History
Mount Holyoke's founder, Mary Lyon, is considered by many scholars to be an innovator in the area of women's education. Her establishment of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was part of a larger movement to create institutions of higher education for young women during the early half of the 19th century. Lyon's contemporaries include Sarah Pierce (Litchfield Female Academy, 1792); Catharine Beecher (Hartford Female Seminary, 1823); Zilpah P. Grant Banister (Ipswich Female Seminary, 1828); George Washington Doane (St. Mary's Hall, 1837 now called Doane Academy). Prior to founding Mount Holyoke, Lyon contributed to the development of both Hartford Female Seminary and Ipswich Female Seminary. She was also involved in the creation of Wheaton Female Seminary (now Wheaton College, Massachusetts) in 1834. Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was originally chartered as a teaching seminary in 1836 and opened its doors to students on 8 November 1837. Both Vassar College and Wellesley College were patterned after Mount Holyoke.
From its founding in 1837, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary "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. 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. Some Andover graduates looked to marry students from the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before becoming missionaries because the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) required its missionaries to be married before starting their missions. By 1859 there were more than 60 missionary alumnae; by 1887 the school's alumnae comprised one-fifth of all female American missionaries for the ABCFM; and by the end of the century, 248 of its alumnae had entered the mission field.
Mount Holyoke Female Seminary received its collegiate charter in 1888, becoming Mount Holyoke Seminary and College. In 1893 it became Mount Holyoke College. Mount Holyoke's chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was established in 1905. It has been a sister school to Women's Christian College in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India since 1920. In the early 1970s Mount Holyoke had a long debate under the presidency of David Truman over the issue of coeducation. On 6 November 1971 the board of trustees voted to remain a women's college.
On February 28, 1987, the United States Postal Service's Great Americans Series issued a postage stamp featuring Mary Lyon, in honor of Mount Holyoke's Sesquicentennial (Mount Holyoke's 150th anniversary).
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