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 Mount Holyoke College

Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA is a liberal arts college for women and the first member of the Seven Sisters colleges, often serving as model for the others.  Joining Mount Holyoke are the sister colleges of Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Radcliffe, Bryn Mawr, and Barnard College. 

The school was founded in 1837 by Mary Lyon as Mount Holyoke Female Seminary.  It received its collegiate charter in 1888 as Mount Holyoke Seminary & College and became Mount Holyoke College in 1893.  In 2012 Mount Holyoke was one of the nation's top producers of Fulbright Scholars ranking fourth among bachelor's institutions, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.  Mount Holyoke lists as the 35^th best liberal arts college in the U.S. for the year 2016.

 

                 

                                      Mt Holyoke in 1837                                                  Mary Lyon, founder of Mt Holyoke

Mary Lyon, the founder of Mount Holyoke, is considered by scholars as an innovator in the area of women’s education.  She established Mount Holyoke Female Seminary as part of a larger movement to create institutions of higher education for young women during the early half of the 19th century.  Prior to founding Mount Holyoke, Lyon contributed to the development of Hartford Female Seminary, Ipswich Female Seminary, and Wheaton Female Seminary (now Wheaton College).

Since its founding in 1837, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary is said to have “had no religious affiliation".  However, students were required to attend church services, chapel talks, prayer meetings, and Bible study groups.  Twice a day teachers and students spent time in private devotions and every dorm room had two large lighted closets to give roommates privacy during their devotions.

Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was the sister school to Andover Seminary where Andover graduates looked to marry students from the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before becoming missionaries.  This was mainly because the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions required its missionaries to be married before starting their missions.

During the early 1970s, there was a long debate under the presidency of David Truman to make Mount Holyoke coeducational.  However, in 1971 the board of trustees voted the school to remain a women’s college.

  
 A tradition is to give an incoming Freshman a plant
  from the Talcott Greenhouse. (Wikipedia)

On February 28, 1987, the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp featuring Mary Lyon in honor of Mount Holyoke's Sesquicentennial, or 150th anniversary.

Mount Holyoke has been known for their practice of traditions, and it has been said that while students bring it to life that traditions “give it soul”.

                                                              

                 
May Day Dancing on Prospect Hill, 1903                                                Play Day with Top Spinning