Hendrick Institute papers

The Hendrick Institute Boarding and Day School for Young Ladies and Delicate Children, founded by Susan L. Hendrick in New York City around 1875, aimed to educate and empower "young ladies and delicate children" by integrating health and physical exercise with more traditional instruction in grammar, arithmetic, and other subjects.

Susan L. Hendrick was a proponent of the fitness and strength training regimen known as the Physical Culture (or Body Culture) movement. Originating in Germany and the United Kingdom before spreading to the United States with the arrival of German immigrants after 1848, the Physical Culture movement worried that white collar workers were suffering from diseases of affluence due to their sedentary lifestyles, and it prescribed exercises drawn from dances, folk games, existing sports, and military training to encourage physical activity. Subsequently the movement was promoted in educational systems, such as the Hendrick Institute, and in military academies.

The Hendrick Institute, located at 25 West 26th Street, advertised the charm of the school's locale – "one of the most desirable and delightful parts of the city directly opposite Reservoir Park" – and the school's vision of strong, healthy women. It aimed to show that even in the city and among the affluent, "physiological knowledge" could be as paramount to educating a child as other forms of knowledge. Ultimately, the goal was to recognize health as the basis of power and resilience and build such bodily power in students. Susan L. Hendrick organized the school to think critically about the role of health in wider society and the methods in which exercise and physiological knowledge could be taught to young ladies, ranging from sports classes to the newest exercise equipment and machines. As a part of curriculum, the institute's core courses always featured grammar lessons from Whitley's Elements of English Grammar and "dancing, gymnastics, and vocal exercises."