User:Lastreett/Benet, laura

Laura Benét (June 13 1884 – February 17 1979) was a poet, author, and social worker. She wrote children's books, novels, and literary biographies, including two books on her brothers Stephen Vincent Benét and William Rose Benét

Biography
Laura Benét was born 13 June 1884 in Brooklyn, New York. She was a graduate of the Emma Willard School (1903) and Vassar College (1907).

Poet and essayist, Laura Benet was born in 1884, in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, NY, and died in 1979 in New York, NY. Benet employed herself as a social worker, newspaper editor, poet and author. The Benet family was a family of writers, most notably both her brothers, Stephen Vincent Benet and William Rose Benet. Benet worked as a settlement worker at the Spring Street Settlement in New York City, 1915-1917; as a placement worker at the Children's Aid Society, New York City; a sanitary inspector for the American Red Cross, Augusta, Georgia, 1917-19; a secretary and assistant book page editor at the New York Evening Post; an editor at the New York Sun; as a book review editor's assistant and book review substitute at the New York Times; and as a free-lance writer from 1930 until her death. Titles by Laura Benet include: Fairy Bread (poems), 1921; Noah's Dove (poems), 1929; Goods and Chattels (fiction), 1930; A Basket For A Fair (poems), 1934; The Boy Shelley (biography), 1937; The Hidden Valley (fiction), 1938; Enchanting Jenny Lind (biography), 1939; Roxana Rampant (fiction), 1940; Young Edgar Allen Poe (biography), 1941; Come Slowly, Eden: A Novel About Emily Dickinson, 1942; Caleb's Luck (for children), 1942; Washington Irving, Explorer of American Legend, 1944; Is Morning Sure (poems), 1947; Thackeray of the Great Heart and Humorous Pen (biography), 1947; Barnum's First Circus and Other Stories (for children), 1949; Famous American Poets, 1950; Coleridge, Poet of Wild Enchantment, 1952; Stanley, Invincible Explorer (biography), 1955; Famous American Humorists, 1959; In Love With Time (poems), 1959; Horseshoe Nails, 1965; Famous Poets for Young People, 1964; Famous English and American Essayists, 1966; Famous Storytellers, 1968; Famous New England Poets, 1970; Introductions To Classics, Verse to Periodicals. Benet graduated from the Emma Willard School, Troy, New York; received a B.A. degree from Vassar College, 1907; Doctor of Letters degree from Moravian College, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

just four years before the institution, sometimes touted as the first University in the United States exclusively for women, was closed due to financial problems. The next year she attended the first class in athletics for women at Harvard Summer School. After studying in Europe, and graduating from the Sargent School of Physical Training in Cambridge, Massachusetts, she returned briefly to Ingham as a teacher. She also taught at Lasell Seminary. In 1891, she moved on to Vassar College where she was first appointed Director of the Gymnasium, and was later named assistant professor. She taught in the Department of Physical Education until her retirement in 1930. Ballintine was responsible for organizing the first collegiate track and field event for women (1895) and also established field hockey not only at Vassar but made it an acceptable sport for women at several institutions in the Northeast.

Ballintine served as an instructor at the Harvard Summer School in 1901 and 1902. It was there in 1901 that she met Constance Applebee and invited the Englishwoman to demonstrate field hockey at Vassar. Later that year, Ballintine and Applebee helped to found the American Field Hockey Association, which governed the sport in the United States for 20 years.

In 1933, the trustees of Vassar College named the campus hockey field and the adjoining road Ballintine Field and Ballintine Road, respectively, after her.

Writings

 * "The Value of Athletics to College Girls," American Physical Education Review 6 (June 1901): 151-153.