Margaret Guss Barnaby Papers, 1921-25, 1967-69, n.d.
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Administrative/Biographical History
Margaret Ada Guss was born in North Adams, Massachusetts on February 22, 1903 to Roland Wilkins Guss and Martha Cameron Guss. She grew up attending schools in Middleton, Massachusetts and Cincinnati, Ohio. She received an A.B. degree in English Literature from Oberlin College in 1925. During her time at Oberlin, she was active in the Oberlin Cosmopolitan Club and the United Church Choir.
After graduating from Oberlin College, Guss taught at the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railroad Company in Bessemer, Alabama for two years. In 1927, she began her secretarial career. Guss returned to Oberlin to work as a secretary in the Admissions Office, then moved to Boston in 1929, where she was Secretary to the Editor of the Congregational Publishing Society. On July 30, 1934, she married her husband, George Stewart Barnaby, who owned a floral business. From 1937 until 1969, Margaret Guss Barnaby held positions at the Harvard School of Public Health. At Harvard, she worked as Secretary of the School (1937-56), Administrative Assistant to the Dean (1956-68), and Director of Alumni Affairs (1968-69). In recognition of her twenty-five years of service to the school, she was named the first honorary member of the Faculty of Harvard School of Public Health in June 1962, for which she received a certificate of recognition and a Harvard chair with an inscribed nameplate. From 1968 until her retirement a year later, she served part-time as Director of Alumni Affairs. Her roles at the Harvard School of Public Health included advising three deans and two acting deans, managing the school’s financial affairs, and advising faculty committees on academic policy. Her various roles allowed her to maintain relationships with Harvard alumni in the World Health Organization and she regularly corresponded with alumni located around the world.
In addition to her dedication to the Harvard School of Public Health, Barnaby was active in civic organizations in Brookline, Massachusetts. She and her husband were both elected Town Meeting Members. She was an officer of the Harvard Congregational Church Women’s Guild and a secretary of the Brookline Community Council Sub-Council on Health, World Service Community; she also volunteered in a hospital.
Following her retirement from the Harvard School of Public Health, she and her husband moved to Bridgton, Maine. They resided there during the spring and summer months and spent the fall and winter seasons in Green Valley, Arizona. Barnaby regularly volunteered in a library in Green Valley. She remained in Arizona after her husband’s death in 1985.
Margaret Guss Barnaby died in Tempe, Arizona on September 8, 1991.
Written by Allison Schmitt ‘21, February 2020
Sources Consulted
Margaret Guss Barnaby student file (RG 28), Oberlin College Archives.
Author: Allison Schmitt Forms of Material (links to similar genres) Administrative InformationThe papers were received from Nancy Worthington on September 11, 2008.
The Elephant newspaper issues from May 12 and May 13, 1924 (vol. 3, no. 1, vol 3, no 2, respectively) were removed from the collection.
The Margaret Guss Barnaby Papers document Barnaby’s time at Oberlin College (1921-1925), and only the last three years from her time at the Harvard School of Public Health, between 1967 and 1969. She held various positions at Harvard from 1937 until her retirement in 1969.
The collection is arranged into five series:
Series 1. Correspondence (World Health Organization) contains six letters received by Barnaby from Harvard School of Public Health alumni across the world.
Series 2. Writings holds pages from the 1967 and 1969 Harvard Public Health Alumni Bulletin, which respectively announce Barnaby’s appointment as Director of Alumni Affairs in 1967 and the World Health Organization Assembly Meeting and Alumni Day in 1969.
Series 3. Course Materials has an undated notebook from an Oberlin College course on Italian painting which Barnaby took between 1921 and 1925.
Series 4. Photographs contains a photograph album from the 1969 Harvard School of Public Health Alumni Dinner, a portrait of Barnaby from 1925 and an undated photograph of Finney Chapel.
Series 5. Scrapbook contains an Oberlin College scrapbook assembled by Margaret Guss (Barnaby) between 1921 and 1925 at Oberlin. It documents her life outside of academics, including the dances, games, and performances she attended during her undergraduate years, and letters and notes from her friends.