Mary Lyon Residence Hall | |
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![]() Mary Lyon Residence Hall | |
General information | |
Type | Residential Living/ Student Housing |
Location | Oxford, Ohio |
Country | United States |
Coordinates | 39°30′13.18″N84°43′38.56″W / 39.5036611°N 84.7273778°W |
Construction started | 1923 |
Completed | 1925 |
Inaugurated | 13 June 1925 |
Demolished | 2016 |
Cost | $106,000 |
Owner | Miami University |
Technical details | |
Structural system | Limestone |
Floor count | 3 plus basement |
Design and construction | |
Architect | WW Boyd |
Main contractor | Joe Wespiser |
References | |
[1] |
Mary Lyon Residence Hall was a three-story student dormitory on Western Campus at Miami University, demolished in 2016. It was a co-ed dormitory and only the first and second floors were used for living space. The third floor was vacant and only the employees of the Physical Facility Department had keys to enter that story. The building was made of limestone. It housed 81 students; three of the 81 were residence hall agents and there was only one hall adviser. [2]
Mary Lyon Residence Hall was well kept by the Miami University Physical Facilities Department. The Office of Residence Life at the university keeps tracked of who lived in the building and who worked there. In spring and summer of 2011 some work was done to re-wire the electricity so that the building was safer and able to support new technology. The building was part of Miami University's purchase of Western College Women's Seminary. The seminary was designed after Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, established by Mary Lyon. Therefore, in order to understand why Mary Lyon is a significant name for this residence hall, one must understand the values of Western College to imagine what activities used to occur at the Mary Lyon Building.
Although the residence hall was built in 1925, it was not named until 1934. It was built on ground received from the Patterson Estate. [3] Mary Lyon Residence Hall was demolished in 2016. [4]
Mary Lyon was a strong Christian woman who founded a women's seminary for middle class women called Mount Holyoke in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Mount Holyoke was unique for its strong values, operation and administration, and its purpose. Mount Holyoke was highly regarded and was modeled by numerous schools. One of the earliest to adapt the women's seminary style school for higher education was Western College for Women, in Ohio. Western College was often referred to as the "Mount Holyoke of the West." It opened in 1855 by a woman named Helen Peabody. [5] Peabody could not have opened the Seminary without the help of a young man named Daniel Tenny, who became the first president of the campus. He was married to a Mount Holyoke graduate, and he came to Miami University in 1851. He was excited about the level of education at Miami, and wanted to help establish a similar seminary for women that would also focus heavily on solid academics. He believed in higher education for women. So, he found land and gave a lot of energy toward creating it. By 1853 he incorporated a governing board of "The Western Female Seminary."The Virgin Daughter of Holyoke," they called it—forever consecrated to the material ideals and practices. Tenny became president of trustees, and said he could do so because he was a pastor. In 1855 when it opened, there were 150 pupils. The teachers were graduates and former staff from Holyoke itself. [6]
By 1923 over 300 attended the university and more space was needed. Plans for a new residence hall were drawn in 1923. In 1925 the hall was finished and named for Mary Lyon. There was an honorary ceremony on the buildings opening. A Dedication Hymn that was sung in 1925 by Marison F. Villson and Edgar Stillman Kelley [7] was:
From out the tower, oh bells, send forth,
The triumph of your song,
Till far beyond the hills of home
Your echoes float along.
In your deep voice, the ocean’s roar,
The forest’s ancient moan,
And softly there the river sings
Her rippled undertone.
Your bronze was cast in Hope’s hot fire.
Love taught your tongue to pray,
Ring out, oh bells, and challenge,
Life unto a nobler day!
So may we who have heard your voice
Strive on to right the wrong,
That in your lives the world may hear
The echo of your song.
The daily life of a Western Seminary Woman was focused intently around the Christian values instated by Mary Lyon. Therefore, the habits of the residents at Mary Lyon Residence Hall were suited for longevity and vitality in life. Rigorous courses required, including seven math and science classes. The women were made to walk one mile after breakfast each day, and winters to just walk 45 minutes. They also did calisthenics in empty hallways until there was a gymnasium. [8] Teachers were not paid well, and the students did domestic duties to keep costs low. This was an early sign of the idea of work/study, at school. Mary Lyon also wanted the Mount Holyoke Seminary to have visible means of grace—one example of this was the "recess meetings" or short "seasons" of prayer at 8 pm each night. To have mentors and close personal attention and guidance, the Western students were to be divided into 8-10 sections; each section with its own teacher, this way the teacher can instill their personal values and have a personal mentor relationship with the student. [9] Tenny said, physical exercise, was the strongest test of loyalty to the university.
Mary Lyon's strength and affinity for physical exertion is noted in many biographies—all of which note her allusions to the importance of exercise in her many letters often referenced. [10]
Principles of the Seminary, (derived from Mount Holyoke): 1. Accommodations for boarders 2. Teachers to be modest and receive modest salaries 3. Neat, plain, simple lifestyle promoted 4. Domestic work done by students 5. Board and tuition placed at cost...keep prices low 6. Whole plan to be conducted under the principles of the missionary; no surplus income to teachers
It was common to find the women cleaning Mary Lyon, and having social time to play games in the basement rooms where they had tables and chairs and pianos available.
Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts historically women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States.
The Seven Sisters is a term that refers to seven highly selective liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States that are historically women's colleges. They were created to provide women with the educational equivalent to the Ivy League colleges. The name Seven Sisters is a reference to the Greek myth of The Pleiades, the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the sea-nymph Pleione. The daughters were collectively referred to as The Seven Sisters.
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 with no graduate students.
Western College for Women, known locally as Western College, was primarily a women's college in Oxford, Ohio, between 1855 and 1974. In 1979, the former college, known now as Western Campus of Miami University, was designated a U.S. Historic district known as the Western Female Seminary Historic District.
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 11th President of Mount Holyoke College from 1900 to 1937.
Ada 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-level 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.
Mount Saint Mary College is a private Catholic college in Newburgh, New York. It was founded in 1959 by the Dominican Sisters.
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. Rebuilt again that same year, the building was renamed Peabody Hall, after Helen Peabody the first head of Western College, 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.
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.
Yau Tsit Law (1888-1961) was a Chinese Christian educator, and one of the first Chinese women to graduate from Mount Holyoke College.
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.