Babcock, Maud May

Head of the Department of Physical Culture, Gymnastics and Hygiene from 1892-1910. Maud May Babcock was born in 1867 in East Worchester, New York and died in 1954. She founded the University of Utah Departments of Speech and Physical Education. She received her B.A. from Wells College and a Bachelor of Elocution from the National School of Oratory of Philadelphia. She also studied at the Lyceum School of Acting in New York, the University of Chicago and in London and Paris. She taught at Rutgers College and the New York public schools before coming to Utah in 1892 as Professor of Oratory and Speech. Miss Babcock was the first woman on the faculty at the University of Utah as an instructor in elocution. She became a full professor by 1904 and Chair of the Department of Speech in 1927. (Engar, Ann, Utah History Encyclopedia, University of Utah Press, 1994.)