Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-01T07:26:57.131Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mount Holyoke Students Encounter the Need for Life-Planning, 1837–1850

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

David F. Allmendinger Jr.
David F. Allmendinger Jr.*
Affiliation:
University of Delaware
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Young women who left their parents and homes between 1837 and 1850 to enroll at Mary Lyon's Mount Holyoke Female Seminary were beginning to plan consciously for a new kind of life. Their social origins indicate that their decisions to attend Mount Holyoke were schemes to widen their life chances. Their diaries and letters revealed what planners they were; their calculations seemed a necessity.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , Spring 1979 , pp. 27 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © 1979 by History of Education Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

The preparation of this article was supported by a grant-in-aid from the American Council of Learned Societies.

1 Journal of Guilford, Lucinda T. (typescript), November 4, 1845, July 11, 1847, pp. 5, 16, Mount Holyoke College Library/Archives, South Hadley, Mass.; manuscript U.S. Census for 1840, Reel 175, p. 133, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; manuscript U.S. Census for 1850, Reel 305, p. 120, National Archives.Google Scholar

2 Journal of Helen Graves (typescript), 1848, pp. 4–5; Journal of Peabody, Eliza A. (typescript), October 10, 1840, March 17, 1841, pp. 2–3, 14, Mount Holyoke Archives.Google Scholar

3 See Aries, Philippe, “An Interpretation to Be Used for a History of Mentalities,” in Ranum, Orest and Ranum, Patricia, eds., Popular Attitudes toward Birth Control in Pre-Industrial France and England (New York, 1972), pp. 100–125.Google Scholar

4 Malthus, Thomas, An Essay on the Principle of Population (New York, 1909), p. 33.Google Scholar

5 On changes in female education in Mary Lyon's generation, see Sklar, Kathryn Kish, “The Founding of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary: A Case Study in Educational Change,” in Berkin, Carol and Norton, Mary Beth, eds., The Women of America: Original Essays and Documents (Boston, forthcoming, 1979).Google Scholar

6 Dragastin, Sigmund E. and Elder, Glen H. Jr., Adolescence in the Life Cycle: Psychological Change and Social Context (Washington, 1975), pp. 6–9. Dragastin, and define, Elder life cycle as the sequence of possible changes in the life span of the individual, from birth to death. They define life course less precisely, intending it to mean the actual career of the individual, which may omit some possible stage of the full life cycle. In this essay I adopt their definition of life cycle, but will substitute the term life career for life course .Google Scholar

7 Allmendinger, David F. Jr., Paupers and Scholars: The Transformation of Student Life in Nineteenth-Century New England (New York, 1975), pp. 8–27. For a similar interpretation of change in women's lives in Europe, see Tilly, Louise A., Scott, Joan W., and Cohen, Miriam, “Women's Work and European Fertility Patterns,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 6 (1976): 447–476; and Scott, Joan W. and Tilly, Louis A., “Women's Work and the Family in Nineteenth-Century Europe,” in Rosenberg, Charles E., ed., The Family in History (Philadelphia, 1975). pp. 145–178.Google Scholar

8 Biographical evidence on Mount Holyoke families and their daughters has been assembled from a variety of sources. In the College archives there are files on many former students and alumnae, together with some institutional records for the Lyon era. Crucial matriculation records were destroyed by fire in 1896, however, so much reassembling of evidence has been necessary. The published biographical register contains information on later careers. College catalogs contain information on home towns, years of attendance, as well as costs. There also is an excellent collection of student diaries, letters, and account books; and the lists of members of the Memorandum Society contain some vital records. Much of the information on family origins has come from sources outside the College, from local vital records, genealogies, the manuscript U.S. Census of 1840 and 1850, and obituaries, biographies, and personal sketches. For the 346 graduates, evidence varies in completeness. There is information for almost all graduates concerning their geographic origins, student and teaching careers, and marriages. Other evidence is less complete for graduates.Google Scholar Slightly more complete evidence has survived for a group of 132 nongraduates (about 13 percent of the 1,051 who did not graduate). These 132 nongraduates do. not represent a random sample; they simply constitute a group for whom the most complete records have survived in the College archives, local collections, and censuses; they appear to be representative, however, in terms of geographic origin, age, family, student career and teaching career. Traces through these same sources have yielded the following range of evidence: birthdates for 74 percent of the graduates (256 students) and for 79 percent of the selected nongraduates (104 students); parent's approximate death dates for 61 percent of the graduates (210 students) and for 68 percent of the selected nongraduates (90 students); family real estate for 50 percent of the graduates (174 students) and for 50 percent of the selected nongraduates (66 students); fathers' education for 52 percent of the graduates (180 students) and for 63 percent of the selected nongraduates (83 students); father's birthdate for 47 percent of the graduates (164 students) and for 52 percent of the selected nongraduates (69 students); mother's birthdate for 40 percent of the graduates (139 students) and for 48 percent of the selected nongraduates (63 students); birth order for 46 percent of the graduates (160 students) and for 48 percent of the selected nongraduates (64 students); and finally, family structure for 62 percent of the graduates (216 students) and for 70 percent of the selected nongraduates (92 students).Google Scholar

9 Information on real estate was gathered for individual families in the manuscript U.S. Census 1850. For nongraduates, the evidence suggests an identical pattern of real estate holdings. There is evidence for 50 percent of the selected nongraduates (66 of 132 students). Of these, 30 (45.5 percent) came from families listing $3,000 or less in real estate; 23 (34.8 percent) came from families listing $2,000 or less. See Bateman, Fred and Foust, James D., “A Sample of Rural Households Selected from the 1860 Manuscript Censuses,” Agricultural History, 48 (1974): 75–93; Easterlin, Richard A., “Factors in the Decline of Farm Family Fertility in the United States: Some Preliminary Research Results,” Journal of American History, 63 (1976): 600–614. One result of the random-sample process in the Bateman-Foust study is that no counties in Massachusetts found their way into the sample for the Eastern Region. See Bateman and Foust, p. 89.Google Scholar

10 Journal letters of Lyon, Lucy, Number 3, February 21, 1844, p. 16; Number 12, August 11, 1846, Mount Holyoke Archives; manuscript U.S. Census of 1850, Reel 485, p. 259; evidence on family wealth for 174 graduates, gathered from manuscript U.S. Census of 1850.Google Scholar

11 Evidence on family real estate for 174 graduates, gathered from the manuscript U.S. Census of 1850; for nongraduates, the percentage was 71.2. See Allmendinger, , Paupers and Scholars, where personal property is added to real estate to determine this benchmark.Google Scholar

12 Manuscript U.S. Census of 1850, Reel 327, p. 485.Google Scholar

13 The occupational categories used here are those adopted in Troen, Selwyn K., The Public and the Schools: Shaping the St. Louis System, 1838–1920 (Columbia, Mo., 1975).Google Scholar

14 Evidence on estates of 72 farmer-fathers of graduates and on 35 farmer-fathers of nongraduates, gathered from the manuscript U.S. Census of 1850. The evidence on farmer-fathers of selected nongraduates follows closely the pattern for known cases among graduates.Google Scholar

15 Evidence on occupations for 185 fathers of graduates and 88 fathers of nongraduates (73 percent of 120 fathers). Biographical registers of colleges list 28 fathers of graduates; 124 fathers did not attend college, and 153 others probably did not.Google Scholar

16 Seminary catalogs, 1838–1850; see Ward, David, Cities and Immigrants: A Geography of Change in Nineteenth Century America (New York, 1971), p. 22.Google Scholar

17 Hitchcock, Edward, comp., The Power of Christian Benevolence Illustrated in the Life and Labors of Mary Lyon (Northampton, Mass., 1852), p. 178. See also Sklar, , “The Founding of Mount Holyoke.” Google Scholar

18 Hitchcock, , pp. 176, 189–191, 198–199.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., pp. 212–213; Amherst College catalogs, 1830–1850, Amherst College Archives, Amherst, Mass.; Whittemore, Eliza, Book, Account, and Chick, Harriet, Book, Account, Mount Holyoke Archives.Google Scholar

20 Lyon, Mary, “Principles and Design of the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary,” in Hitchcock, , pp. 296–297.Google Scholar

21 Among the selected nongraduates, there is sufficient evidence to determine the size of 81 of 120 families, or 68 percent; these 81 families account for 92 of the 132 selected nongraduates.Google Scholar

22 Evidence on family size for 175 families of graduates, and birth order for 167 graduates and 66 nongraduates, as reconstructed from manuscript U.S. censuses, genealogies, vital records, and student files in Mount Holyoke Archives.Google Scholar

23 See Allmendinger, , Paupers and Scholars, pp. 16–22.Google Scholar

24 Evidence on 171 of the 175 families of graduates whose size could be determined through reconstitution. Nongraduates show the same pattern.Google Scholar

25 Evidence on ages for 74 percent of Holyoke graduates whose dates of birth could be determined from the manuscript U.S. Census of 1850, genealogies, vital records, obituaries, and student files in Mount Holyoke Archives.Google Scholar

26 For graduates, the birthdates of 146 students, or 42 percent of all graduates, can be compared to birthdates of fathers; birthdates of 127 graduates, or 37 percent, can be compared to birthdates of mothers. Among the nongraduates, the figures are comparable.Google Scholar

27 For graduates, 71 percent of the fathers and 49 percent of the mothers were in their thirties or forties. For nongraduates, the father's age at daughter's birth is known for 54 of the 132 selected students, or 41 percent; the mother's age is known for 50, or 38 percent. The median age of nongraduates' fathers in this group was 36.5, and 78 percent of the fathers were in their thirties or forties when the daughter was born. The median age of these nongraduates' mothers at the daughter's birth was 30.7, with 52 percent of the mothers being in their thirties or forties. The two groups compare closely.Google Scholar

28 Evidence on death dates for 61 percent of fathers and mothers of graduates determined from the manuscript censuses of 1840 and 1850, genealogies, and vital records. Evidence on the selected group of nongraduates is more complete in the College Archives. On the frequency of orphanry, see Wolf, Stephanie Grauman, Urban Village: Population, Community, and Family Structure in Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1683–1800 (Princeton, N.J., 1976), pp. 274–276. It is possible, of course, that all 136 graduates whose parents' death dates could not be determined were orphans. If this were the case, Mount Holyoke certainly would have been a haven for the desolate and destitute. It is more likely that parents of these 39 percent of Holyoke graduates simply were too mobile to be captured through local traces, and that they disappeared into other localities before the census takers could catch them in 1840 or 1850 in the towns their daughters listed as home. Their deaths probably went unrecorded in their daughters' home town because the parents had moved.Google Scholar

29 Hitchcock, , p. 296.Google Scholar

30 catalogs, Holyoke, 1838–1850; Bosquet, John Le, A Memoir of Mary H. Summer (Boston, 1848), pp. 35–36.Google Scholar

31 Evidence on ages for 74 percent of Holyoke graduates between 1838 and 1850, and for men's colleges, 1840–1850, derived from college records, biographical registers, vital records, genealogies, and censuses. See Mattingly, Paul, The Classless Profession (New York, 1975), pp. 154–155, 164–167.Google Scholar

32 See Bernard, Richard M. and Vinovskis, Maris A., “The Female School Teacher in Ante-Bellum Massachusetts,” Journal of Social History, 10 (1977): 332–345. The authors state: “Young men apparently worked a few years, perhaps taught or worked on the family farm, before applying to a normal school. As future family breadwinners, young men might have hesitated before committing themselves to such a low-paying profession. Young women, whose occupational and wage-rate choices were much more limited, more often seemed to go straight to normal schools from their parents' homes.” See also Sklar, , “The Founding of Mount Holyoke.” Google Scholar

33 Hitchcock, , p. 229; Lyon, Mary, “Recorded Items,” n.d., and Lucy Thurston, Floor Plan of Seminary, c. 1841, Mount Holyoke Archives.Google Scholar

34 Hitchcock, , pp. 244–245.Google Scholar

35 Ibid., pp. 306–307.Google Scholar

36 Lyon, , “Principles and Design of the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary,” in Hitchcock, , p. 295.Google Scholar

37 Evidence on careers of 98 percent of Holyoke graduates, drawn from Higley, Mary C. J., ed., One Hundred Year Biographical Directory of Mount Holyoke College, 1837–1937 (South Hadley, Mass., 1937), and from student folders in Mount Holyoke Archives.Google Scholar

38 Ibid. Google Scholar

39 Scott, Anne F., “Higher Education of Women after 1820: What Difference Did It Make?” (unpublished paper, Davis Center, Princeton University, 1978), Figure 1; Irene, and Taeuber, Conrad, People of the U.S. in the Twentieth Century (Washington, 1971), p. 378; Monahan, Thomas P., The Pattern of Age at Marriage in the United States, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1951), 1: 82–83. On Seminary gossip, see for example Lyon, Lucy, Journal letters, Number 3, February 21, 1844, pp. 1–3.Google Scholar

40 Evidence on careers of 98 percent of Holyoke graduates; figures for nongraduates compare closely.Google Scholar

41 Evidence on age at marriage for 186 graduates, excluding 61 who did not marry, 25 who died within five years of graduation, and 74 unknown cases. For the 132 selected nongraduates, the average age at marriage was 28, and the median age was 26, based on evidence for 86 of the nongraduates, excluding 22 who did not marry, 4 who died within five years of graduation, and 20 unknown cases. See Wells, Robert V., “Demographic Change and the Life Cycle of American Families,” in Rabb, Theodore K. and Rotberg, Robert I., eds., The Family in History (New York, 1973), p. 87.Google Scholar

42 Evidence on 194 graduates who taught and married. The evidence on selected nongraduates shows a similar pattern, with a higher percentage not teaching, however.Google Scholar

43 Journal of Eaton, Elizabeth (typescript), January 5, 1845, April 16, 1845, pp. 5, 8, Mount Holyoke Archives.Google Scholar

44 For an assessment of Lyon's, Mary influence on Mount Holyoke. see Green, Elizabeth Alden, “Founded on Faith: Mary Lyon and Mount Holyoke” (unpublished paper, Fourth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, South Hadley, Mass., 1978). For a comparison with later students at Holyoke, Mount, see Rota, Tiziana, “Mount Holyoke Alumnae, 1881–1888: Expectations and Realities” (unpublished paper, ibid.).Google Scholar