Edith Jordan Gardner

Edith Monica Jordan was born on February 17, 1877, in Indianapolis, Indiana, the daughter of Dr. David Starr Jordan (1851–1931) and Susan Bowen (1845–1885). Her father was an ichthyologist and the first president of Stanford University. She grew up mostly in Indiana, spending her first two years of life in Indianapolis while her father served as professor of natural history at North Western Christian University (which later became Butler University). In 1879, she moved to Bloomington when her father was first appointed professor of zoology and later president of Indiana University. Her mother died when she was eight. At the age of 14, she left Indiana for California when her father was appointed president of Stanford University in 1891. At the age of 16, she enrolled at Stanford as a freshman and joined the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority in 1893. In 1896, she was elected second vice-president of her senior class at Stanford University and graduated in 1897 at the age of 20 with a degree in history. She then obtained a master's degree at Cornell University in 1901. When her father had to return to California in September 1905, Edith Jordan remained in London, intending to travel to Italy and return in December 1905. In 1907, she acted as representative of Stanford University during official university events: that June, she presented the championship banner and the Stanford Cup to the Anaheim High School. ==Career==

Educator and education activist Gardner began her professional life as high school teacher of history and drew from personal experiences to make her lessons appealing. As an history teacher, she mixed archeology, art, architecture and travel to her lessons to make them more alive and interesting: Her pupils found her teaching so effective that they cited her words instead of those of textbooks during examinations. Early in her career, she taught at the Marlborough Preparatory School in Los Angeles and was a mathematics teacher at the Salinas High School. From 1909 to 1915, Jordan was the head of the History Department at the Los Angeles Polytechnic High School, She was one of the school's most prominent teachers and was also in charge of the visitors' day at the school. As early as 1902, she was also interested in shaping the education system within the state of California. As a young school teacher at Salinas High School in 1902, she presented a paper, "The History Note Book", at a statewide meeting of the California Teachers Association condemning the use of the controversial "note-book system" in high schools as it pertained as an entrance requirement to Stanford University. Jordan claimed the notebook added interest to textbook work, but it was sometimes overestimated as a requirement for entrance to universities. In the 1910s, she was a member of the executive committee of the High School Teachers' Association and hosted its meetings at her own residence. In 1914, she was elected president of the Southern California Social Science Association. After she retired, she remained involved with the American Historical Association, like when, in 1917, she opened the College Teachers' session with the essay: "The relation between high-school history and freshman history." Other activism In November 1913, she undertook a one-month trip in Egypt, following the Nile, with Benjamin Ide Wheeler, president of the University of California, and his wife. She then continued alone to India, and then, with another teacher at Poly, Mary Putnam, they visited Montenegro, the then Federated Malay States, and Kuala Lumpur (where no American woman had been before them) and returned to the United States in February 1914. Once home, she gave a highly appreciated talk on the meaning of the flag to an American abroad during the George Washington's birthday celebrations. In November 1914, she was among the "prominent and active" women who hosted Lou Henry Hoover while she campaigned for work relief toward the Belgian population at the California Club; Jordan said of Hoover: "She is the most capable woman alive." She was the chairman of the Department of Legislation Oakland Forum and a member of the Oakland Forum of the League of Women Voters. To attend suffrage meetings that were held regularly in Berkeley, she had to travel approximately 370 miles in each direction by steam-powered railroad from her home in Los Angeles. She was the president of the Town and Gown Club, In 1907, Jordan became involved in environmental preservation as one of the earliest members of the Sierra Club and by promoting natural walks to her students. Gardner was also a member of the Berkeley City Club, Oakland Club, Friday Morning Club, College Woman's Club of Los Angeles, on the board of directors of the Stanford Club of the Eastbay, and president of the Cornell Women's Club of Northern California and of the Stanford Woman's Club. In 1920, she was among the supporters of Herbert Hoover as a member of the Berkeley Hoover Republican Club. In 1928, she was included in the book Women of the West; a series of biographical sketches of living eminent women in the eleven western states of the United States of America, showcasing the few hundreds women that in the 1920s were prominent in frontier lands. In 1940, she spoke in front of the Lake Arrowhead Women's Club on her traveling experience on Balkan countries, the then Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania. This talk covered tourist topics and social issues. Her 1961 unpublished manuscript, "The days of Edith Jordan Gardner", is preserved at the Stanford University Archives and is used are reference material by other authors, like Harriet Kofalk for "No woman tenderfoot: Florence Merriam Bailey, pioneer naturalist". Being one of the last surviving persons who were present at Stanford University inauguration in 1891, in 1962 she was included in the essay "Stanford Mosaic", edited by Edith R. Mirrielees, collecting memoirs of people attending Stanford. ==Personal life==

Edith Jordan Gardner moved to Stanford, California, when her father was appointed president of Stanford University in 1891 and stayed with her parents until she had graduated from Stanford in 1897 and later moved to Los Angeles for a teaching position. They met when both were students at Stanford. Both were well known in Los Angeles society. The engagement came as a surprise to their friends. Three weeks after the engagement was announced, Berwick was discovered dead of apparent natural causes in his parents' home in Pacific Grove, California, at the age of 34. Due to a winter storm that made roads impassable near Santa Barbara, both Edith Jordan and her father became stuck in transit and missed Berwick's funeral. She had a summer house at Carmel-by-the-sea. In 1915, she married Nathaniel Lyon Gardner (1864–1937), professor of botany at the University of California in Berkeley, California, and curator of the university herbarium. As botanist, he identified the Pacific marine algae. They met when Gardner was head of the department of biology at the Los Angeles Polytechnic High School while Jordan was head of the history department. They lived at 2901 Hillegass Avenue, Berkeley. She died on June 16, 1965, in a convalescent home in Redwood City, California. ==External links==