolidge as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Mexico
1930 Sep 30
Resigned as Ambassador to Mexico
1928 Jan
Delegate to Sixth International Convention of American States (Pan American Conference) in Havana, Cuba
1928 Jan
Regional Plan of New York and its Environs published
1930
London Naval Conference
1930 Apr
Treaty draft completed
1930-1931
U.S. Senator from New Jersey
1929 Dec 17
Filled appointment senatorial vacancy
1931 Mar 3
left by Walter E. Edge.
1930 Nov 4
Elected U.S. Senator from New Jersey for term commencing March 1931.
1931 Jul 20
Conference at White House on International Debts
Oct 5 - 1931
Died in his home, Englewood (NJ)   
Honorary Degrees

1920 Jun 16
LL.D  University of Rochester
1925 Jun 16
LL.D  Princeton University
1926 Jun 16
LL.D. University of Pennsylvania
1926 Jun 21
LL.D  Williams College
1927 Jun 22
LL.D  Yale University
1928 Jun 10
LL.D  Brown University
1928 Jun 22
LL.D  Harvard
1931 Jun 16
LL.D  Dartmouth College
1931 Jun 18
LL.D  Bowdin College

Decorations:
Distinguished Service Medal (USA)
Chevalier of the Legion of Honor (France)
Officer of the Crown of Italy
Chevalier of the Royal Battalion of George the First (Greece)
Board of Trustees/Directors Affiliations:
Amherst College
Bankers Trust Company
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Commonwealth Fund Corporation
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
Englewood Civic Association
General Electric Company
Hampton Institute
Institute of International Education
National Aeronautic Association [for New Jersey]
National Institute of Social Sciences
New Jersey Society of Sons of American Revolution
New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor
Palisades Trust & Guaranty Co.
Phi Beta Kappa
Russell Sage Foundation
Regional Plan of New York and its Environs
School of Public and International Affairs
Princeton University [Advisory Board]
Smithsonian Institution
Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey
Union Theological Seminary

Howland, Hewitt W, Dwight Whitney Morrow.  A Sketch In Admiration With an Introduction by Calvin Coolidge, The Century Company, 353 Fourth Avenue, New York 1930.
McBride, Mary Margaret, The Story of Dwight W. Morrow, Farrar & Rhinehart, Inc., On Murray Hill, New York, September 14, 1930.

Find more in his papers and letters donated to Amherst Archives http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/amherst/ma28_bioghist.html

Donald A. Quarles
On Oct. 1, 1953, he was appointed assistant secretary of defense (research and development). Selected jointly by the secretaries of defense and commerce to be the first chairman of the reorganized Air Navigation Development Board in January 1954. Two months later, the president appointed Quarles a member of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Quarles was given an interim appointment as secretary of the Air Force by President Eisenhower Aug. 11, 1955, sworn into office Aug. 15, 1955, and confirmed by the Senate Feb. 16, 1956. He died in Washington, D.C. in 1959.