Mary Lyon
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Mary Mason Lyon (28 February 1797 - 5 March 1849) was the founder of the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, (now Mount Holyoke College), Massachusetts and a pioneer in women's education in America.
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[edit] Background
Lyon was born in Buckland, Massachusetts. Her father, Aaron Lyon, died when she was five, so her mother, Jemima Shepard Lyon, taught her farm trades until she remarried. She left, putting Aaron Jr., Mary's older brother, in charge of the house, and forcing them to fend for themselves. Lyon was thirteen at the time. Afterwards, she kept house for her brother, who paid her one silver dollar a week for her services.
Throughout this time, Lyon attended school in Buckland year-round. She stayed with relatives and did household chores for them, in exchange for board. At that time, girls would usually be able to attend school during the summer, when the boys were needed in the fields, and the teacher was momentarily unemployed. Lyon was an avid learner, as shown by her mastery of English grammar in four days and Latin grammar in three.
Lyon's fairly extensive education was enough to get her a teaching job in the neighboring town of Shelburne Falls when she was 37. She was paid 75 cents a week, while her male counterparts were making 2 to 3 dollars. At the time, female teachers were somewhat in demand, as men were moving west and were therefore harder to find. Lyon developed an interest in women's education during this period and was interested in submects taught at men's schools, such as mathematics, science, Latin, and history. She therefore collected money from her inheritance, wages, and from making blankets and coverlets to receive a part-time education at Amherst and Ashfield academies. She attended the Reverend Joseph Emerson's Female Seminary at Byfield, Massachusetts.
She corresponded with Catharine Beecher over the development of Hartford Female Seminary, founded in 1823 in Hartford, Connecticut [1], [2]. In 1828, Lyon joined Ipswich Female Seminary in Ipswich, Massachusetts as the assistant to its founder, Zilpah P. Grant Banister. Lyon left as principal in 1834 [3] as she decided to create an institution for the higher education of women which would be on par with the existing colleges for men. She thus raised funds for the development of her school over the next three years, traveling from Boston all the way to Detroit for money despite the severe economic depression the country was experiencing (see Panic of 1837). Lyon was involved in the creation of the initial curriculum for Wheaton College (then called Wheaton Female Seminary) in 1836.
On November 8, 1837, she founded Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College). Buildings were capable of holding up to 80 pupils, but in the first year the attendance was greater than the capacity. Students were told to bring a Bible, an atlas, a dictionary, and two spoons.
Mount Holyoke was a great success, and in its second year, had to turn away more than half of its applicants. During the last 12 years of Lyon's life, attendance increased to 300. She wrote an account of the seminary and a book called The Missionary Offering.
Mount Holyoke Female Seminary received its collegiate charter in 1888 and became Mount Holyoke Seminary and College. It became Mount Holyoke College in 1893. Mount Holyoke's chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was established in 1905.
[edit] Death
Mary Lyon died in 1849, at the age of 52, and was buried on the grounds of Mount Holyoke. She is a member of the Hall of Fame for Great Americans.
[edit] References
- Edward Hitchcock wrote a book on her life, (New York, 1860)
- M. O. Nutting, Historical Sketch of Mount Holyoke Seminary, (Washington, 1876)
- B. B. Gilchrist, The Life of Mary Lyon, (Boston, 1910)
- Adams and Foster, Heroines of Modern Progress, (New York, 1913)
[edit] Honors
- On February 28, 1987, a stamp featuring Mary Lyon was issued in honor of The Sesquicentennial (Mount Holyoke's 150th anniversary) [4].
- USS Lyon (AP-71), a World War II transport ship in the United States Navy, and SS Mary Lyon, a Liberty ship, were both named for her.
