Clementina D. Griffin

American educator (1886–1980)

Clementina D. Griffin

Clementina Griffin, from a 1907 newspaper.

Born|

Clementina de Forest Griffin

(1886-09-07)September 7, 1886

Los Angeles, California, US

Died| April 1, 1980(1980-04-01) (aged 93)

Santa Ana, California

Resting place| San Gabriel Mission Cemetery
Alma mater| Vassar College (A.B.)
University of Southern California (M.A.)
Occupation(s)| Educator, school administrator
Relatives| Zebulon Butler (great-great-grandfather)
Mack Stengler (brother-in-law)
Bebe Daniels (niece)

Clementina de Forest Griffin (September 7, 1886 – April 1, 1980) was an American educator, school administrator, and aeronautical enthusiast based in Los Angeles. She took an active interest in aviation, aeronautics, and astronomy.

## Early life

[edit]

Clementina Griffin was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of George Butler Griffin and Eva Guadalupe de la Plaza Griffin. Her mother and at least two of her older sisters were born in Colombia. Her father, a lawyer, civil engineer, writer, diplomat, and great-grandson of Zebulon Butler, died in 1895.[1][2][3][4]

Griffin attended Los Angeles High School, where she was captain of the girls' basketball team,[5][6] and graduated from Vassar College in 1909.[7] She was a member of Vassar's hockey and basketball teams, and president of the Vassar Athletic Association.[8] She earned a master's degree at the University of Southern California, with a thesis titled "Poverty Among the Mexicans in Los Angeles."[9][10]

In 1938, she received a second Master of Arts degree in sociology from the University of Southern California for her thesis A sociological study of fifty-two senior boys: The products of a junior-senior high school, while working at Narbonne High School.[11]

Actress Bebe Daniels was Griffin's niece. Cinematographer Mack Stengler was her brother-in-law.[1][12]

## Career

[edit]

### Education

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Griffin was a settlement worker at the Brownson House Settlement in Los Angeles in the 1910s, starting and supervising clubs for women, boys, and girls.[13][14] In 1920, she wrote about Catholic welfare work with immigrants in Los Angeles, including medical and psychological examinations, for the National Catholic War Council Bulletin.[15]

From 1925[16][17] to 1938,[18] Griffin was the inaugural principal of Narbonne High School in Lomita.[19][20][21] In 1938 and 1939, she was principal at Venice High School. In 1941, Griffin was principal at Canoga Park High School.[22] In 1942, she sued the city school board because she was demoted from principal to teacher, with the corresponding decrease in salary.[23][24][25]

Griffin also ran the Foothill School for Girls, an outdoor school based in La Cañada, with her Vassar classmate Ellinor Dewey.[9][26] She was active in the Women's University Club in Los Angeles.[27] As the chairperson of the legislative committee of the Los Angeles branch of the American Association of University Women, Griffin protest the fact that the Los Angeles Municipal Courts prohibited women from taking the examination that would allow them to become court clerks.[28]

### Astronomy, aviation and aeronautics

[edit]

Griffin had an abiding interest in astronomy and aeronautics. In 1910, she was one of a small group of women who attended the fourth conference of the International Union for Cooperation in Solar Research, held at Mount Wilson Observatory (she was listed as being affiliated with Mount Wilson, and may have been a computer, as the other women were at the time).[29]

In 1935, to better acquaint herself with the growing field of aircraft mechanics, she spent her summer vacation taking a six-week course at Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute, the only woman in her class. "I want to be able to answer intelligently when the boys and girls ask me about preparing to enter aeronautics," she explained.[30] She learned to fly a plane the following year, at age 50, "just because I wanted to."[31] In 1941, she described her first parachute jump for the Venice High School yearbook.[9] In 1950, she was president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Women's International Association of Aeronautics.[32][33][34] To preserve the history of women in aviation during the early and middle twentieth century, Griffin donate the records of the Women's International Association of Aeronautics records (1920-1958) to the University of California in 1965.[35] Griffin contributed articles for the National Aeronautical Association Magazine.[36]

## Personal life

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Griffin lived in Hermosa Beach and later in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles with her mother and sisters.[37] She sold that house in the 1960s[9] and died in 1980 in Santa Ana, aged 93 years.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b Epting, Charles L. (2016-08-23). Bebe Daniels: Hollywood's Good Little Bad Girl. McFarland. pp. 9–12\. ISBN 978-1-4766-6374-6 - via Google Books.
2. ^ "Bebe Daniels' Grandmother Passes at 89". The Los Angeles Times. 1943-11-20. p. 6\. ProQuest 165473576. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
3. ^ de Forest Griffin, Clementina (1929-01-01). "A Sketch of the Life of George Butler Griffin". Annual Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California. 14 (2): 208–213\. doi:10.2307/41168836. ISSN 2162-9145. JSTOR 41168836. (Alternate link via Archive.org)
4. ^ "COL. GEORGE BUTLER GRIFFIN". Los Angeles Herald. Vol. 40, no. 54\. June 4, 1893 - via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
5. ^ "Basketball Championship". The Los Angeles Times. 1905-02-24. p. 11\. ProQuest 164270341. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
6. ^ "Miss Griffin Returns". The Los Angeles Times. 1906-07-10. p. 21\. ProQuest 164535239. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
7. ^ "Miss Griffin Here". Los Angeles Times. July 7, 1907. p. 65\. ProQuest 159154753 - via Newspapers.com.
8. ^ The Vassarion. Vassar College. 1909. pp. 132, 140, 142 - via Google Books.
9. ^ a b c d Maginnis, Duncan. "3301 West Adams Boulevard" Historic Los Angeles: Adams Boulevard, an Inventory of its Houses.
10. ^ "List of Master's Dissertations in Progress in American Universities and Colleges". The American Journal of Sociology. 26: 101. July 1920 - via Archive.org.
11. ^ Griffin, Clementina de Forest. A sociological study of fifty-two senior boys: The products of a junior-senior high school (M.A. thesis). University of Southern California.
12. ^ "Death Takes Aunt of Bebe Daniels". Daily News. 1937-12-31. p. 3. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
13. ^ "Sunshine for Dark Lives". The Los Angeles Times. 1915-05-24. p. 10\. ProQuest 160184510. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
14. ^ Engh, Michael E. (1998). "Female, Catholic, and Progressive: The Women of the Brownson Settlement House of Los Angeles, 1901-1920". Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia. 109 (1/2): 113–126\. ISSN 0002-7790. JSTOR 44209296.
15. ^ Griffin, Clementina de Forest (March 1920). "Immigrant Welfare Work in Los Angeles". National Catholic War Council Bulletin. 1: 11–13.
16. ^ "School History". Narbonne High School .
17. ^ "New Faces, Equipment at Harbor City". News-Pilot. 1927-09-12. p. 2. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
18. ^ "Former Narbonne Principal Honored". News-Pilot. 1938-10-06. p. 9. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
19. ^ "Narbonne Faculty to See World During Vacations". News-Pilot. 1929-06-20. p. 2. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
20. ^ "32 Narbonne Seniors Await Diploma Award". News-Pilot. 1930-06-18. p. 3. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
21. ^ "Revised Schedule on NAN Basketball". Wilmington Daily Press Journal. 1937-12-10. p. 4. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
22. ^ "Canoga Park to Graduate Class of 32". San Fernando Valley Times. 1941-01-30. p. 31. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
23. ^ "Miss Griffin Wins Hearing". News-Pilot. 1941-12-27. p. 9. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
24. ^ "Miss Griffin's Petition Denied". News-Pilot. 1942-01-08. p. 8. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
25. ^ "Griffin v. Los Angeles City High School District". Justia Law. Retrieved 2020-12-08.
26. ^ Alden, Henry Mills; Wells, Thomas Bucklin; Hartman, Lee Foster; Allen, Frederick Lewis (June 1913). "Advertisement, Foothill School for Girls". Harper's Magazine. Vol. 127.
27. ^ "University Club Poetry Unit to Meet". The Los Angeles Times. 1944-02-21. p. 18. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
28. ^ "Court Clerkships Held Too Tough for Women". Los Angeles Times. November 7, 1949. p. B12. ProQuest 166016153.
29. ^ Wilson, H. C. (1910). "The Fourth Conference of the International Union for Co-operation in Solar Research". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 22 (133): 169–179\. Bibcode:1910PASP...22..169W. doi:10.1086/122011. ISSN 0004-6280. JSTOR 40691725. S2CID 122440016.
30. ^ "Miss Griffin is Mechanic". News-Pilot. 1935-08-08. p. 5. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
31. ^ "School Principal Takes Up Flying". News-Pilot. 1936-11-10. p. 7. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
32. ^ "Mrs. McQueen Fetes Visitor". Daily News. 1952-09-10. p. 17. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
33. ^ "Aviation Group to Sponsor Scholarship". Los Angeles Evening Citizen News. 1950-10-20. p. 8. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
34. ^ "Aeronautics Unit Elects". The Los Angeles Times. 1950-08-24. p. 40. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.
35. ^ "USC Library of Aeronautical History Women's International Association of Aeronautics records, 1920-1958". University of Southern California.
36. ^ Oakes, Claudia M. (1985). United States Women in Aviation 1930-1939 (PDF). Smithsonian Studies in Air and Space. Smithsonian Institution Press. p. 69.
37. ^ "Lomitans Mourn Principal's Kin". News-Pilot. 1937-12-31. p. 7. Retrieved 2020-12-08 - via Newspapers.com.

## External links

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* Clementina D. Griffin at Find a Grave (includes a portrait of Griffin with a plane).
* School History, Narbonne High School (includes a portrait of Griffin).

Portal:

* Biography