MIT Women's History In Her Footsteps Collection

Entries on This Tour

In Her Footsteps: The Door Opens - Ellen Swallow Richards' MIT (1871-1911)

Ellen's spirit and leadership opened the door to technical education for women. Since 1871, over 36,000 women have followed in Ellen's footsteps to earn degrees from MIT.

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

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.

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).

Site of the Margaret Cheney Room - MIT Pierce Building (1898 - 1916)

In 1883, the demolition of the Women’s Laboratory left MIT without dedicated rest rooms and laboratory space for women students. Concerned by what the lack of suitable facilities for women could mean for the future of women at MIT, Ellen Swallow Richards, MIT’s first female graduate and fierce supporter of higher education for women, immediately when to work. This is the story of how one room and a determined group of local women secured a full and permanent place for female students at MIT.Now the site of the John Hancock Tower, the Pierce Building was demolished and Stuart Street extended by 1922.

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

Ellen Swallow's Neighborhood - Mrs. Blodgetts's Boarding House (1871-75)

Starting in January 1871, following her admission to MIT, Ellen Swallow (1873, SB Chemistry) rented a room at Mrs. Blodgett’s boarding house at 523 Columbus Avenue in Boston. It was not unusual at the time for families to augment their income by renting out rooms in their homes and providing meals to boarders. Living with a family was a safe and economical option for a single young woman moving to the city. Now a private home, Mrs. Blodgett’s brick townhouse in what was one of Boston’s newer neighborhoods was less than a mile from MIT’s location on Boylston Street.

Site of the Girls' Normal & High School - Boston's First Public Teacher Education & Secondary School for Women

Three pioneering public schools at this site played a prominent role in establishing girls' education and were closely connected to MIT in the late 19th Century: Girls' Normal School, Girls' High School, and Girls' Latin School. Through 1941, one-third of the women who came to MIT from public schools graduated from one of these schools. Many brought their technical skills into the classroom to educate and lead the next generation of young women. Bessie Tilson Capen (Class of 1878) was the first teacher from the school to study at MIT and became Ellen Swallow Richards' (1873 S.B. Chemistry) lifelong friend and colleague. Clara Preston Ames (S.B. Chemistry) and Carrie Rice Clark (S.B. Chemistry) became the first Girls' High School alumnae to earn MIT degrees in 1882.The City of Boston closed the Girls' High School in 1974. The building was later demolished. In 1986, the City of Boston built the Thomas O'Day Playground.

Site of The New England Kitchen - A Scientific Approach to Cooking & the Launch of Boston's Public School Lunch Program

Ellen Swallow Richards (1873, S.B. Chemistry) and Mary Hinman Abel opened the doors of the New England Kitchen on January 24, 1890, as "an experiment to determine the successful conditions of preparing, by scientific methods, from the cheaper food materials, nutritious and palatable dishes, which should find a ready demand at paying prices.”1 Originally located at 142 Pleasant Street, the Kitchen soon expanded to other neighborhoods. After securing a contract to prepare lunches for Boston's public high schools in 1894, the Kitchen consolidated operations at this 485 Tremont Street location. During this time, Ellen also worked as a full-time MIT instructor teaching Sanitary Chemistry classes at MIT and, with Professor Thomas M. Drown, conducted a landmark survey of Massachusetts waterways. To accomplish her goals, Ellen recruited an army of intelligent women to fund, promote and manage the work of the New England Kitchen, demonstrating the collective power of women committed to social reform.The original New England Kitchen site at 485 Tremont Street was demolished and now is the "backyard" of the Berkley Street Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology established in 1908. The School has plans to move to Roxbury in 2024.

Trinity Church: MIT Bids Farewell to Ellen Swallow Richards

Trinity Church and MIT have a long, intertwined history. In 1872, Boston's Summer Street Trinity Church was destroyed in the Great Fire. Following the fire, the congregation gathered in the Rogers Building‘s Huntington Hall every Sunday for five years until architect H. H. Richardson completed their new building. The new Trinity Church would be adjacent to the MIT campus.Over the years, the church came to be MIT’s meeting house. It was the site of annual convocations and community gatherings. Following Ellen Swallow Richards’ death, everyone gathered at the Trinity Church for the memorial service on Sunday, April 2, 1911. She was a pioneer, educator, seeker, extremely hard worker, and a dear friend. Above all, she sought to be of service to her beloved husband, parents, students, friends, and colleagues.

The Frog Pond on Boston Common - Birth of Boston's Public Water System

In a ceremony that drew 100,000 people, Boston’s public water system was born in 1848 as water flowed into the Frog Pond on Boston Common.(4) Yet, deadly Typhoid outbreaks(3) in 1849 and 1866 and the Great Fire of 1872 would demonstrate that Boston’s water supply was neither safe nor sufficient. Ellen Swallow Richards (1873 S.B. Chemistry) would be at the forefront of the 19th-century Sanitary Revolution that would improve public health, child survival, and life expectancy. She also led the way to new fields within science, engineering, and medicine: ecology, toxicology, epidemiology, environmental engineering, and planetary health.According to the 1875 President’s Report, MIT’s Chemistry laboratories were located in the basement of the Boylston Street Rogers Building. From 1876-1883, Ellen would also have worked, alongside her students, at the Woman’s Laboratory in the MIT Annex. However, by 1884, Ellen would be assigned a dedicated laboratory space on the third floor of the new Walker Building for her work in Sanitary Chemistry.

In Her Footsteps: MIT Alumnae & the March to Suffrage

Follows the footsteps of the great 1914 & 1915 Boston Suffrage Parades to discover MIT Suffragists and how they leveraged the growing women's club movement to recruit supporters.

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)

Former Home of Eugenia Brooks Frothingham: Musician, Artist, Novelist, and Suffragist

Born in Paris on November 17, 1873, Eugenia Brooks Frothingham lived at 476 Beacon Street from 1897 to 1922. During this time, she attended classes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and published five novels. In 1914, Eugenia co-founded the Writer's Equal Suffrage League, an organization of women and men who advocated for women's right to vote, was elected Vice-President at their inaugural annual meeting and marched with the Writers Division in Boston's first Suffrage Parade. By the time Eugenia penned Fears of the Anti-Suffragist, she had established herself as a musician, artist, best-selling novelist, and suffragist.

Former Home of Mabel Clapp Lord - Public Health Advocate & Anti-Suffragist who Registered to Vote

From her home here, Mabel Clapp Lord led a life committed to social reform, advocating for safe, affordable housing, improvements in public health, and, for a time, against women’s suffrage. In February 1910, at a hearing to amend the Massachusetts State Constitution, Mabel, representing those opposed to women’s suffrage, remarked, “There was nothing progressive in producing new burdens for women.”3 Eight years later, Mabel shed her anti-suffrage stance and registered to vote.16

Former Home of Mary Baker Strong - An Active Anti-Suffragist

Mary Baker Strong (MIT Class of 1897) purchased 258 Beacon Street in 1892 and lived there until 1897, when she moved to Cambridge. The June 1909 Cambridge Chronicle announced, "Cambridge is not only the home of some strong woman suffragists but also of some equally active anti-woman suffragists. Mrs. Charles P. Strong, of 24 Concord Avenue, is corresponding secretary of the Massachusetts association opposed to the further extension of suffrage to women." 17 Founded in 1895, MAOFESW was the oldest and strongest anti-woman suffrage organization in the United States. Mary's active involvement through 1921, including her role as the corresponding secretary, contributions to the MAOFESW annual journal, The Remonstrance, and public anti-suffrage advocacy, is a testament to her unwavering dedication and influence within the organization.2,10

Site of MWSA, BESAGG, the Woman's Journal and other Massachusetts Suffrage Groups 1909-1920

You are looking at a building which once housed many different women’s groups working towards women’s suffrage and other worthy causes. 585 Boylston was known as Chauncy Hall. In 1909 the New England Woman’s Club (NEWC) moved in.1 Clubs like this one provided information to women through lectures by prominent individuals, as well as providing ways for women to advance themselves through leadership roles. Interestingly, the club often shared space with the New England Woman Suffrage Association which was started by Julia Ward Howe (president of the NEWC), Lucy Stone amongst others at a conference in 1868.2 Although predominantly for women, men could join and many famous men such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry James joined and/or gave lectures to the group.3 Many of the women who belonged to the club were also leaders in the suffrage movement.

Site of Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government (BESAGG) - Founded by Pauline Agassiz Shaw, Maud Wood Park, & Mary Hutcheson Page

Mary Hutcheson Page (MIT Class of 1888) worked tirelessly for women’s rights and women’s suffrage as a member of many local and national organizations throughout her adult life. Here, at 6 Marlborough Street, Mary, alongside Pauline Agassiz Shaw and Maud Wood Park oversaw the evolution of the Massachusetts suffrage movement as it transformed from the stale, outdated movement of the 19th century into the modern, forward-thinking movement of the 20th century.

Nichols House Museum

The Nichols House Museum serves to educate visitors about the lives of women during the 19th and early 20th centuries and the history of the Beacon Hill district of Boston. Located in a townhouse that was built in the early 1800s and was home to Rose Standish Nichols from 1885 until 1960. Rose Standish Nichols was a suffragist and pacifist, as well as an accomplished landscape architect. The museum is open year round and offers an abundance of lectures, programs, special events, and tours.

Old City Hall - Meet Boston’s First Women to Hold Elected Office

Lucia M. Peabody (MIT Class of 1878), Abby W. May, Ada Shepard Badger, and Lucretia Crocker were elected to the Boston School Committee in December 1873. Their victory, a significant milestone in the women's suffrage movement, marked a turning point in history. They waged a bitter, months-long battle in City Hall, the Supreme Judicial Court, and the Massachusetts Legislature to claim their seats.The Boston School Committee met at Old City Hall through the 1870s. It oversaw the city's public schools and made critical decisions about curriculum, funding, and school policies. In 1875, the Committee was reorganized, reducing members from 114 to 25. With the decreased attendance, the meetings were held at the School Committee Building at 10 Mason Street.6,18,19

Corner of Tremont & Winter Streets - Florence Luscomb Winning Freedom & Justice for Half the Human Race

Taken on the corner of Tremont and Winter, the picture of Florence Hope Luscomb selling the Woman’s Journal is one of the most iconic pictures of the women’s suffrage movement. The photographer may not have realized how symbolic it would become. Florence had grown up with the movement and started attending suffrage meetings with her mother when she was five. In July 1909, just one month after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with an S.B. in Architecture, she debuted as a speaker for the groundbreaking Votes for Women open-air campaign that would conduct 97 public meetings to an estimated 24,900 people across Massachusetts. Over the next decade, Florence would become one of the most influential speakers for the women’s suffrage movement, leaving a profound and lasting impact on the cause.

In Her Footsteps: Through the Open Door - MIT Cambridge (1916 - Present)

Ellen Swallow Richards opened the door, MIT women — students, alumnae, and faculty — continued to advocate for equality and equity in education and career opportunities.

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.

Ellen Swallow Richards Lobby - Commemorating Her Life and Legacy

The Ellen Swallow Richards Lobby located at the intersection of MIT Buildings 2 & 4 is a testament to the remarkable life and legacy of Ellen Swallow Richards (1842-1911). As the first woman to be admitted, graduate, and become an instructor at MIT, and considered to be the founder of ecology and home economics, she broke barriers and paved the way for future generations. Her contributions as a chemist, environmentalist, and advocate for women's education continue to impact us today. As visitors stand in the lobby, surrounded by the memorabilia of her life and legacy, they can almost hear Richards' call to action from 1872, “I hope that I am winning a way which others will keep open.”[1]

Dixie Lee Bryant Lecture Hall - Honoring A Pioneering Alumna

MIT’s Green Building, designed by I.M. Pei (1940 BAR Architecture), houses the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) and the MIT-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI). Most MIT lecture halls are nameless, simply referred to by their room number: 10-250, 26-100, etc. The naming of 54-100 for Dixie Lee Bryant (1891 SB Geology), the first person to earn a degree in Geology from MIT, marks a singular honor to a pioneering woman in Earth Science.The Dixie Lee Bryant Lecture Hall is located on the 1st Floor - which is not the ground floor. Use the elevator for the most direct route. Due to the ongoing construction, entry to Building 54 is limited. See https://capitalprojects.mit.edu/projects/building-54-infrastructure-renewal for more information.For guidance on accessing MIT Buildings visit https://now.mit.edu/policies/campus-access-and-visitors/

Women's Healthcare Pioneers & Advocates - MIT Medical (E23) & Whitaker College (E25)

Healthcare has been available at this location since this building, E23, opened in 1982. Medical services were not specifically recorded at MIT until the Annual Report of 1901; and even though women had been enrolling as students since MIT’s earliest years, for decades, there is no mention in available records of care being provided to the women students of MIT – although there are multiple references to caring for the wives of students. Even so, MIT was making a difference in the health of women: a number of MIT’s earliest female students became physicians (and many still do to this day); Katharine Dexter McCormick (1904 S.B. Biology) funded the research that led to the development of the oral contraceptive pill; and today, MIT faculty like Linda Griffith are leading research endeavors that aim to understand the pathophysiology and potential treatments for conditions such as endometriosis that affect women.

Site of Nancy Hopkins' Original Laboratory: Seeley G. Mudd Building (E17)

Nancy Hopkins joined MIT’s Center for Cancer Research, then housed at the Seeley Mudd Building (E17), as an assistant professor in 1973 and earned tenure in 1979.10,11 Now the Amgen Inc. Professor of Biology Emerita, Nancy pioneered work on the genetics of mouse RNA tumor viruses, early vertebrate development using zebrafish, and on zebrafish as a cancer model. In 1994, armed with a tape measure and laboratory floorplan, she launched an investigation that would change the work environment for women at MIT and across the country. When the Cancer Center moved across the street to The David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research (Building 76) in 2010, MIT renovated Buildings E17 and E18 to provide additional space for the Chemical Engineering department and other projects on campus.3,15 E17 is Key Card Access only. For guidance on accessing MIT Buildings visit https://now.mit.edu/policies/campus-access-and-visitors/

Susan Hockfield Court - MIT Women Lead in Higher Education

In December 2004, Susan Hockfield became the First Woman and Life Scientist to lead MIT. As MIT’s 16th president, she championed the convergence of the life sciences with the engineering and physical sciences, oversaw the establishment of the MIT Energy Initiative, advanced MIT’s regional and global engagement, and fostered the burgeoning Kendall Square innovation cluster, among other visionary initiatives. “It’s particularly meaningful to have this courtyard chosen as a legacy of my leadership. [...] The walkways link buildings, departments, schools and disciplines, and facilitate one of MIT’s signature promises: ‘Turning footpaths of collaboration into superhighways.’”3In 1871, the same year Ellen Swallow Richards (Class of 1873) entered MIT, Elizabeth Willard became the first woman college president in the US, heading the Evanston College for Ladies in Illinois until its merger with Northwestern in 1873. At the time, women accounted for 15% of bachelor’s degrees and fewer than 1% of doctorates in the United States. A decade later, Ellen Swallow Richards and Marion Talbot (Class of 1888) founded the American Association of University Women (AAUW) to help women break through educational barriers to attend and graduate from college. By 2021, women earned 46% of U.S. doctoral degrees. However, the proportion falls by 10-20 points for women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs. Today, 33% of college presidents are women. Although the proportion falls to 22% for doctorate-granting institutions like MIT.2,17,18 For over a century, MIT women have served and continue to serve as leaders in Higher Education.

Lisa T. Su Building (12) - MIT.nano - First Alumna-Donor Named Building

Steps away from the Infinite Corridor and a short walk from the Big Dome, MIT Building 12 stands. It is named the Lisa T. Su building after alum Lisa Su '90, SM '91, PhD '94, the first women alumni donor to have a building named after her (1). Completed in 2018, Building 12 is a multidisciplinary space housing labs, imaging facilities, teaching spaces, and meeting spaces meant to support advancements in nanotechnology, technology on the scale of billionths of a meter (2).MIT.nano offers tours to faculty and their research teams; staff from MIT departments, centers, and offices; alumni clubs; and outside groups including corporations and industrial visitors interested in nanoscale discovery and innovation. Unfortunately, they are unable to offer tours to individuals, families visiting MIT, or tourists. For more information visit https://mitnano.mit.edu/request-tour-mitnano

Kresge Auditorium - Four Historic Women's Conferences

Kresge Auditorium was designed by Eero Saarinen and dedicated in 1955 to serve as “the meeting house of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.” Over the years, Kresge has hosted numerous programs, including four historic women’s conferences: the Symposium on American Women In Science & Engineering (1964), the Centennial Convocation (1973), Black Women In The Academy: Defending Our Name (1994), and the MIT150 Leaders in Science and Engineering: The Women of MIT (2011). From 1871 through today, MIT women - students, alumnae, and faculty - continue to advocate for equality and equity in housing, education, and career opportunities. These conferences underscored the contemporary challenges for women. Interestingly, each was sponsored by a different group of stakeholders. The first three were organized by women: Students, Alumnae, and Faculty. The 2011 Conference, part of the celebration of MIT’s founding 150 years earlier, was a collaborative effort by women and men.

Stanley McCormick Hall - MIT’s only all-female dormitory

MIT’s only all-female dormitory Stanley McCormick Hall marked a historic moment in MIT and US history. Built in 1963 by MIT architecture professor, Herbert Beckwith, McCormick Hall shepherded an era of greater commitment to the equal education of women by MIT.Katharine Dexter McCormick, an early female graduate of MIT in 1904, commissioned the building of McCormick Hall and named it after her deceased husband. Even though MIT had been accepting women since 1883, Katharine Dexter McCormick felt MIT was insincere in its efforts to support female students. She spent her adult life promoting women’s equality at MIT in addition to playing a prominent role in the women’s suffrage movement and efforts to develop safe birth control methods. McCormick Hall is the capstone of Katharine Dexter McCormick’s many contributions to MIT. McCormick Hall stands as a monument to her belief that it is possible to combine graciousness and style with intellectual seriousness and persistent hard work. (1)Key Card Access for Residents Only.

This Tour is a Multi-zone Tour.

MIT Women's History In Her Footsteps Collection

Created by Coleen Smith on January 27th 2025, 9:50:35 pm.

This tour has been viewed 63 times.

Get a QR Code for this tour

Description

Women like Ellen Swallow Richards opened doors for women to pursue STEM degrees, vote, and make pioneering contributions across multiple fields of study. Aspects of the MIT Woman’s experience have changed over the years, but there are enduring elements that transcend a specific individual or timeframe. Every student’s MIT experience includes admission, housing, classes, projects, mentors, and life-long friends. In Her Footsteps celebrates their achievements and demonstrates our common ground. Each 2-3 mile, self-guided tour leads participants through a curated set of MIT Alumnae & Women's History locations within Boston and Cambridge. Not up for a walk? Enjoy as a virtual tour from your computer! With the in-depth backstories, images, and additional information offered, the In Her Footsteps series offer not just a walking tour but an interactive guidebook to Women's History at MIT.

BESbswy

Entries on This Tour

MIT Women's History In Her Footsteps Collection

Description

Share