Louise Helen Coburn - Colby College

Colby College

Coburn was second-generation attendee of Colby College. Her father, the lawyer and politician Stephen Coburn, had graduated from Colby in 1839. The Coburns, prominent and wealthy, were invaluable to Colby's growth as benefactors of the college. Despite this, 18-year-old Louise was heavily scrutinized for admission to Colby. A professor tested her one day from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon on her skills in Latin and Greek to see if she could measure up to Colby's standards. A scholar, writer, and poet, she excelled in an academic environment and became the second woman to graduate from Colby (the first was Mary Low) and the second Sigma Kappa to attain Phi Beta Kappa status (also after Low). Sigma Kappa was important to her, as it showed that in a college with only men's fraternities, a women's sorority group could hold its own and survive on an equal basis. She entered college and developed a strong belief that Sigma Kappa was destined to live and grow.

In 1890, some male students of Colby became concerned that women were doing so well in their classes and protested. Ernest C. Marriner, author of "History of Colby College," wrote: "No small part of the agitation that arose later in regard to the retention of women in the College was prompted by the fact that they persistently ran away with the honors." Due to these conflicts, President Albion Small introduced a plan to end coeducation at Colby and separate women and men into different classes. Coburn, along with her old friend Mary Low Carver, drafted a petition along with 17 other female graduates of Colby to protest the move. Carver wrote most of the letter, but she wrote it in a way that it appeared that Louise had, due to her family's financial ties to the school.

The women wrote in their petition:

"The College seeks to justify itself by an alleged act of higher generosity. She will establish within her precincts a college for women, in which they may go to even higher achievements. But by that decision the College confesses that she made a mistake twenty years ago, and thus places her present alumnae in the anomalous position of being the visible evidence of that mistake."

At first, the women were hesitant to speak out, but they knew they must voice their discontent with Small's decision. Mary Low Carver knew that Louise Coburn's name had to be on the petition in order to give it weight with the college. She wrote to her friend, "We do want you to help us. It seems as if we can't have it otherwise. Your name and influence would have the weight of a dozen of the other names."

Even with a Coburn name on the petition, however, the proposal passed and Colby College split into two separate educational establishments, one for men and one for women. Coburn was appointed to the committee to lead the new Women's Division. Despite her disapproval of the plan, she accepted the appointment to ensure Colby women received the best education possible. She pushed for women to be represented more in the college, and she became the first female Trustee of the college in 1911. She also served as the first President of the Colby Alumnae Association. She lobbied Colby to appoint its first female professor, Ninetta Runnals, and was a strong advocate that Colby should provide better housing for its female students, which it eventually did.