Mary Lyon

1797 - 1849  (52 years)

• Name	Mary Lyon  [1]
  Birth	28 Feb 1797	Buckland, Franklin County, Massachusetts   [1]
  Gender	Female
  Death	5 Mar 1849  [1]
  Notes	Mary Lyon was born February 28, 1797 on a remote New England farm. The Lyon family lived in Buckland, a town in the hills of western Massachusetts. In 1814, townspeople offered Mary Lyon her first teaching job at a summer school in Shelburne Falls, a town next to Buckland. She was 17 years old. At the time, teachers needed no formal training--young Mary Lyon's reputation as an excellent student years earlier was enough of a qualification. Female teachers were especially in demand due to a growth in population and large numbers of men moving west in search of better opportunities. The job paid 75 cents a week, far less than the $10 to $12 a month a man received to teach the winter term. As was the custom of the day, Lyon "boarded around" in her students' homes--an arrangement that meant moving as often as every five days. For the inexperienced Mary Lyon, maintaining discipline in the crowded one-room schoolhouse and teaching the "3 Rs" to pupils, ages four to ten, were difficult tasks. Teaching fired Lyon's desire to continue her own education, a goal not easy to achieve in the early 19th century for an intelligent young woman with little money. Although private female academies, often called seminaries, were springing up in New England, women of modest means, like Mary Lyon, could not afford their fees. Moreover, the curriculums, which included "lady-like" skills like drawing and needlework, were far less challenging than at male schools where students studied subjects like geometry, science, and Latin. Mary Lyon alternated time spent in classrooms and at lectures--sometimes traveling three days by carriage to enroll at a school--with teaching and running a school. Against the advice of her famly, Lyon paid for her education by cashing in a small inheritance from her father. Ever frugal and resourceful, she saved a portion of her small salary and traded coverlets and blankets she had woven for room and board. Mary Lyon's reputation as a gifted teacher spread far beyond the Buckland schoolhouse. Over the next 20 years, she taught at schools in western and eastern Massachusetts, and in southern New Hampshire. She became an authority on the education of women. These were the years when Mary Lyon developed her educational philosophy and gained experience in managing a school. Inspired by her own struggles to obtain an education, she worked hard to expand academic opportunities for young women and to prepare them to become teachers, one of the few professions open to women. The year, 1834, was a turning point for Mary Lyon. She decided to leave Ipswich Female Seminary, where she was assistant principal, and focus all of her time and efforts on founding an institution of higher education for women. For the next three years, she crusaded tirelessly for funds and support. She wrote circulars and ads announcing the plan for the school, raised money, persuaded prominent men to back her enterprise, developed a curriculum, visited schools and talked to educators as far away as Detroit, chose the school's location, supervised the design and construction of a building, brought equipment, hired teachers, and selected students. She endured ridicule from those who felt her ambitious undertaking would be "wasted" on women. Her constant travels often left her in a state of exhaustion. Yet, Mary Lyon never doubted her belief that women deserved to have the same opportunities for higher education as their brothers. Mary Lyon's innovative goals for Mount Holyoke: A curriculum equivalent to those at men's colleges. A minimum entrance age of 17. Low tuition to make education affordable to students from modest backgrounds. Mount Holyoke's was $60 a year. Rigorous entrance examinations to make sure students were adequately prepared. Permanence. A lack of funds forced many 19th-century female seminaries to close after a few years. A good number were proprietary, or owned by an individual, eager to make a profit. Some schools were so dependent upon the founder's popularity, that the institution collapsed after his or her death. Domestic work by students to keep operating expenses, and therefore, tuition, low. Independence. Mary Lyon sought no affiliations with a religious denomination or wealthy sponsor. Instead, she formed a Board of Trustees, a group of dedicated male supporters who donated their time to help Mount Holyoke thrive and succeed. A wide base of financial support. It was important to Mary Lyon that people from backgrounds like her own would feel that Mount Holyoke was a school for their daughters. She collected donations ranging from six cents to $1,000, as well as quilts and bedding from women's sewing circles and necessary items like stoves and furniture from trustees. The success of Mount Holyoke opened the doors of higher education for women. Mary Lyon proved that women were as intellectually capable as men, and that an institution for women offering a college curriculum could survive financially. Her impact on education was felt across the United States and in distant corners of the world. Graduates of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary carried Mary Lyon's ideals and teaching methods into schools which they founded or taught at, in places like Albert Lea, Minnesota and Marion, Alabama; Bitlis, Turkey and Honolulu, Hawaii; Umzumbe, South Africa and the territory of the Cherokee Nation; Kobe, Japan and Clinton, New York. One founded the first public school in Oklahoma; classes were held in a tent. Through the work of Mount Holyoke's alumnae teachers, the quality of elementary and high school education improved nationwide; the presence of well-educated female teachers in the classroom offered role models for bright and aspiring girls and young women. Mount Holyoke provided the inspiration, the model, and often the leadership, for the many women's colleges that followed. A few examples: Wellesley College was founded by a Mount Holyoke trustee, Henry Durant, and its first president was an 1853 Mount Holyoke alumna, Ada Howard. Another trustee, John Greene, was instrumental in founding Smith College. Susan Tolman Mills, class of 1845, and her husband founded Mills College in California. When they gathered in the Seminary building in 1837, neither Mary Lyon nor her students nor teachers could have envisioned that 160 years later Mount Holyoke would enroll nearly 2,000 women from 49 states and 74 countries, boast an 800-acre campus containing 40 buildings, and offer nearly 1,000 courses and 38 different majors. The idea that more women than men are now enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities would have seemed improbable. Today, Mount Holyoke College remains in the forefront of higher education for women. http://t3.preservice.org/T0211422/lyon.htm
  Person ID	I21916	Strong Family Tree
  Last Modified	17 Aug 2014

  
  

  Father	Aaron Lyon, Jr.,   b. Bef 1765   d. Abt 1802 (Age ~ 37 years)
  Mother	Jemima Shepard,   b. Abt 1765   d. Yes, date unknown
  Marriage	Abt 1784  [1]
  Family ID	F7672	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Event Map

  Birth - 28 Feb 1797 - Buckland, Franklin County, Massachusetts  = Link to Google Earth

  
  

• Sources

  [S366] Smith Family Genealogy ; http://clio.fivecolleges.edu/smith/sophia/family/gen1.htm.