Hatcher, Orie Latham (1868–1946)

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Hatcher, Orie Latham (1868–1946)

American pioneer in vocational guidance. Born on December 10, 1868, in Petersburg, Virginia; died on April 1, 1946, in Richmond, Virginia; daughter of William Eldridge and Oranie Virginia (Snead) Hatcher; graduated from Vassar College, A.B., 1888; graduated from University of Chicago, Ph.D. in English literature, 1903.

Orie Latham Hatcher was born in 1868 in Petersburg, into an old Virginia family with a distinguished lineage. Her father, William Eldridge Hatcher, was a descendent of a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and participant in Bacon's Rebellion of 1676, and was a prominent man in his own right as pastor and founder of Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia. He also served as president of the board of trustees of Richmond College (later the University of Richmond). Her mother, Oranie Snead Hatcher , wrote books and pamphlets on primarily religious topics and served as a trustee of Hartshorn College for Negro girls. In the Hatcher family, Orie was the third child and second daughter.

Hatcher graduated at 15 from the Richmond Female Institute in 1884 and remained at the Institute as a teacher for one year before entering Vassar College in 1885. She returned to the Institute after graduation and was instrumental in its transformation into the Woman's College of Richmond in 1894. At this time, Hatcher was named a professor of history, English language and literature.

In 1903, she received her Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Chicago and joined the Bryn Mawr College faculty as a reader in English. In 1910, she became chair of the college's department of comparative literature, and from 1912 she was an associate professor of comparative and English literature. In this capacity, Hatcher contributed much to literary scholarship, including the books John Fletcher: A Study in Dramatic Method (1905) and Book for Shakespeare Plays and Pageants (1916).

However, Hatcher turned from teaching and scholarship in order to pursue her interest in fostering educational opportunities for women. She resigned from Bryn Mawr in 1915 so she could assume the presidency of the Virginia Bureau of Vocations for Women, an organization she helped found. The bureau originally concentrated on opening up vocational and educational opportunities for Southern women on an individual level and, to those ends, was influential in founding the Richmond School of Social Work and Public Health in 1917 and gaining admission for women to the Medical College of Virginia in 1920. That same year, the bureau became the Southern Woman's Educational Alliance. Hatcher's concern for women's education led her to publish Occupations for Women (1927), Rural Girls in the City for Work (1930) and A Mountain School: A Study Made by the Southern Woman's Educational Alliance and Konnarock Training School (1930).

Hatcher's research soon encompassed an awareness of the problems of young rural men, and in 1930 she published Guiding Rural Boys and Girls (later Child Development and Guidance in Rural Schools written with Ruth Strang [1943]). It soon became apparent that the Alliance would have to expand again to embrace this new focus, and in 1937 it became the Alliance for Guidance of Rural Youth. Hatcher was active in establishing chapters of the Alliance in New York City and Chicago and displayed endless energy in fund-raising activities.

Orie Latham Hatcher died of bronchial pneumonia on April 1, 1946, in Richmond, Virginia. She was buried in the family plot at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.