The
Mount Holyoke College campus has been described
as “one of the most beautiful
college campuses in the country.” The
architectural landscape of our campus has many
histories beginning with the construction of
Mary Lyon Female Seminary, built in 1837 at
a cost of $15,000 and with eighty students
enrolled. Fifty-six years later, in 1893, Mount
Holyoke changed its curriculum and received
its collegiate charter, resulting in an ambitious
program of building and development for the
College. Continuing into the late 1920’s
and 1930’s some of the most exhilarating
architectural expansion occurred at Mount Holyoke
when the campus was redesigned for the future,
in a determined effort to elevating the institution
to the top ranks of other Colleges.
Mary
Woolley, president of Mount Holyoke College
from 190l-1937,
worked tirelessly to create a dynamic college
that would speak for academic achievement.
In her desire for buildings that would create
a vision of English schools, Victorian architecture
was no longer in her favor. During her tenure
at the College, she was responsible for the
construction of sixteen buildings. “Mary
Woolley began her campaign for what she called “bricks,’ money
to erect academic buildings. She became a
highly successful builder and was proud of
her accomplishments.
She later reflected “to those who have
had a part in the building every stick and
stone seems human” (11). Incidentally,
Woolley was the first woman to receive an
AB from Brown University in 1894.
The mortar and bricks of a structure offer
a strong testimonial for the educational values
of a college institution. Of equal worth, was
the choice of landscape design that Frederick
Olmsted Jr presented as "the total community
ideal for the New England village setting".
For
More Information on Frederick Olmsted Jr,
Click Here
Home
Page
The
History of Gothic Architecture:
Cambridge
and Princeton
About Ralph Cram
A Time of Transition:
Bryn
Mawr
Mary E.
Woolley
Frederick
Olmsted Jr.
The Envisioned Plan:
Program for
Campus Development
Designs
for the Library and Chapel
Shurtleff
and Cram Present Their Ideas
The Implemented Plan:
Meetings
and Discussions
Collens'
Library Designs(Exterior)
Collens'
Library Designs (Interior)
Bertha
Blakely's Influence
Abbey Memorial
Chapel
Charles Collens
Dedication Speech and closing comments
Trivial Pursuit
Question
References
