Site of MIT's William Barton Rogers Building - The Door Opens (Tour) - Clio

Entries on This Tour

The Door Opens

Site of the MIT Woman's Laboratory (1876-1883) - STEM Education for Women

Ellen Swallow graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1873 with a Bachelor of Science in just two years, yet MIT’s doors remained closed to women. The Institute believed her to be an exception, an outlier. Ellen proved to be an exception - an exceptional advocate for women’s education. In 1876 she established the Woman’s Laboratory to create better opportunities for the scientific education of women. Over the next six years, Ellen instructed over 100 women - most were educators who would go on to prepare hundreds of young women to pursue STEM fields.The building that originally housed the Woman's Laboratory was demolished in 1883 to make way for the Walker Building completed in 1884. Standing at the corner of Boylston Street and Clarendon Street, the Church steeple visible to the left is the same church steeple seen in the photograph of the exterior of the Woman's Laboratory (MIT Annex).

Union Church - Ellen H. Swallow Marries Robert H. Richards June 4, 1875

Originally named the Union Congregational Church, the church was completed in 1870 and is located a few blocks from where Ellen lived with the Blodgetts. On June 4, 1875, Reverend Henry. M. Parsons, one of the church’s first ministers, married Ellen Henrietta Swallow and Robert Hallowell Richards.3.10In 1948, the Union Congregational Church merged with the Old South Church. A new congregation purchased the building and re-dedicated the space as the Union Church in 1949.1,7

March to Suffrage

Former Residence of Katharine Dexter McCormick: Biologist, Suffragist, Socialite Smuggler, Millionaire Philanthropist & Patron of the Pill

During her lifetime, Katharine Dexter McCormick (1875-1967) fearlessly pioneered the future of women’s rights in innumerable ways. McCormick was one of MIT’s early female graduates, earning an SB in Biology in 1904. While at MIT, she resided with her mother at 393 Commonwealth Avenue. This family home remained one of her residences until her death at age 92.McCormick’s leadership in women’s suffrage spanned her early involvement with local Massachusetts organizations to her positions as Vice President and Treasurer of the two-million-member strong National American Woman Suffrage Alliance (NAWSA) and internationally, as Corresponding Secretary and Board Member of the International Woman Suffrage Association (IWSA). Determined to continue empowering women after passage of the 19th Amendment, she later turned her focus to gaining women access to birth control. At a time when women’s contraception lived in the shadows, McCormick became an unlikely smuggler, successfully entering hundreds of banned diaphragms into the US, often having them sewn into the latest fashions she’d purchased in Europe. Arguably her most important contribution, however, was single-handedly funding the development and commercialization of the world’s first birth control pill.

When Women March - Boston’s Great Suffrage Parades of 1914 & 1915

“Two of the most effective bits of propaganda of the referendum campaign were the two great parades held in Boston in 1914 and ‘15. [...] Just why seeing women walk down the street in parade should convince men to vote for suffrage is a mystery, but it did so by the thousands. Probably because it gave them visual proof that the women who wanted suffrage were ordinary representative women - homemakers, mothers, daughters, teachers, working women - and not the unsexed freaks the antis declared they were.”3 Florence Hope Luscomb (MIT 1909 S.B. Architecture)

Through the Open Door

The Great Court (1916) - An Alumnae Landscape

MIT’s Great Court designed by alumnae Mabel Keyes Babcock 1908 S.B., 1909 S.M. Architecture, and Elizabeth Greenleaf Pattee 1916 S.B. Architecture, and completed in June 1917, has hosted countless gatherings. A description of their work appears in the June 1917 Technology Review. “In the great court the grouping of large maples with accompanying conifers and magnolias softened the bare outlines of the stone [...] while a border of rhododendrons in flower served to mask the plinth courses of the structures with greenery showing here and there a dash of brilliant color.” Rhododendrons still bloom every year for graduation.Throughout the 1920s, there had been discussions about replacing the gravel, adding a reflecting pond, and creating a formal entrance on Massachusetts Avenue. In 1928, steam shovels crawled across the court, erasing much of Mabel’s & Elizabeth’s original work: replacing gravel with grass and planting large trees. Some of the oldest trees may date from this time. MIT never installed the pond, but the main entrance did move to 77 Massachusetts Avenue in 1938.In 1974 MIT renamed The Great Court for James R. Killian, the 10th president of MIT and the first alumnus to hold the role.

The Margaret Cheney Room - 1916 to the Present

The Margaret Cheney Reading Room has played an essential role in the history of women students at MIT. When it first opened on the Boston campus in 1884, the Cheney Room provided the facilities that guaranteed women a place at MIT. Over multiple moves and renovations, the Cheney Room continues to evolve to meet the needs of MIT’s women students.Today's Margaret Cheney Room suite, located at 3-308 and 3-310, provides a physically and emotionally safe environment for women or women-identifying students. Private space: Key card access required.

This Tour is a Multi-zone Tour.

Site of MIT's William Barton Rogers Building - The Door Opens

Created by Coleen Smith on March 18th 2022, 11:54:45 am.

Get a QR Code for this tour

Description

As Ellen Swallow stepped onto the MIT campus for the first time, she encountered a college and city poised for rapid growth. From 1870 to 1910, MIT's enrollment increased from 224 to 1508 students, and Boston's population more than doubled. The Boston Back Bay reverberated with the constant chorus of earth-moving equipment creating the land MIT occupied then and occupies now.Boston's growth continued well into the 20th century. Today, nothing remains of MIT's original Boston campus, its footprints buried beneath more modern structures. The original Rogers Building was demolished in 1938 to make way for the current building. A plaque commemorating MIT's founding is located to the right of the main entrance at 497 Boylston Street. Dioramas of the history of the site, including MIT, can be found in the Lobby, close to the Newbury Street entrance. Please check in with Security before viewing the dioramas.

Share