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The Great Court (1916) - An Alumnae Landscape

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

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.


Images

Mabel Keyes Babcock 1908 S.B., 1909 S.M. Architecture

Black & white, woman, dark hair pulled back, light metal rimmed glasses, white blouse with a high lace collar

Cambridge Campus, Great Court or Killian Court, Building 10, October 24, 1916

Black & white, domed building with columns across the facade. Gravel ground cover with wooden plank walkways. People walking.

Cambridge Campus, Great Court or Killian Court, Building 10, Richard Cockburn Maclaurin Buildings, circa 1917

Black & white, domed building with columns across the facade. Gravel ground cover with wooden plank walkways. Planting beds parallel to walkways with young rhododendrons. Leafless trees along the building.

Building E01, President's House garden, circa 1917. Note Active Sprinklers!

Black & white, building overlooking courtyard garden, Trees border the wall. Water Sprinklers active across the lawn.

Elizabeth Greenleaf Pattee 1916 S.B. Architecture

Black & white, profile of a young woman, dark hair rolled off the face. White v-neck collar.

MIT Class of 1915, Mary Elsa Plummer, seated, third from the left

Black & White, 10 men in dark three-piece suits, light shirts, dark ties, 1 woman light shirt, long dark skirt

MIT Class of 1916, Elizabeth Greenleaf Pattee, seated, second from the left

Black & White, 9 men in dark three-piece suits, light shirts, dark ties, 1 woman light shirt, long dark skirt

Maria L. Kivisild sits on the lawn of the Great Court. Stamp on verso reads "Feb 28 1968". Original Caption: "A First For M.I.T. Miss Maria L. Kivisild, 19, this week became the first girl ever to be elected student body president of the predominantly male Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Black & White photo. Young woman with short hair wearing a sleeveless light blouse, and skirt. Sitting on the grass in front of white domed building with columns across the facade.

Cambridge Campus, Great Court or Killian Court, planting, 1928

Black & white, domed building with columns across the facade. Steam shovels actively digging. Piles of dirt & gravel.

“At Least 700 Technology Women,” The Boston Globe, June 11, 1916

Black & white, newspaper with text and pictures if three women

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

In June 1916, MIT dedicated its new Cambridge campus with three days of reunion festivities that attracted almost 4000 alumni - nearly half of all MIT graduates. Although MIT worked diligently to move supplies and equipment into new offices, classrooms, and laboratories in time for classes to begin that fall, the Great Court lay under a blanket of gravel, crisscrossed by wooden walkways.

MIT originally commissioned Mabel and Elizabeth to design and build just the President’s Garden. In March 1917, the Cambridge Tribune recognized Mabel’s role in the design of the President’s Garden and provided a detailed resume of Mabel’s professional background. Similar in tone to Technology Women, the article highlights the work and achievements of MIT alumnae: “The selection of a woman from among its own graduates for such work emphasizes the policy of the M. I. T. in accepting women for students and preparing them for service in the world. That there are not more women at the enrollment is due to the fact that no concessions are made to them and the woman who has received a Tech degree has done her work with men and on the same plane […] Wherever the Tech woman takes her stand she gets to the top, whether as dean of her college, practicing her profession or taking up new lines.” 

The Cambridge Chronicle offered a detailed description of the completed President’s Garden: “Greater Boston has many beautiful gardens, but few more exquisite than the one which the coming of Technology has created in Cambridge.” 16 The Tech added, “The mechanical needs are cared for by many concealed water sprays, which add to tie picturesqueness while effecting their needful purposes.”13 With the first sprinkler head patented in 1871, in-ground irrigation systems were a recent innovation in landscape architecture. Large-scale irrigation systems were not patented until 1932.

Thanks to an anonymous donation to “Beautify the Campus” in May 1917, President Robert C. Maclaurin hired Mabel and Elizabeth to supervise the design and construction of the campus landscape, including the Great Court. Despite the late start, Mabel and Elizabeth completed work on the Great Court in time for Graduation in June 1917. For the first time in its history, MIT held graduation exercises outside. “The recent adornment of the court of honor was a surprise to most of the visitors, so quietly has it been accomplished.”5

Mabel was born in 1862, and by the time Mabel entered MIT, she had earned an A.B. from Northwestern and was a practicing architect. Mabel taught at Wellesley College from 1910-1914. After graduating from MIT, Elizabeth taught and later served as Assistant Principal at the Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture for Women. During World War I, Mabel joined Elizabeth at Lowthorpe, becoming director of agricultural courses in 1918. Mabel practiced the art and science of landscape design. Mabel’s curriculum covered “the chemistry of soils; the science of plant growing, with enough scientific botany to make the matter clear; the use of fertilizers; [...] and the business principles of farm management.”21

In 1913 Elizabeth was one of the first women to be elected to class office. “Mary E. Plummer [Class of 1915], who was elected [Junior Class] Secretary, is the first co-ed to be elected to a class office.”15 A few weeks later, “Elizabeth G. Pattee easily distanced all competitors in the race for the [Sophomore Class] Secretary's office, receiving more votes than the next two candidates combined.”7 Both were the only woman nominated. As students, Mabel and Elizabeth served as Presidents of Cleofan, MIT’s first student club for women. After graduation, Mabel joined MITWA and served as President from 1916-1920.

Fifty-five years later, Maria L. Kivisild ‘69, also from the School of Architecture, became the first woman to be elected Undergraduate Association President. With the election of Sophia Liu '17, and Daysi Gomez '18, women held both the President and Vice-President roles from 2016 to 2022. Danielle Geathers ‘22 became the first Black woman to be elected UA President in May 2020. Geathers and her VP, Yu Jing Chen ‘22, were re-elected in 2021.

In the introduction to Technology Women, Mabel writes, “It is scarcely to be believed that the way already won will ever be lost; but problems there will be, [...] and more be needed the trained hand and mind, the will to do and the intelligence to direct. May there always be Technology women to the fore, ‘winning a way which others will keep open.’”9

Sources

  1. “A History of Lawn Sprinklers.” Erie Insurance, Erie Insurance, 2016, https://www.erieinsurance.com/blog/lawn-sprinkler-systems-2. Accessed 16 Dec. 2022.
  2. “At Least 700 Technology Women.” The Boston Sunday Globe, 11 June 1916, p. 60.
  3. Eran Ben-Joseph, Holly D. Ben-Joseph, Anne C. Dodge, “Against All Odds: MIT’s Pioneering Women of Landscape Architecture,” 2006. https://www.dropbox.com/s/x8e6m9k2fjx7ivg/againstallodds.pdf?dl=0. Accessed 27 Sep. 2023.
  4. “Elizabeth Greenleaf Pattee | The Cultural Landscape Foundation.” The Cultural Landscape Foundation | Connecting People to Places, https://www.tclf.org/pioneer/elizabeth-greenleaf-pattee. Accessed 9 Dec. 2022.
  5. “First Graduation in the new buildings.” Technology Review, June 1917, https://archive.org/details/MIT-Technology-Review-1917-06/mode/2up. Accessed 12 Sep. 2022.
  6. “Junior Nominations brought to Close.” The Tech, 10 Oct. 1913, p. 1, https://thetech.com/issues/33/47/pdf. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
  7. “Loomis Elected 1916 President - Dewson Wins Vice-Presidency - MissPattee Chosen For Secretary.” The Tech, 26 Nov 1913, p. 1, https://thetech.com/issues/33/86/pdf. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
  8. “Maria Kisivild Elected UAP over Mathis Write-in Vote.” The Tech, 28 Feb 1968, p. 1, https://thetech.com/issues/88/7/pdf. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
  9. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and M.I.T. Women's Association. Registration Committee. Technology Women. [Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1916. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hn59ep. Accessed 02/25/2022.
  10. “MIT Undergraduate Association | MIT History.” MIT Libraries, https://libraries.mit.edu/mithistory/institute/committees/mit-undergraduate-association/. Accessed 16 Nov. 2022.
  11. “President’s Garden.” The Cambridge Tribune, 17 Mar. 1917, p. 9, https://cambridge.dlconsulting.com/?a=d&d=Tribune19170317-01.1.9. Accessed 30 Nov. 2022.
  12. “President’s Garden Completed.” The Tech, 11 Oct. 1917, pp. 3–4,https://thetech.com/issues/37/52/pdf. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
  13. “President's Report for the year ending June 30, 1928” MIT Libraries, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1928, https://dome.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.3/59010/AC0597_001928.pdf. Accessed 30 Nov. 2022.
  14. “Previous Officers - MIT Undergraduate Association.” MIT Undergraduate Association, http://ua.mit.edu/previous-officers. Accessed 30 Nov. 2022.
  15. “Scully Elected Junior President.” The Tech, 23 Oct. 1913, p. 1, https://thetech.com/issues/33/57/pdf. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
  16. Seagrave, C. Burnside, and James W. Bean, editors. “The Chronicler.” The Cambridge Chronicle, VOL. LXXII, NO. 41, 13 Oct. 1917, p. 2, https://cambridge.dlconsulting.com/?a=d&d=Chronicle19171013-01.1.2. Accessed 15 Nov. 2022.
  17. Smith, Nancy Duvergne. “How MIT Got a Front Door on Mass. Ave.” Slice of MIT, MIT Alumni Association, 28 Jan. 2013, https://alum.mit.edu/slice/how-mit-got-front-door-mass-ave.
  18. “Sophomore Nominations Closed Saturday.” The Tech, 17 Nov. 1913, p. 1, https://thetech.com/issues/33/78/pdf. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
  19. Song, Grace. “Geathers, Chen Discuss Increasing Diversity, Prioritizing Student Concerns, and Responding to COVID-19 | The Tech.” The Tech, 6 May 2020, https://thetech.com/2020/05/06/2020-ua-p-vp-interview. Accessed 30 Nov. 2022.
  20. “To Beautify the Great Court.” The Tech, 18 May 1917, p. 1, https://thetech.com/issues/37/19/pdf. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
  21. “Women’s Work at Technology.” The Tech, 3 Apr. 1918, p. 3, https://thetech.com/issues/38/1/pdf Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
Image Sources(Click to expand)

1. Mabel Keyes Babcock, Courtesy of the MIT Museum. https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/person/babcock-mabel-keyes-5933. Accessed 1 Dec. 2022.

2. Great Court or Killian Court, Building 10, 1916. Courtesy of the MIT Museum. https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/object/GCP-00031398. Accessed 1 Dec. 2022.

3. Great Court or Killian Court, Building 10, 1917. Courtesy of the MIT Museum. https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/object/GCP-00030033. Accessed 1 Dec. 2022.

4. Building E01, President's House garden, circa 1917, Courtesy of the MIT Museum. https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/object/GCP-0003400. Accessed 1 Dec. 2022.

5. Elizabeth Greenleaf Pattee, Technique 1917. https://web.mit.edu/technique/www/scans/1917_Technique.pdf#page=241. Accessed 8 Nov. 2022.

6. Mary Elsa Plummer, Technique 1915. https://web.mit.edu/technique/www/scans/1915_Technique.pdf. Accessed 30 Nov. 2022.

7. Elizabeth Greenleaf Pattee, Technique 1915. https://web.mit.edu/technique/www/scans/1915_Technique.pdf. Accessed 30 Nov. 2022.

8. Maria L. Kivisild, Courtesy of the MIT Museum. https://collections.mitmuseum.org/object2/?id=GCP-00012925. Accessed 1 Dec. 2022.

9. Great Court or Killian Court 1928, Courtesy of the MIT Museum. https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/object/GCP-00031411. Accessed 1 Dec. 2022.

10. “At Least 700 Technology Women,” The Boston Globe, June 11, 1916.

Additional Information