Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2xdlg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-30T07:39:04.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Here Was Fellowship: A Social Portrait of Academic Women at Wellesley College, 1895–1920

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Patricia A. Palmieri*
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College

Extract

In 1929 historian Willystine Goodsell noted the meager professional opportunities available to academic women. Only in the women's colleges did women professors of all ranks considerably outnumber the men. Goodsell concluded, “In the realm of higher education this is their one happy hunting ground and they make good use of it.” One such golden arena was the academic community of Wellesley College 1895–1920. Wellesley was the only women's college which from its founding in 1875 was committed to women presidents and a totally female professoriate. In the Progressive era this professoriate was a stellar cast: it included Katharine Coman, historian; Mary Calkins, philosopher; Vida Dutton Scudder, literary critic and social radical; Margaret Ferguson, botanist; Sarah Frances Whiting, physicist; Emily Greene Balch, economist; and Katharine Lee Bates, author of America the Beautiful. To outside observers this group had created a female Harvard, a “bubbling cauldron that seethed,” a “hotbed of radicalism.” To their students the noble faculty provided a rich world which stirred them. To the next generation of faculty women the “old crowd” were completely dedicated “war horses.” To each other, they were kindred spirits, diverse, but united in the “bonds of Wellesley.”

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 by History of Education Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Footnotes

1. Goodsell, Willystine, “The Educational Opportunity of American Women—Theoretical and Actual,” The American Academy of Political and Social Science, 143 (May, 1929): 12.Google Scholar

2. Diary of Horace Scudder, February 23, 1891, Box 6, Horace Scudder Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Collidge, Calvin, “Enemies of the Republic: Are the Reds Stalking Our College Women?,” The Delineator (June, 1921): 67.Google Scholar

3. Transcribed oral interview with Lucy Wilson, p. 15. 1H/1975. Centennial Historian. Wellesley College Archives (hereinafter cited as WCA).Google Scholar

4. Burrell, Ellen to McAfee, Mildred H., November 16, 1938. 3L. Math Department Folder,.WCA.Google Scholar

5. Rothman, Sheila, Woman's Proper Place: A History of Changing Ideals and Practices, 1870 to the Present (New York, 1978), p. 39; Frankfort, Roberta, Collegiate Women, Domesticity and Career in Turn-of-the Century America (New York, 1977), p. 64.Google Scholar

6. Marks, Jeannette, Life and Letters of Mary Emma Woolley (Washington, D.C., 1955), p. 47.Google Scholar

7. This social portrait studied every woman faculty member at Wellesley who satisfied two criteria: tenure of at least five years on the Wellesley faculty between 1900 and 1910 and attainment of the rank of associate professor. I imposed these conditions because I was interested primarily in the senior faculty and because records are fuller for them. Selection by these criteria yielded a total of fifty-three women; the two men who met the criteria were excluded. The ten year duration (1900–1910) seemed to satisfy the need both for a manageable study and for one which would produce a valid picture of a faculty group over time. However, it should be noted that the group mean for service to the college is thirty-two years and this many women were still teaching at Wellesley in the 1920s and 1930s. The quantitative study was processed with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). I am indebted to George H. Ropes for his assistance in quantifying data.Google Scholar

8. Caroline Hazard speaks of a “Wellesley world” inTribute to Katharine Lee Bates,” Wellesley Alumnae Magazine, 12, no. 3 (June, 1929): 15 (hereinafter cited as WAM). Google Scholar

9. Burke, Mary Barnett, “The Growth of the College,” WAM (February, 1950): 179.Google Scholar

10. A Woman's College,” Boston Daily Advertiser (October 28, 1875); Tilley, Henry A., “Wellesley College for Women,” Washington Chronicle (November 14, 1875). 1H Histories, WCA.Google Scholar

11. Bates, Katharine Lee, “The Purposeful Women Who Have Reared the College From Struggling Babyhood to Glorious Womanhood, and the Men Who Have Aided Them,” Boston Evening Transcript (May 16, 1925). For a more detailed discussion of the Alice Freeman presidency and the years of transition which followed, see: Palmieri, Patricia A., “In Adamless Eden: A Social Portrait of the Academic Community at Wellesley College, 1875–1920” (Diss. Harvard University Graduate School of Education, June 1981), esp. chapters 2 and 3.Google Scholar

12. Statistics computed from data taken from Faculty Biographical Files, WCA; also: U.S. Federal Census of 1880.Google Scholar

13. Examples of such fathers include: Walter Willcox; Thomas Sherwood; Levi Coman.Google Scholar

14. Coman, Katharine, ed., Memories of Martha Seymour Coman (Boston, n.p., 1913), p. 46.Google Scholar

15. Dr. Kendrick to Lida Kendrick, September 15, 1881. Elizabeth Kendrick Unprocessed Papers, WCA.Google Scholar

16. Francis V. Balch to Emily Greene Balch, March 8, 1896. Folder 89, Box 52, Emily Greene Balch Papers, Swarthmore College Peace Collection (hereinafter SCPC).Google Scholar

17. Furumoto, Laurel, “Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930): Fourteenth President of the American Psychological Association,” Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences, 15 (1979): 346356.Google Scholar

18. Dietz, Jean, “Wellesley's Miss Mary Linked Dreams to Real Life,” Boston Sunday Globe (June 17, 1962).Google Scholar

19. Ellen Hayes as quoted in Brown, Louise, Ellen Hayes: Trail Blazer (n.p., 1932), p. 20. Emily Greene Balch as quoted in Randall, Mercedes, Improper Bostonian (New York, 1964), p. 44.Google Scholar

20. The seven faculty women who lived with their mothers are: Vida Dutton Scudder; Elizabeth Kendall; Katharine Lee Bates; Katharine Coman; Adelaide Locke; Mary Calkins; Margaret Jackson.Google Scholar

21. Burgess, Dorothy, Dream and Deed, The Story of Katharine Lee Bates (Norman, Oklahoma, 1952), pp. 3035. Balch, Anne to Balch, Emily [n.d., probably 1899], Folder 505, Box 63, Balch Papers, SCPC.Google Scholar

22. Addams, Jane, “The Subjective Necessity of Social Settlements,” in Lasch, Christopher (ed.), The Social Thought of Jane Addams (New York, 1965), pp. 151174.Google Scholar

23. Bledstein, Burton J., The Culture of Professionalism (New York, 1976).Google Scholar

24. According to historian Barbara Welter, the mid-Victorian “true woman” was supposed to cultivate piety, purity, domesticity and submissiveness. Welter, , “The Cult of True Womanhood,” American Quarterly, 18 (1966): 151174.Google Scholar

25. Women who were influenced by independent aunts include: Emily Greene Balch, Vida Dutton Scudder, Ellen Burrell.Google Scholar

26. Examples of faculty religious attitudes are contained in: Margaret Sherwood to Marion Westcott, April 17, 1937. Sherwood Faculty Biographical File, WCA; also see: “Gracious Ladies” (newspaper clipping) n.p., n.d., Sherwood Faculty Biographical File, WCA; Scudder, Vida Dutton, On Journey, pp. 43; 37–390; 416.Google Scholar

27. ALS. Ellen Burrell to Louise McCoy North, June 4, 1899. WCA.Google Scholar

28. For information on one such compound, see: McKeag, Anna Jane, “Mary Frazier Smith,” Wellesley Magazine, 18, no. 1 (October, 1933): 69.Google Scholar

29. Bates, Katharine Lee, “Sophie Jewett: The Passing of a Real Poet,” [untitled newspaper clipping, n.d.], Jewett Faculty Biographical File, WCA.Google Scholar

30. Emily Green Balch wrote essays, painted and wrote poetry well into her late 80s; at the age of 50 Professor of Latin Katharine May Edwards began another career dating Corinthian coins.Google Scholar

31. Scudder, Vida Dutton, On Journey, p. 94. Carla Wenckebach as quoted in Muller, Margarethe, Carla Wenchebach, Pioneer (Boston, 1908), p. 213.Google Scholar

32. Ellen Burrell as quoted in Merrill, Helen, “The History of the Department of Mathematics,” p. 51. 3L. Mathematics Department Folder, WCA.Google Scholar

33. Hayes, Ellen, The Sycamore Trail (Wellesley Mass., 1929).Google Scholar

34. Hodgkins, Louise Manning, “Wellesley College,” New England Magazine (November 1892): 380.Google Scholar

35. Florence Converse as quoted in Bernard, Jessie, Academic Women (New York, 1964), p. 31.Google Scholar

36. Dorothy Weeks, a student of this faculty group who returned to live at Wellesley, noted that pairs of faculty women were termed “Wellesley Marriages.” Personal interview with Dorothy Weeks, February 5, 1978.Google Scholar

37. Haskell, Mary, “Professor Wenckebach's Relation to Her Students,” Wellesley Magazine (February, 1903): 160.Google Scholar

38. “Tribute to Miss Kendall,” [Typescript], p. 4. Kendall Faculty Biographical File, WCA.Google Scholar

39. Marion Pelton Guild to Birdie Ball Morrison, December 6, 1930. 6C. Box 2, Class of 1880, WCA.Google Scholar

40. Transcribed oral interview with Geraldine Gordon, p. 15. WCA.Google Scholar

41. Scudder, Vida, On Journey, pp. 109110.Google Scholar

42. Sherwood, Margaret, Henry Worthington, Idealist (New York, 1899); a fuller discussion of the Rockefeller “tainted monies” issue is given in “In Adamless Eden,” chapter 6.Google Scholar

43. Katharine Coman to Emily Greene Balch, February 28, 1914. Coman Unprocessed Papers, WCA.Google Scholar

44. Faderman, Lillian, Surpassing The Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present (New York, 1981), Introduction; pp. 190230; Cook, Blanche Wiesen, “Female Support Networks and Political Activism: Lillian Wald, Crystal Eastman, Emma Goldman,” Chrysalis, 3 (1977): 43–61. Also see: Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll, “The Female World of Love and Ritual,” Signs, 1, no. 1 (Autumn, 1975): 1–29.Google Scholar

45. ALS. Vida Scudder to Louise Manning Hodgkins, May 29, 1928, WCA.Google Scholar

46. Caroline Hazard praised Bates' Yellow Clover in a letter to Bates, April 25, 1922. WCA; Vida Scudder to Bates, April 1922; WCA. Jane Addams to Bates, May 9, 1922. Jane Addams Unprocessed Letters, WCA.Google Scholar

47. There is extensive correspondence between Caroline Hazard and Katharine Lee Bates in both the Bates and Hazard Papers, WCA.Google Scholar

48. Scudder, Vida Dutton, On Journey, pp. 107109.Google Scholar

49. Converse, Florence, Wellesley College. A Chronicle of the Years 1875–1938 (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), p. 98.Google Scholar

50. The fourteen women scientists listed in Cattell's American Men of Science (the first five editions: 1906; 1910; 1921; 1927; 1933) are: Google Scholar These dictionaries of notable Americans are among the best reference guides to the biographies of academic women. They are by no means exhaustive. Each employs subjective criteria to determine what constitutes achievement. For a discussion of the kinds of women scientists included in Cattell, James M. (ed.), American Men of Science, see: Rossiter, Margaret, “Women Scientists in America Before 1920,” American Scientist (May June, 1974): 312333.Google Scholar

51. Coolidge, Calvin, “Enemies of the Republic.” Google Scholar

52. Frankfort, Roberta, Collegiate Women, p. 64.Google Scholar

53. Scudder, Vida, On Journey, pp. 189190.Google Scholar

54. A full discussion of the Balch case is contained in the epilogue, “Eden's End,” in “In Adamless Eden.” See also the extensive correspondence in the Emily Greene Balch papers, SCPC.Google Scholar

55. ALS. Vida Scudder to Katharine Lee Bates, August 6, 1919. WCA.Google Scholar

56. ALS. Margarethe Muller to Caroline Hazard, Autumn 1908. WCA.Google Scholar

57. Katharine Lee Bates to Katharine Coman, February 28, 1891. 3P. Katharine Lee Bates Papers, WCA. Diary of Katharine Lee Bates, March 5, 1896. Box 3, Katharine Lee Bates Papers, WCA.Google Scholar

58. Furumoto, Laurel, “Are There Sex Differences In Qualities of Mind? Mary Whiton Calkins Versus Harvard University. A 37-year Debate,” pp. 4243. WCA.Google Scholar

59. Vida Scudder discusses Katharine Lee Bates' despotism in On Journey, p. 123 and Scudder, , “Katharine Lee Bates, Professor of English Literature,” WAM, Supplement, 13, 5 (June, 1929):5.Google Scholar

60. Transcribed oral interview with Lucy Wilson, p. 15. WCA.Google Scholar

61. Scudder, Vida Dutton, “The Privileges of a College Teacher” WAM (August 1929): 327.Google Scholar

62. Margaret Sherwood to Elizabeth Kendall, December 2, 1945. Kendall Unprocessed Papers, WCA.Google Scholar

63. Vida Dutton Scudder to Jeannette Marks, July 9, 1939. Scudder Papers, WCA.Google Scholar

64. Emily Greene Balch as quoted in Randall, Mercedes, Improper Bostonian p. 443.Google Scholar

65. Martha Hale Shackford to Jeannette Marks, May 27, 1953. Shackford Papers, WCA.Google Scholar

66. For a general discussion of the increasing bureaucratization characteristic of American culture 1870–1920, see: Wiebe, Robert, The Search For Order: 1877–1920 (New York, 1967); in the various professions this shift manifests itself as a loss of respect for the amateur and the glorification of the highly credentialed professional. See: Bledstein, , The Culture of Professionalism; Furner, Mary J., Advocacy and Objectivity. A Crisis in the Professionalization of American Social Science 1865–1905 (Lexington, Kentucky, 1975).Google Scholar

67. Mary Alice Willcox to Marian Hubbard, December 2, 1927. Willcox Faculty Biographical File, WCA.Google Scholar

68. Rossiter, Margaret, “Women's Education: The Entering Wedge.” Chapter from a forthcoming book on women scientists at the women's colleges 1865–1940. I am grateful to Prof. Rossiter for sharing this work with me.Google Scholar

69. Scudder, Vida Dutton, On Journey, p. 175.Google Scholar

70. See, for example: Mary Alice Willcox to Miss Whiting, March 27, 1948. Willcox Faculty Biographical File, WCA; ALS. Louise Manning Hodgkins to Martha Hale Shackford, November 12, 1924, WCA; Emily Greene Balch [“I am no princess …]. Folde 604, Box 66, Balch Papers, SCPC.Google Scholar

71. McCaughey, Robert A., “The Transformation of American Academic Life: Harvard University 1821–1892,” Persepctives in American History, 8 (1974): 239–232; Furner, Mary J., Advocacy and Objectivity. Google Scholar

72. Hawkins, Hugh, Pioneer: A History of the Johns Hopkins University, 1874–1889 (New York, 1960), p. 237.Google Scholar

73. James McLachlan reviews and criticizes standard historical accounts of the “old-time” liberal arts college in “The American College in the Nineteenth Century: Toward a Reappraisal,” Teachers College Record, 80 (December, 1978): 287306.Google Scholar

74. When President Caroline Hazard retired in 1910, rumors spread that she was to be replaced by a man. Alumnae and faculty cried out, “What and spoil our ‘Adamless Eden’?” “Man to Rule Wellesley? No! Say Graduates,” Evening Newspaper, Minneapolis, Minnesota, [n.d., probably 1910]. Hazard Scrapbook, 1909–1910, WCA.Google Scholar