Born on July 13, 1863, in South Norwalk, Connecticut, Mary Woolley grew up in Meriden, Connecticut, and from the age of eight in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. She attended private and public schools and in 1884 graduated from Wheaton Seminary (now College) in Norton, Massachusetts. She taught at the seminary in 1885╨1886 and 1887╨1890. A European trip in 1890 stimulated her ambition for further education, and in 1891 she was first among the initial seven women admitted to Brown University. She was one of the first two to graduate, in 1894, and she remained an additional year to take a master╒s degree in history. She became an instructor in Biblical history and literature at Wellesley College in 1895 and advanced to associate professor in 1896 and to professor in 1899.
Early in 1900 Woolley was chosen president of Mount Holyoke College to succeed Elizabeth Storrs Mead, and after a tour of Great Britain, during which she studied women╒s educational practices and problems, she assumed her new office in January 1901. Under her strong leadership the academic standards of the college were raised remarkably. Improved salaries and benefits attracted a larger and better qualified faculty (their number doubled between 1901 and 1911); elective courses multiplied while the line was held against such nonacademic subjects as home economics; and the graduate program was greatly expanded. The social atmosphere of the school matured, particularly with the adoption of a measure of student self-government in 1922. In 1914 the required housekeeping chores that had been a Mount Holyoke feature since Mary Lyon╒s time were abolished. The physical plant of the college grew by 16 major buildings during her 36-year tenure, and the endowment increased tenfold, to nearly $5 million.
The two principal causes outside Mount Holyoke that attracted Woolley╒s support were woman suffrage and peace. She helped found the National College Women╒s Equal Suffrage League in 1908 and was a vice-president of the American Peace Society from 1907 to 1913. She also served on the China Christian Education Commission that toured that country in 1921╨1922, was a vice-chairman of the American Civil Liberties Union, was president of the American Association of University Women in 1927╨1933, was active in the Institute of Pacific Relations, and in 1932 was the only woman appointed by President Herbert Hoover to the American delegation to the Geneva Conference on Reduction and Limitation of Armaments.
She retired as president of Mount Holyoke in 1937. Because of her strong disagreement with the trustees╒ choice of a man to succeed her, she never returned to the campus. She remained active in various organizations, notably the National Woman╒s party, until her death in Westport, New York, on September 5, 1947.
&styl ` ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ ' !I 3 5¬ 4 !I â !I ▐ ÿ !I s !I ▐ | !I ) 5¬ * !I ± 5¬ ≥ !I .link ` HYPR â ÿHYPR s |
