Title

Dean Marion Brandriss interview, 1984 December 19

Contributor Names

Brandriss, Marion K.

Finger, Mildred (Interviewer)

Date

1984-12-18

Date Digitized

2020

Description

This is an interview with Dean Marion Brandriss, who retired from FIT in 1973. Brandriss explains her work as an English teacher and how she came to work at the City High School of Needle Trades where she met Mortimer Ritter. Brandriss explains how Ritter hand-picked his favorite instructors to help him build what would become FIT. She discusses touring high schools in the spring of 1944 to recruit students for the inaugural class, and offering incentives such as a weekly scholarship to all prospective students. Brandiss started at FIT as the Director of Admissions, but elucidates the vast scope of work she and the small team were expected to take on. Brandriss describes the student body demographics, transitioning settings, and evolving admissions policies of the Institute as it continued to grow. Brandriss then explains how departments were added and goes into depth on the particular success of FIT's Fashion Buying and Merchandising Department. Brandriss ends the interview with a recollection of Mortimer Ritter's insistence on the Institute's name, saying that he wanted it to resemble that of M.I.T. in sound and flavor.

Type

Sound

Oral histories

Sound

Subject

Brandriss, Marion K.

Dean of Students

Fashion

Education

Fashion Institute of Technology (New York, N.Y.)

New York (State)

New York (State)--New York

Related Materials

Finding Aid

Rights

In Copyright

This video was produced by the Fashion Institute of Technology ("FIT") and is the property of FIT. FIT expressly prohibits the copying, displaying, or uploading to a website of any portion of this video, except for the purposes of fair use as defined in the copyright laws, without express written permission from FIT. This video has been made available online by the Fashion Institute of Technology Gladys Marcus Library strictly for research and educational purposes. If you are the copyright holder for content in this video and have any objections to this work being made available online, please notify us immediately at [email protected].

Identifier

FIT Repository ID: aod_000176

SPARC reference code: US.NNFIT.SC.FITA.3.20.4.9.12.5