Evalyn Anne Thomas, English: Los Angeles
1870-1950
Instructor Emerita
Evalyn Anne Thomas was born near St. Joseph, Missouri, the direct descendant of American Revolutionary stock on both sides of her family. Her early education was in private schools and in the local college for girls. After a number of years spent in teaching, she was drawn by her talent for dramatics to the Emerson School of Oratory in Boston, from which she received the professional diploma in 1903 and the artistic diploma in 1904. The records indicate that she served on the staff of Emerson in 1904. A subsequent degree of Bachelor of Literary Interpretation was granted her by the School in 1920.
After 1904, moving to the Northwest, she returned to teaching, and from 1904 to 1910 served as Instructor in Dramatic Literature in the Ellensburg Teachers College in the State of Washington. In 1910, evidently intent on making a career of dramatic interpretation on the lecture stage, she went to England, where during 1911 and 1912 she gave readings of Greek drama at Oxford and elsewhere and was extremely well received by her audiences. These, interestingly, were the years in which Margaret Anglin began her popularization of Greek tragedy in America. During 1911 and 1912, Miss Thomas studied at Oxford under the supervision of Sir Walter Raleigh in literature and Gilbert Murray in Greek drama. In 1911 she visited Oberammergau, apparently as the guest of Anton Lang, the famous Christus of the Passion Play. Returning to America she launched her professional career in a highly successful series of recitals which featured Ibsen and the Greek drama, particularly the Electra of Euripides. In 1917 she accepted the position of Instructor in English at the Los Angeles State Normal School, a post which she retained when, in 1919, the Normal School became part of the University of California, and held until her retirement in 1938.
Miss Thomas' enthusiasm for Greek drama and her thorough training in its interpretation became the basis for her unique contribution to the early life of the University on the Los Angeles campus. Beginning in 1917 with the Antigone of Sophocles, which was performed to aid in sending an American ambulance unit to France, and continuing to the Oedipus of 1938, she produced and directed annually a Greek tragedy, the plays running in an unbroken series unparalleled in the theatre elsewhere. These were ambitious performances with large casts of fifty to eighty students drawn from her classes in the dramatic arts. In the two decades, more than a thousand students were given, through these plays, a fruitful experience of the theatre. And in years when the University at Los Angeles had little else of general appeal to offer the public, the yearly Greek plays brought large and deeply interested audiences to both the Vermont Avenue and the Westwood campuses and helped to make for the University a place in the general life of the community. This interest in the campus theatre on the part of both students and public, first stimulated by Miss Thomas, became the enduring foundation on which the later work of the University in theatre arts could successfully be built.
As a teacher, Evalyn Thomas had unusual gifts. She evoked in her students an extraordinarily intense desire to excel. Many of her best students went on to rewarding careers in the theatre and in the teaching of dramatics. Yet she took particular pains, too, with the backward or the handicapped, trying to help them find a way in which they might express themselves. Her untiring devotion was rewarded by strong loyalties given in return. In the years after her retirement, students still came to her home and continued to work with her in informal classes. She found it hard to be idle.
As a person, she created an unforgettable impression on those who knew her. Her amazing vitality, her salient force of character, her vigor of address, her lively and sometimes slightly grim humor, made her both a memorable colleague and a memorable teacher. She became a legend to her students during her lifetime. Her lasting memorial will be found, as she would have wished it, in the affectionate recollection of her students and friends.
F. M. Carey
M. S. Carhart
A. E. Longueil
1870-1950
Instructor Emerita
Evalyn Anne Thomas was born near St. Joseph, Missouri, the direct descendant of American Revolutionary stock on both sides of her family. Her early education was in private schools and in the local college for girls. After a number of years spent in teaching, she was drawn by her talent for dramatics to the Emerson School of Oratory in Boston, from which she received the professional diploma in 1903 and the artistic diploma in 1904. The records indicate that she served on the staff of Emerson in 1904. A subsequent degree of Bachelor of Literary Interpretation was granted her by the School in 1920.
After 1904, moving to the Northwest, she returned to teaching, and from 1904 to 1910 served as Instructor in Dramatic Literature in the Ellensburg Teachers College in the State of Washington. In 1910, evidently intent on making a career of dramatic interpretation on the lecture stage, she went to England, where during 1911 and 1912 she gave readings of Greek drama at Oxford and elsewhere and was extremely well received by her audiences. These, interestingly, were the years in which Margaret Anglin began her popularization of Greek tragedy in America. During 1911 and 1912, Miss Thomas studied at Oxford under the supervision of Sir Walter Raleigh in literature and Gilbert Murray in Greek drama. In 1911 she visited Oberammergau, apparently as the guest of Anton Lang, the famous Christus of the Passion Play. Returning to America she launched her professional career in a highly successful series of recitals which featured Ibsen and the Greek drama, particularly the Electra of Euripides. In 1917 she accepted the position of Instructor in English at the Los Angeles State Normal School, a post which she retained when, in 1919, the Normal School became part of the University of California, and held until her retirement in 1938.
Miss Thomas' enthusiasm for Greek drama and her thorough training in its interpretation became the basis for her unique contribution to the early life of the University on the Los Angeles campus. Beginning in 1917 with the Antigone of Sophocles, which was performed to aid in sending an American ambulance unit to France, and continuing to the Oedipus of 1938, she produced and directed annually a Greek tragedy, the plays running in an unbroken series unparalleled in the theatre elsewhere. These were ambitious performances with large casts of fifty to eighty students drawn from her classes in the dramatic arts. In the two decades, more than a thousand students were given, through these plays, a fruitful experience of the theatre. And in years when the University at Los Angeles had little else of general appeal to offer the public, the yearly Greek plays brought large and deeply interested audiences to both the Vermont Avenue and the Westwood campuses and helped to make for the University a place in the general life of the community. This interest in the campus theatre on the part of both students and public, first stimulated by Miss Thomas, became the enduring foundation on which the later work of the University in theatre arts could successfully be built.
As a teacher, Evalyn Thomas had unusual gifts. She evoked in her students an extraordinarily intense desire to excel. Many of her best students went on to rewarding careers in the theatre and in the teaching of dramatics. Yet she took particular pains, too, with the backward or the handicapped, trying to help them find a way in which they might express themselves. Her untiring devotion was rewarded by strong loyalties given in return. In the years after her retirement, students still came to her home and continued to work with her in informal classes. She found it hard to be idle.
As a person, she created an unforgettable impression on those who knew her. Her amazing vitality, her salient force of character, her vigor of address, her lively and sometimes slightly grim humor, made her both a memorable colleague and a memorable teacher. She became a legend to her students during her lifetime. Her lasting memorial will be found, as she would have wished it, in the affectionate recollection of her students and friends.
F. M. Carey
M. S. Carhart
A. E. Longueil
Evalyn Anne Thomas, English: Los Angeles
1870-1950
Instructor Emerita
Evalyn Anne Thomas was born near St. Joseph, Missouri, the direct descendant of American Revolutionary stock on both sides of her family. Her early education was in private schools and in the local college for girls. After a number of years spent in teaching, she was drawn by her talent for dramatics to the Emerson School of Oratory in Boston, from which she received the professional diploma in 1903 and the artistic diploma in 1904. The records indicate that she served on the staff of Emerson in 1904. A subsequent degree of Bachelor of Literary Interpretation was granted her by the School in 1920.
After 1904, moving to the Northwest, she returned to teaching, and from 1904 to 1910 served as Instructor in Dramatic Literature in the Ellensburg Teachers College in the State of Washington. In 1910, evidently intent on making a career of dramatic interpretation on the lecture stage, she went to England, where during 1911 and 1912 she gave readings of Greek drama at Oxford and elsewhere and was extremely well received by her audiences. These, interestingly, were the years in which Margaret Anglin began her popularization of Greek tragedy in America. During 1911 and 1912, Miss Thomas studied at Oxford under the supervision of Sir Walter Raleigh in literature and Gilbert Murray in Greek drama. In 1911 she visited Oberammergau, apparently as the guest of Anton Lang, the famous Christus of the Passion Play. Returning to America she launched her professional career in a highly successful series of recitals which featured Ibsen and the Greek drama, particularly the Electra of Euripides. In 1917 she accepted the position of Instructor in English at the Los Angeles State Normal School, a post which she retained when, in 1919, the Normal School became part of the University of California, and held until her retirement in 1938.
Miss Thomas' enthusiasm for Greek drama and her thorough training in its interpretation became the basis for her unique contribution to the early life of the University on the Los Angeles campus. Beginning in 1917 with the Antigone of Sophocles, which was performed to aid in sending an American ambulance unit to France, and continuing to the Oedipus of 1938, she produced and directed annually a Greek tragedy, the plays running in an unbroken series unparalleled in the theatre elsewhere. These were ambitious performances with large casts of fifty to eighty students drawn from her classes in the dramatic arts. In the two decades, more than a thousand students were given, through these plays, a fruitful experience of the theatre. And in years when the University at Los Angeles had little else of general appeal to offer the public, the yearly Greek plays brought large and deeply interested audiences to both the Vermont Avenue and the Westwood campuses and helped to make for the University a place in the general life of the community. This interest in the campus theatre on the part of both students and public, first stimulated by Miss Thomas, became the enduring foundation on which the later work of the University in theatre arts could successfully be built.
As a teacher, Evalyn Thomas had unusual gifts. She evoked in her students an extraordinarily intense desire to excel. Many of her best students went on to rewarding careers in the theatre and in the teaching of dramatics. Yet she took particular pains, too, with the backward or the handicapped, trying to help them find a way in which they might express themselves. Her untiring devotion was rewarded by strong loyalties given in return. In the years after her retirement, students still came to her home and continued to work with her in informal classes. She found it hard to be idle.
As a person, she created an unforgettable impression on those who knew her. Her amazing vitality, her salient force of character, her vigor of address, her lively and sometimes slightly grim humor, made her both a memorable colleague and a memorable teacher. She became a legend to her students during her lifetime. Her lasting memorial will be found, as she would have wished it, in the affectionate recollection of her students and friends.
F. M. Carey
M. S. Carhart
A. E. Longueil
1870-1950
Instructor Emerita
Evalyn Anne Thomas was born near St. Joseph, Missouri, the direct descendant of American Revolutionary stock on both sides of her family. Her early education was in private schools and in the local college for girls. After a number of years spent in teaching, she was drawn by her talent for dramatics to the Emerson School of Oratory in Boston, from which she received the professional diploma in 1903 and the artistic diploma in 1904. The records indicate that she served on the staff of Emerson in 1904. A subsequent degree of Bachelor of Literary Interpretation was granted her by the School in 1920.
After 1904, moving to the Northwest, she returned to teaching, and from 1904 to 1910 served as Instructor in Dramatic Literature in the Ellensburg Teachers College in the State of Washington. In 1910, evidently intent on making a career of dramatic interpretation on the lecture stage, she went to England, where during 1911 and 1912 she gave readings of Greek drama at Oxford and elsewhere and was extremely well received by her audiences. These, interestingly, were the years in which Margaret Anglin began her popularization of Greek tragedy in America. During 1911 and 1912, Miss Thomas studied at Oxford under the supervision of Sir Walter Raleigh in literature and Gilbert Murray in Greek drama. In 1911 she visited Oberammergau, apparently as the guest of Anton Lang, the famous Christus of the Passion Play. Returning to America she launched her professional career in a highly successful series of recitals which featured Ibsen and the Greek drama, particularly the Electra of Euripides. In 1917 she accepted the position of Instructor in English at the Los Angeles State Normal School, a post which she retained when, in 1919, the Normal School became part of the University of California, and held until her retirement in 1938.
Miss Thomas' enthusiasm for Greek drama and her thorough training in its interpretation became the basis for her unique contribution to the early life of the University on the Los Angeles campus. Beginning in 1917 with the Antigone of Sophocles, which was performed to aid in sending an American ambulance unit to France, and continuing to the Oedipus of 1938, she produced and directed annually a Greek tragedy, the plays running in an unbroken series unparalleled in the theatre elsewhere. These were ambitious performances with large casts of fifty to eighty students drawn from her classes in the dramatic arts. In the two decades, more than a thousand students were given, through these plays, a fruitful experience of the theatre. And in years when the University at Los Angeles had little else of general appeal to offer the public, the yearly Greek plays brought large and deeply interested audiences to both the Vermont Avenue and the Westwood campuses and helped to make for the University a place in the general life of the community. This interest in the campus theatre on the part of both students and public, first stimulated by Miss Thomas, became the enduring foundation on which the later work of the University in theatre arts could successfully be built.
As a teacher, Evalyn Thomas had unusual gifts. She evoked in her students an extraordinarily intense desire to excel. Many of her best students went on to rewarding careers in the theatre and in the teaching of dramatics. Yet she took particular pains, too, with the backward or the handicapped, trying to help them find a way in which they might express themselves. Her untiring devotion was rewarded by strong loyalties given in return. In the years after her retirement, students still came to her home and continued to work with her in informal classes. She found it hard to be idle.
As a person, she created an unforgettable impression on those who knew her. Her amazing vitality, her salient force of character, her vigor of address, her lively and sometimes slightly grim humor, made her both a memorable colleague and a memorable teacher. She became a legend to her students during her lifetime. Her lasting memorial will be found, as she would have wished it, in the affectionate recollection of her students and friends.
F. M. Carey
M. S. Carhart
A. E. Longueil
Family Members
Siblings
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Robert Henry Thomas
1839–1916
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Katherine Stamps Thomas Spencer
1841–1904
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Sarah Elizabeth Thomas Noland
1843–1865
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John W. Thomas
1845–1864
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Moses Alexander Thomas
1846–1935
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Jane Day Thomas Curtis
1852–1879
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Noah Thomas
1856–1912
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Benjamin Franklin Thomas
1858–1933
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Maggie M. Thomas
1862–1864
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Edward Lee Thomas
1868–1950
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