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The Women of Simmons College, 1900 - 1920
The Faculty
Following the appointment of Henry Lefavour as the first president of Simmons College, the Corporation turned to one of its own members, Sarah Louise Arnold, to serve as Dean of the College. Together, Lefavour and Arnold built a faculty of full- and part-time professors who employed a combination of scholarship and practical expertise to educate and prepare the College’s students for professional pursuits.
Pioneers in social work, such as Zilpha Drew Smith, trained young professionals, two of whom—Eva Whiting White and Ida Cannon—would later join the Simmons faculty while making major contributions to their profession. Many Simmons faculty members published and were prominent in their fields, and others continued to work while at Simmons. Susan Kingsbury, for example, taught while directing the research department of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, and Eleanor Manning was a noted architect well into the 1950s. In an age where few women went to college or held professional careers, the early faculty of Simmons College set a high standard many of their students would emulate.
Sarah Louise Arnold, 1859-1943, first Dean of Simmons College, was a leader in the fields of phonetics, household economics, and educational administration. She attended Bridgewater Normal School and taught school for several years before, at the age of 29, being named supervisor of primary schools in Minneapolis; six years later she accepted the same position in Boston. In 1900 Arnold was asked to join the Simmons Corporation and two years later to become the first Dean of the College. She also held the titles of Director of the School of Household Economics and head of the Department of Education; she was named Emerita in 1921.
During her years as an educator and administrator, Arnold wrote widely on English and phonetics, served as the President of the American Home Economics Association and was the first Director of the New England chapter of the Home Economics Association. During World War I, at the request of the governor of Massachusetts, Arnold took a leave of absence from Simmons to lecture nationwide on the need for food conservation.
From 1902-1924 she was a member of the Board of Governors of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, and served on the Committee of the School of Salesmanship, later the Prince School of Retailing. She served on the Massachusetts State Board of Education and was the first woman to be named a trustee of the Massachusetts Agricultural College at Amherst in 1926. Arnold held a lifelong interest in the Girl Scouts of America, and in 1925 succeeded future First Lady Lou Henry Hoover as its president.
Alice Frances Blood , 1880-1968, an early educator in the field of home economics, received a B.S. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1903, and a Ph.D in biochemistry from Yale University in 1910. Blood began teaching at Simmons in 1904, becoming an Assistant Professor of Chemistry in 1910 and being named Director of the Department of Household (later Home) Economics in 1914, a title she held until 1941.
Blood encouraged the expansion of practice work at the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union by arranging field experiences through major hospitals and restaurants providing opportunities for students to learn on the job. A practice house in which a group of students lived and used the domestic arts and sciences they were studying was established during her tenure. Blood also emphasized the underlying principles of science and management in home economics as courses such as cooking and sewing grew into programs in nutrition, management, the structure and testing of fabric, and design.
Blood was active professionally, contributing to the development of the new field of home economics and serving as the president of the American Home Economics Association from 1922-1924. She was a member of the American Dietetics Association and the American Public Health Association, served on the Board of Directors of the Community Health Association in Boston, and wrote widely on the topics of nutrition, nutrition education and community health problems.
Ida M. Cannon , 1877-1960, was a pioneer in the hospital social service movement which began in Boston during the first decade of the 20 th century. During her 39 years in the social services department at the Massachusetts General Hospital she played a pivotal role in developing the theory and practice of medical social work. Born in Minnesota, Cannon became a nurse, but took classes in sociology and psychology to better understand the social and psychological aspects of illness. In 1906 she enrolled in the new Boston School for Social Workers (later part of Simmons College) where she met and began working for Dr. Richard Cabot, who had established at the MGH the first hospital social service department in the United States. By 1908 Cannon was the head social worker, and in 1914 became the Chief of Social Service. In an age where material aid was considered an impediment to rehabilitation, Cannon began each case with a thorough investigation of a patient’s health, family life, financial situation, living conditions, and capacity for work, and then offered patients a variety of services provided by collaborating agencies, such as lessons about hygiene and self-care, post-discharge transfers to other institutions, financial help, and “friendly and understanding counsel.”
In 1912 Cannon was employed by the Russell Sage Foundation to survey hospital social service departments nationally. At Simmons College, Cannon developed the first medical social work curriculum, served as director of the hospital social service program 1912-1925, and was an instructor until 1945.
Cannon cofounded the American Association of Hospital Social Workers in 1918 and served as vice-president and later president; in 1932 she served as president of the Massachusetts Conference of Social Work. She was active in state and community affairs and, after retirement in 1945, wrote On the Social Frontier of Medicine: Pioneering in Medical Social Service (1952).
Lucinda Wyman Prince , 1862-1935, was a pioneer in the development of vocational education in the field of salesmanship and retail store work, and was instrumental in establishing and developing a school of salesmanship. A graduate of the Framingham State Normal School in 1886, Prince worked as an educator in Massachusetts, and then studied in Europe and at Wellesley College in the early 1890s.
In 1905 Prince began offering a training program for saleswomen at the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union. This program, which prepared students to take charge of educational work in department stores and to teach salesmanship in high school, was offered jointly with Simmons College beginning in 1915 in the School of Salesmanship and, in 1918, became part of Simmons College. Prince held a number of educational and administrative roles, including Professor of Store Service Education and Director of the School of Education for Store Service Education from 1918-1935. In 1923 the School was renamed the Prince School of Education for Store Service in her honor, and in 1941 it became the Prince School of Retailing. In 1963 the school became part of the School of Business Administration and the program became the Prince Program in Retailing.
Prince was active in numerous national organizations including the National Retail Dry Goods Association, Federal Food Administration, Federal Board for Vocational Education, and the United States Employment Service.
Zilpha Drew Smith, 1851-1926, was a social worker and pioneer in the organization of charity and social work education. In 1879 she became head of the registration bureau of the newly formed Associated Charities of Boston, an organization noted for its experimentation in the use of volunteers and in the training of staff workers. Smith was a strong believer in the use of volunteers and wrote and presented widely on how to acquire, train, and develop them.
Smith began her pioneering experiments in social work education while at the Associated Charities. In the 1890s she established training classes for district agents and classes for volunteers and paid staff. In 1888 she helped form the Monday Evening Club, the first discussion group for social workers in the United States, and a forerunner of professional social work associations. She was active promoting open spaces for urban environments and helped to establish Boston’s first public playground.
In 1903 she resigned from the Associated Charities and the following year became associate director of the newly opened Boston School for Social Workers, then maintained cooperatively by Simmons College and Harvard University. She was responsible for placement and supervision of students in field work, the conduct of study class, the assignment of weekly readings, and helped to develop the curriculum. She retired in 1918.
Eva Whiting White, 1885-1974, was a pioneer in the field of social work. She became the first graduate of the Simmons School of Social Work when she received a B.S. in 1907; she continued her education, pursuing graduate studies in social work at the University of Wisconsin and Columbia University.
White’s affiliation with organizations devoted to public service was long and varied. She was head worker of the Elizabeth Peabody House, Boston, 1909-1944, and non-resident lecturer at Bryn Mawr College, 1917-1929, as well as director of the Simmons College School of Social Work, 1923-1929, and professor of social economy, 1922-1950.
White served as a member of the Boston Board of Public Welfare, 1925-1947, and director of the Americanization and Immigration Division of the Massachusetts Board of Education, 1927-1950. From 1929-1952, she was president of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union. White was associated with numerous other social welfare, civic, educational and religious organizations concerned with housing, education, and immigration. In 1953, she retired from public life, yet retained her interest in social work until her death in 1974.
Susan M. Kingsbury, 1870-1949, was an investigator and educator in the field of social work. She graduated from the College of the Pacific in 1890, and received an MA in history in 1899 from Stanford University, and in 1905, following a year of study and research in England as a fellow of the Women’s Educational Association of Boston, a Ph.D in American history from Columbia University. While in England she learned of the social investigation studies carried out by Beatrice Webb and Seebohm Rowntree; upon her return to Boston she carried out her own studies into the relation of children to industry for the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education. In 1905 Kingsbury joined the faculty at Simmons College as an instructor in economic history, and in 1913 was named Professor of Economics.
Beginning in 1907, Kingsbury also worked as director of the research department of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union where she was influential in the development of methods of systematic field study. Her growing reputation led to an offer of a faculty position at Bryn Mawr, and in 1915 she left Simmons to become professor of social economy and director of the Department of Social Economy and Social Research. At Bryn Mawr she developed the nation’s first academic department committed to advanced training in the social services. Her curriculum combined a thorough grounding in theory with supervised field experience and research. She helped found the American Association of Schools of Social Work, and served as vice-president of both the American Economic Association and the American Sociological Society. She was a prolific writer and published many scholarly articles as well as several books.
Anne Hervey Strong , 1876-1925, was a leader in public health nursing education. After receiving an A.B. from Bryn Mawr College and an R.N from the Albany Training School in 1906, Strong joined the Henry Street Settlement Nursing Service, New York City, as a volunteer and staff nurse; while there, Strong chose to devote her career to public health nursing. In 1913 she enrolled in Columbia University’s department of nursing education, and joined the staff as an instructor in public health nursing. In 1916 Strong came to Simmons at the invitation of President Henry Lefavour to teach public health in a program for the Instructive District Nursing Association, and in 1918 was appointed director with the rank of professor for the newly-organized School of Public Health Nursing . Under her direction the School for Public Health Nursing at Simmons became the second largest in the country.
Strong was a member of the National League of Nursing Education, National Organization for Public Health Nursing, American Child Health Association, and Massachusetts Nurses Association. After her death in 1925, the National Organization for Public Health Nursing adopted a resolution in tribute to her which read "Anne Strong, through her rare personality, keen insight, scholarly mind, and lofty vision, has stimulated careful thinking in others and has been one of those largely responsible for sound progress in public health nursing.” In 1983 she was voted into the Nursing Hall of Fame of the American Nurses’ Association.
Sara Stites , 1877-1967, received an A.B. in 1899, and attended the Sorbonne in Paris and University of Leipzig in Germany before receiving a Ph.D in economics from Bryn Mawr in 1904. She was co-principal at the Wilkes Barre Institute in Pennsylvania from 1904-1912, when she accepted a position as instructor at Simmons College. She became Professor of Economics at Simmons in 1921 and, in addition to teaching, later served as Acting Dean of the College from 1921-1923, and Chairman of the Division of Social Studies from 1921-1942; she retired in 1942.
Stites was a member of many professional organizations, and was active in the Massachusetts Council on Women and Children in Industry, the Workers/ Educational Bureau and various social welfare organizations. Her publications include Five Hundred Practical Questions in Economics, 1916.
Eleanor Manning , 1884-1973, was a member of Howe, Manning & Almy, the first women’s architectural firm founded in Boston. Manning received an S.B. in Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1906, and two years later began working as a draftsman for Lois Lilley Howe. In 1913 she became a partner and focused on technical architectural work and on design problems. The firm developed plans for smaller, more efficient homes, such as Cape Cod style houses, and their designs won many awards and commission and Manning’s major professional focus was housing for middle-class families and urban planning. Her designs were used for the model community built in Mariemount, Ohio, a housing project for middle-income working people. As a recognized housing expert, Manning was chosen to be a member of the Seventeen Associated Architects that planned Old Harbor Village, the first low-income housing project in Boston, with funding from the Public Works Association. After Howe, Manning & Almy dissolved in 1937, Manning continued in private practice for another twenty years.
Manning began teaching at Simmons College in 1918, and was a Special Instructor of Architecture (later Housing) at Simmons College for 50 years. She taught at a number of other local colleges as well, including Garland Junior College, and in the 1940s developed a Housing Management course for housing specialists for the Massachusetts Civic League. Manning served on numerous local, state, and national boards and committees.
Marion McCune Rice, 1882- 1955, received an A.B. from Smith College in 1905, and a Diploma from the Pennsylvania Hospital Training School in 1910. She was recruited by the Red Cross to serve in France during World War I and was one of nine nurses chosen out of several hundred volunteers. In recognition of her service, she was awarded the Palmes Academique by the French government in 1917.
Upon returning to the United States in 1919 she enrolled in Simmons College, and received a B.S. in 1921. She immediately became an instructor at Simmons in the School of Public Health Nursing, supervising student field work and assisting in directing the School. At the same time she was Acting Director of Nursing and Field Work, with the Community Health Association in Boston from 1922-1923, and Associate in the Division of Field Work 1923-1925. In 1925 she became the second Director of the School of Public Health Nursing. During her seven years as Director, Rice focused on attracting potential leaders to the field of public health nursing and producing well-rounded, college-educated nurses by improving opportunities for diverse field work and observation at area health facilities. Rice retired in 1932.
Years after her death, her great-nephew discovered her letters and photographs from France, and made a movie, An American Nurse at War, about her experiences.
Ula May Dow, 1880- ? received a B.S. from Kansas State College in 1905, and a A.M. from Columbia University in 1913. She taught at Kansas State College for several years before coming to Simmons College in 1914 to head the foods branch of the School of Household Economics. Dow was very involved with organizing the guidance plan at Simmons, and for many years was chairman of the committee on advisement.
Dow collaborated with Marjorie Heseltine ’16 on a number of articles about cooking for the Ladies Home Journal, and on popular cookbooks including Good Cooking and The Basic Cook Book. Dow retired from Simmons in 1941.
June Donnelly, 1872-1962, was the second director of the Library School at Simmons. She received a B.S from the University of Cincinnati in 1895, and a B.L.S. from the New York State Library School in 1907. After working at the Cincinnati Public Library, she came to Simmons College in 1905 to teach reference. In 1909 she left to serve as librarian and director of the Drexel Institute Library School in Philadelphia, where she added a field work component to the curriculum. She returned to Simmons College in 1913 as librarian and director of the Library School . Donnelly’s major innovations during her 24-year tenure at Simmons were to develop an elective in field work, support a complete program for the education of librarians for work with children including a specialty in school libraries, and to establish cataloging instruction at a high level. She was well known for keeping in yearly contact with all alumnae of the school.
Donnelly was an active member of the American Library Association, the American Library Institute, and the Ohio Library Association and served as president of the Association of American Library Schools in 1916-1917, and 1928-1929, and chairman of the New England School Library Association in 1919-1920.
Mary Robbins received a diploma in library science from the New York Library School in 1892 and worked as a librarian before coming to Simmons College as in instructor in 1902. Robbins, became acting director of the library department in 1903 and was named director in 1904. She left Simmons in 1913 and continued to work and teach in the field of librarianship.
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Page updated: July 9, 2008
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