All in the Family: Early Alumnae Passed On Their Knowledge

The seal of Mills College shines brightly in a Williston Library stained-glass window. It represents one of five "daughter" institutions founded by early Mount Holyoke alumnae.

We can see the results of Mary Lyon's vision in the bricks and mortar all around us on campus, but this is only a fraction of what her pioneering work for women's higher education spurred. Inspired by their own education, hundreds of early Mount Holyoke graduates founded or acted as heads of other academic institutions throughout the world.

According to Patricia Albright, archives librarian, Mount Holyoke women founded at least forty-five schools--thirty-one of them in the United States, fourteen in other countries. Five of these institutions became known as our "daughter colleges," and their seals are now part of Williston Library's stained-glass windows.

• Mills College in California is probably the best known of the "daughters." It was founded by Susan Tolman Mills (class of 1845) and her husband Cyrus to "be of high order, doing in a Christian and educational way for the far West what Mount Holyoke Seminary was then doing for the East." It was the first Protestant academy on the Pacific coast, and Susan Mills became its first female president.
• Huguenot Seminary and College (later part of the University of South Africa) was founded in 1874 when the Reverend Andrew Murray read about Mary Lyon's life and decided to replicate her educational ideas in Cape Province. Two Mount Holyoke alumnae, Abbie Ferguson (class of 1856) and Anna E. Bliss (class of 1862), established the school and served there the rest of their lives.
• Western Seminary (later Western College for Women) in Ohio drew its first principal and eight faculty members from Mount Holyoke and even had a Mary Lyon Hall on campus.
• The International Institute for Girls in Spain was founded by Alice Gordon Gulick (class of 1867). She and her husband raised the funds and even designed the main structure, which resembled Mount Holyoke's Seminary Building. Gulick's teaching career began when she "went to Spain as a bride, and, shocked that her servants could neither read nor write, began to teach them. Other girls came to her, and soon she found herself preparing them for a degree," according to a 1937 Holyoke Transcript-Telegram article.
• Willoughby Seminary in Ohio and its successor, Lake Erie College, had seven principals and presidents who were Mount Holyoke alumnae.

All the "daughter" colleges tried to reproduce the Mount Holyoke curriculum, educating women in the classical curriculum of the day. While standard for male students, studying sciences, Latin, philosophy, and similar subjects was considered radical for females. This meant that expansion of the Mount Holyoke model substantially increased the opportunities for serious study available to young women worldwide.

In addition to these five "daughters" there was a "sister" school in India; also, many associated institutions ran along the lines of Mount Holyoke's educational system.