Founded in 1837 as Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, the original aim was to train women as teachers, that is, evangelical Christian teachers “to assist the ministry in the work of redemption.”1 The seminary initially flourished, but by the 1880s other women’s colleges had been founded that offered stronger curricula and better-trained faculty.2 Mount Holyoke quickly began to catch up. By the time it received its college charter from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1893,3 it could boast of strong entrance requirements and a demanding four-year program with a full classical curriculum (including both Latin and Greek) equal to those of its competitors.
“Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass., General Plan,” 1900
Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections.
The shift from seminary to college also meant setting higher standards for instructors. Change in this area, however, came more slowly. Eventually Mount Holyoke would follow the lead of other women’s colleges in hiring faculty with advanced degrees The majority of instructors held only bachelor’s degrees, usually from Mount Holyoke itself. Although many took graduate-level courses during the summer or while on leave, only about a third of the teaching staff held doctorates.5 Moreover, all but 10 of the approximately 90-member faculty at that time were women, and most of them lived in the residence halls on campus.
The Williston Memorial Library was built in 1905 on the site of the 1870 library and was named for A. Lyman Williston in 1917. Its lobby was styled after the Medici Library in Florence, Italy, and the main room is designed to resemble England’s Westminster Hall. Additions to the library were made in 1935 and 1968.
Leaving Chapel, Mt. Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass.”
In upper left: “Copyright 1908 by Detroit Publishing Co.”
Inscription: “June 22, 1908.
Further Reading
Alaimo, Laura Ann. “Building Mount Holyoke College, 1896-1900.” B. A. thesis, Mount Holyoke College Department of History, 1981.
Dober, Richard P. Campus Architecture: Building in the Groves of Academe. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996.
Edmonds, Anne Carey. A Memory Book: Mount Holyoke College 1837-1987. South Hadley, MA: Mount Holyoke College, 1988.
Gaines, Thomas A. The Campus as a Work of Art. New York: Praeger, 1991.
Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women’s Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984.
Mount Holyoke College. The Centenary of Mount Holyoke College. South Hadley, MA: Mount Holyoke College, 1937.
Mount Holyoke College. Memorial. Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. Springfield, MA: S. Bowles & Company, 1862.
Nutting, Mary O. Historical Sketch of Mount Holyoke Seminary. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1876.
Schwartz, Robert, et al. “Historical Atlas of the Mount Holyoke College Campus.” Online (2004). Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hatlas/atlas/
Stow, Sarah D. Locke. History of Mount Holyoke Seminary, South Hadley, Mass., During its First Half Century. Springfield, MA: Springfield Printing Company, 1887.