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History of Mount Holyoke College
As the first of the Seven Sisters—the female equivalent of the once predominantly male Ivy League—Mount Holyoke College has led the way in women’s education. Chemist and educator Mary Lyon founded Mount Holyoke (then called Mount Holyoke Female Seminary) in 1837, nearly a century before women gained the right to vote. Though prevailing thought held that women were constitutionally unfit to withstand the mental and physical demands of higher education, Lyon proved otherwise.
Mount Holyoke’s early history is one of triumph over tremendous odds. The country was in the grip of economic depression when Lyon began tirelessly fundraising to establish her institution. When Mount Holyoke Female Seminary opened its doors on November 8, 1837, it embodied two major innovations in women’s education: rigorous academic entrance requirements and a demanding curriculum free of instruction of domestic pursuits. In addition, the institution was endowed, thus ensuring its permanence and securing the principle of higher learning for future generations of women.
A model upon which many other women’s colleges were patterned, Mount Holyoke quickly became synonymous with brilliant teaching and academic excellence. In 1861, the three-year curriculum was expanded to four; in 1893, the seminary curriculum was phased out and the institution’s name was changed to Mount Holyoke College. At the start of the twentieth century, Mary Emma Woolley began her 37-year presidency of the College. Like her predecessors, she focused on faculty development, building needs, curricular change, and the endowment, but her interests spread into the international arena and she advocated higher learning for women around the world.
Mount Holyoke has shown itself to be resilient and resourceful, continuing to model leadership in liberal arts and women’s education through changing times. Throughout the second half of the century, Mount Holyoke continued its growth and expansion, with the 1960s witnessing the
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