Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts historically women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts, United States. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of historically female colleges in the Northeastern United States. The college was founded in 1837 as the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary by Mary Lyon, a pioneer in education for women. Mount Holyoke is part of the Five College Consortium in Western Massachusetts.
The Seven Sisters are a group of seven private liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States that are historically women's colleges. Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and Wellesley College are still women's colleges. Vassar College became coeducational in 1969 and Radcliffe College was absorbed in 1999 by Harvard College and now offers programs in advanced study.
Mary Mason Lyon was an American pioneer in women's education. She established the Wheaton Female Seminary in Norton, Massachusetts, in 1834. She then established Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1837 and served as its first president for 12 years. Lyon's vision fused intellectual challenge and moral purpose. She valued socioeconomic diversity and endeavored to make the seminary affordable for students of modest means.
Women's colleges in higher education are undergraduate, bachelor's degree-granting institutions, often liberal arts colleges, whose student populations are composed exclusively or almost exclusively of women. Some women's colleges admit male students to their graduate schools or in smaller numbers to undergraduate programs, but all serve a primarily female student body.
Wheaton College is a private liberal arts college in Norton, Massachusetts. Wheaton was founded in 1834 as a female seminary. The trustees officially changed the name of the Wheaton Female Seminary to Wheaton College in 1912 after receiving a college charter from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It remained one of the oldest institutions of higher education for women in the United States until men began to be admitted in 1988. It enrolls 1,669 undergraduate students.
Western College for Women, known at other times as Western Female Seminary and simply Western College, was a women's and later coed liberal arts college in Oxford, Ohio, between 1855 and 1974. Initially a seminary, it was the host of orientation sessions for the Freedom Summer in 1964. It was absorbed by Miami University in 1974 after dwindling finances. Now known as the Western Campus of Miami University, it was designated a U.S. Historic district known as the Western Female Seminary Historic District in 1979.
Mary Emma Woolley was an American educator, peace activist and women's suffrage supporter. She was the first female student to attend Brown University and served as the 10th President of Mount Holyoke College from 1900 to 1937.
Ada Lydia Howard was the first president of Wellesley College.
Ipswich Female Seminary was an American female seminary in Ipswich, Massachusetts. The institution was an early school for the secondary and tertiary education of young women. Enrollment averaged 116 students. According to Academy records, 88 of the school's graduates went on to teach as educational missionaries in the western and southern United States.
Lucy Weston Pickett was a Mary Lyon Professor and Camille and Henry Dreyfus Chair in Chemistry at Mount Holyoke College.
Women's colleges in the United States are private single-sex U.S. institutions of higher education that only admit female students. They are often liberal arts colleges. There are approximately 26 active women's colleges in the United States in 2024, down from a peak of 281 such colleges in the 1960s.
Hartford Female Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut was established in 1823, by Catharine Beecher, making it one of the first major educational institutions for women in the United States. By 1826 it had enrolled nearly 100 students. It implemented then-radical programs such as physical education courses for women. Beecher sought the aid of Mary Lyon in the development of the seminary. The Hartford Female Seminary closed towards the later half of the 19th century.
Peabody Hall is a mixed-use academic and residential building located on the campus of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The original building, known as Seminary Hall, was built in 1855, and was the central building of Western College for Women. That building burned down in 1860 and was rebuilt the following year, only to become damaged by an 1871 fire. The building was rebuilt again that same year, and was renamed Peabody Hall in 1905. Peabody Hall is one of two residential buildings on Miami's Western Campus still used for their original purposes. It is one of 15 contributing buildings to the Western Female Seminary National Historic District.
Lydia White Shattuck was an American botanist, naturalist, chemist, and professor at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary.
Marcia Anna Keith (1859–1950) was a physicist, teacher of physics to women, and a charter member of the American Physical Society since its founding in 1899.
Fidelia Fisk was an American Congregationalist missionary and teacher. She founded the Fiske Seminary boarding school in Urmia in West Azerbaijan Province, Qajar Iran.
Alice Gordon Gulick was an American missionary teacher in Spain.
Ellen Rebecca Whitmore was the first principal teacher at the Cherokee Female Seminary in modern-day Oklahoma and later served as a missionary in Hawaii.
Sarah A. Worden was an American painter of landscapes and portraits. She was also an art instructor in various schools and for several years, at Mount Holyoke College.
Eunice Caldwell Cowles was an American educator who influenced hundreds of women in the U.S. and abroad. She was the first associate of Mary Lyon in the opening of Mount Holyoke Seminary. She had previously graduated under Lyon and Zilpah Grant from Ipswich Seminary in 1829, where she was afterwards principal from 1844 to 1876. She also served as the first principal of Wheaton Seminary. She was also affiliated with the Christian Woman's Board of Missions (C.W.B.M.), having co-founded the Essex North Branch and serving as its president.
