Susan Tolman Mills

Last updated February 25, 2019

Susan Tolman Mills (1826 – 1912)^[1] was the co-founder of Mills College (formerly the Young Ladies Seminary at Benicia, California).

Mills College is a private liberal arts and sciences college in Oakland, California. Mills was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California. The school was relocated to Oakland, California, in 1871, and became the first women's college west of the Rockies. Currently, Mills is an undergraduate women's college with graduate programs for students of all genders. In 2014, Mills became the first single-sex college in the U.S. to adopt an admission policy explicitly welcoming transgender students.

Benicia is a waterside city in Solano County, California, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It served as the state capital for nearly thirteen months from 1853 to 1854. The population was 26,997 at the 2010 census. The city is located along the north bank of the Carquinez Strait. Benicia is just east of Vallejo and across the strait from Martinez. Elizabeth Patterson has served as Mayor of Benicia since 2007.

Background

Mills was born on November 18, 1826,^[1] in Enosburgh, Vermont. She was one of eight children of John Tolman and Elizabeth (Nichols) Tolman. Her family moved to Ware, Massachusetts by 1836, where her father and brothers expanded the family's tannery business.^[2] She graduated from Mount Holyoke College (then Mount Holyoke Female Seminary) in 1845.

Enosburgh, Vermont Town in Vermont, United States

Enosburgh is a town in Franklin County, Vermont, in the United States. The population was 2,781 at the 2010 census. Enosburgh includes the village of Enosburg Falls and the settlements of Bordoville, East Enosburgh, North Enosburgh, Sampsonville, West Enosburgh, and Enosburgh Center. Enosburgh was named for Roger Enos, who had been a commander of all the Vermont Forces in the American Revolution. He was also Ira Allen's father-in-law. The spelling of Enosburgh differs from the spelling of Enosburg Falls.

Mount Holyoke College Liberal arts college in Massachusetts, US

Mount Holyoke College is a private women's liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest institution within the Seven Sisters schools, an alliance of elite East Coast liberal arts colleges that arose as a female equivalent to the then male dominated Ivy League. Mount Holyoke also served as a model for other women's colleges and is part of the region's Five College Consortium, along with Amherst College, Smith College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

As a young woman, Mills taught at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary ^[2] the first three years after she herself graduated, and was a teacher there during Emily Dickinson's year at the Seminary in 1847-1848.^[3] She continued to teach at the seminary until she married the missionary Cyrus Mills on September 11, 1848. In October of that year they departed to teach in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), on an assignment from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. They taught there for many years, until they returned to Boston in 1854. Mrs. Mills contracted amoebic dysentery during their tour abroad, and was in distinctly ill health by the time they returned to the United States.^[2]

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet.

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia, located in the Indian Ocean to the southwest of the Bay of Bengal and to the southeast of the Arabian Sea. The island is historically and culturally intertwined with the Indian subcontinent, but is geographically separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. The legislative capital, Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, is a suburb of the commercial capital and largest city, Colombo.

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was among the first American Christian missionary organizations. It was created in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College. In the 19th century it was the largest and most important of American missionary organizations and consisted of participants from Reformed traditions such as Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and German Reformed churches.

Punahou School

In 1860 the couple traveled to Honolulu where Cyrus Mills became president of Oahu College (now known as Punahou School). Susan served as a teacher at the school, instructing in geography, geology, chemistry, and botany. They moved to California in 1864.^[2]

Punahou School is a private, co-educational, college preparatory school located in Honolulu CDP, City and County of Honolulu in the U.S. State of Hawaii. 3,742 students attend the school from kindergarten through the twelfth grade.

California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents, California is the most populous U.S. state and the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento. The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 8.8 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, and the country's second most populous, after New York. California also has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs.

Mills College

Mills College was initially founded as the Young Ladies Seminary at Benicia in 1852. It was under the leadership of Mary Atkins, a graduate of Oberlin College. Susan and Cyrus Mills bought the grounds and organization from Atkins for $5000 in 1865.^[2]

Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio. Founded as the Oberlin Collegiate Institute in 1833 by John Jay Shipherd and Philo Stewart, it is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the United States and the second oldest continuously operating coeducational institute of higher learning in the world. The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States. In 1835 Oberlin became one of the first colleges in the United States to admit African Americans, and in 1837 the first to admit women.

In 1866, Susan and Cyrus bought the Young Ladies Seminary and renamed it Mills Seminary.

In 1871 the school was moved to Oakland, California and the school was incorporated in 1877. The school became Mills College in 1885. In 1890, after serving for decades as principal (under two presidents as well), Susan became the President of the college and held the position for 19 years.^[2]

Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port city, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the San Francisco Bay Area, the eighth most populated city in California, and the 45th largest city in the United States. With a population of 425,195 as of 2017, it serves as a trade center for the San Francisco Bay Area; its Port of Oakland is the busiest port in the San Francisco Bay, the entirety of Northern California, and the fifth busiest in the United States of America. An act to incorporate the city was passed on May 4, 1852, and incorporation was later approved on March 25, 1854, which officially made Oakland a city. Oakland is a charter city.

Death

Mills retired in 1909 and died in Oakland, California, on December 12, 1912. Susan Tolman Mills is buried at Sunnyside Cemetery, located on the Mills College Campus.

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References

1 2 Louis S. Lyons; Josephine Wilson (1922). Who's who among the women of California: an annual devoted to the representative women of California, with an authoritative review of their activities in civic, social, athletic, philanthropic, art and music, literary and dramatic circles ... Security Publishing Company. p. 13. Retrieved 4 June 2012.
1 2 3 4 5 6 James, Edward T. (1971). Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press. pp. 546–547. ISBN 0674627318.
↑ McLean, Sydney (March 1934). "Emily Dickinson at Mount Holyoke". The New England Quarterly. 7 (1): 25–42. doi:10.2307/359265. JSTOR 359265.

External links

Biography from Britannica

Academic offices
Preceded by Charles Carroll Stratton	President of Mills College 1890–1909	Succeeded by Luella Clay Carson

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[LyonsWilson1922-1] 1 2 Louis S. Lyons; Josephine Wilson (1922). Who's who among the women of California: an annual devoted to the representative women of California, with an authoritative review of their activities in civic, social, athletic, philanthropic, art and music, literary and dramatic circles ... Security Publishing Company. p. 13. Retrieved 4 June 2012.

[james1-2] 1 2 3 4 5 6 James, Edward T. (1971). Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press. pp. 546–547. ISBN 0674627318.

[mclean1-3] McLean, Sydney (March 1934). "Emily Dickinson at Mount Holyoke". The New England Quarterly. 7 (1): 25–42. doi:10.2307/359265. JSTOR 359265.