Original Board of Trustees
From VCencylopedia
Matthew Vassar presents the trustees with the cashbox
The Board of Trustees of Vassar Female College first convened at the Hotel Gregory in Poughkeepsie on February 26, 1861, to inaugurate the world’s first “fully-endowed institution for the education of women”. The Founder, Matthew Vassar, had selected a varied cast of twenty-eight charter members, including five Baptist ministers, a Supreme Court jurist, a renowned inventor, four Rochester University trustees (1), a wood engraver, and an army colonel. Handing over the cash box, Vassar proclaimed woman’s “right… to intellectual culture and development”, and appointed William Kelly Chairman of the Board. Milo P. Jewett became president, despite blank votes cast by Matthew Vassar Jr., John Guy Vassar, and Charles Swift, and the Board members elected Vassar, Jr. treasurer and Cyrus Swan secretary, before agreeing to reconvene at least once annually.
President Jewett toured Europe extensively in search of innovative administrative ideas, but resigned his position in 1864, after a disagreement with the founder concerning the college’s opening date (See Top Hat Scandal). The Board elected the Rev. John H. Raymond as a replacement, and he reluctantly accepted despite poor health. Raymond had helped establish the Rochester University and was serving as the first president of Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute. Vassar Female College thus opened its doors in the fall of 1865.
Matthew Vassar’s speeches to the Board of Trustees during this period convey his administrative vision for the college. The founder drew from Jewett’s findings in Europe, expressing a desire to have teachers’ salaries match their efforts, “an idea of the Germans”. In declining health, Vassar encouraged his trustees to create an institution in which women would not only receive a rigorous education but also become educators themselves. To oversee the non-academic life of the college, the Board unanimously elected Hannah Lyman the first Lady Principal of the college in 1865, the same year Matthew Vassar resigned from his post as Chairman of the Executive Committee.
Two years later, the Board resolved a long-standing concern about the college’s name. Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book and an early Vassar patron, led a spirited campaign against the inclusion of “female” in the official title, calling the word both “grammatically incorrect” and “degrading”. In an 1867 address to the Board, the founder agreed with Hale’s observations, declaring “female” an “animal adjective” (2), unspecific to the particular group of young women who were to attend Vassar. The trustees thus voted to strike the word, renaming the school “Vassar College.” They removed the word in a more literal sense, as well, replacing the “Female” on the face of Main Building with brick.
Matthew Vassar revisited this idea in 1868 during his final address to the Board of Trustees. After imploring his nephew not to abandon his post as treasurer, the ailing founder asserted his desire that Vassar truly become not a "Female," but a “Woman’s College,” both attended and administered by women. To achieve this, he called for “a committee of ladies” to “organize and define the course of education for women” within the college. In his final moments, Vassar declared “progress” his “motto,” and encouraged his trustees not to follow “the old beaten paths,” but to forge ahead into unknown territory. Vassar then clutched his heart, “fell back in his chair” and died.
The founder’s fatal heart attack marked the end of an era in the founding of Vassar College. As a board member(3) read the remainder of Vassar’s speech, the trustees faced the prospect of continuing ahead bereft of both Jewett and Vassar, the two original visionaries of the college. The prolific final lines of Vassar’s speech detail his “cordial and final farewell,” as he thanks the “Divine Goodness” for not “a single death in [the] Board” during the three years since the college opened, and voices his expectation not “to meet with [the Board] officially again”. Hence, seven years after setting out to “inaugurate a new era in the history and life of women”, the charter members took leave of their founder and concluded their collective first chapter in the history of Vassar College trustees.
Related Articles
- Vassar's Charter Trustees
- Vassar's Communications to the Board of Trustees
- Board of Trustees Chairmen, 1861-2000
- First Women Trustees
- Hannah Lyman
- Lady Principals
- Matthew Vassar
- Milo P. Jewett
- John H. Raymond
- Top Hat Scandal
Footnotes
- Matthew Vassar served as a trustee of Rochester University, which later became University of Rochester. Here he met fellow Rochester trustees Ira Harris, William Kelly, Edward Lathrop and Smith Sheldon who would become charter trustees of Vassar College. Martin Anderson, who also became a Vassar charter trustee, served as president of the university.
- Communications p. 40. The phrase “animal adjective” has obvious Darwinist overtones, likely due to Darwin’s recent and highly controversial publication of Origin of Species.
- There seems to be dispute as to whether Cyrus Swan or Benson Lossing read the final paragraph of the speech. While Lossing lays claim to the deed, the minutes attribute the reading to the “secretary,” who was Swan at the time. One must keep in mind, however, that Swan recorded the minutes.
Sources
Communications to the Board of Trustees of Vassar College by its Founder. New York: Standard Printing and Publishing Company. 1886. pp. 21,26, 40, 54, 55.
Linner, Edward. Vassar: The Remarkable Growth of a Man and His College. Ed. Elizabeth A. Daniels. New York: Vassar College, 1984. p. 121.
Minutes of Trustees. pp. 8,89. Vassar Special Collections.
SL, 2004 (CJ)
