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Mary Emma Woolley, college professor and President of Mount Holyoke College from 1901-1937, was born on July 13, 1863 in South Norwalk, Connecticut to Joseph Judah Woolley, a Congregational minister, and Mary August Ferris Woolley, a schoolteacher. She attended Mrs. Fannie Augur's school in Meriden, Connecticut until her family moved to Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1871, when she enrolled in Providence High School. In 1882 she began attending Wheaton Seminary in Norton, Massachusetts, graduating in 1884 and serving as a faculty member there from 1885-1890. She entered Brown University in the fall of 1891 as the first woman to attend the university. She received her A.B. in 1894 and her A.M. in 1895. She served as an instructor, associate professor and professor at Wellesley College from 1895-1899, teaching for and acting as chairman of the Biblical History and Literature Department. During this period, Woolley formed what would be a life-long partnership with Jeannette Augusta Marks, then a student at Wellesley. In 1900, Woolley accepted the position as President of Mount Holyoke College and took office in May of 1901. Her achievements include hiring more faculty with advanced degrees, introducing honors work into the curriculum, expanding the graduate program, successfully raising funds for the College, establishing an academic honors program, eliminating secret societies (sororities), improving the health of students by increasing the physical education requirement, ending the domestic work system, and easing Mount Holyoke's religious exclusiveness. She was an active member of many organizations, serving as the first woman senator of Phi Beta Kappa (1907), chairman of the College Entrance Examination Board (1924-1927), President of the American Association of University Women (1927-1933), and moderator of the Congregational Churches of America (1937). She served as a member of the Foreign Missions Conference of North America Educational Commission to China, which studied Christian higher edu! cation i n that country (1921) and she participated in several major conferences, including the Institute of Pacific Relations conventions (1925 and 1927). In 1932, President Herbert Hoover appointed her to serve as the only woman delegate from the United States to the Conference on Reduction and Limitation of Armaments held in Geneva, Switzerland. She retired as President of Mount Holyoke in 1937 after a divisive controversy over the selection of her successor. She lived in Jeannette Marks' home in Westport, New York and remained active, organizing the Committee on the Participation of Women in Post-War Policy during World War II, joining the National Woman's Party, and endorsing the Equal Rights Amendment. In 1944, Woolley suffered a cerebral hemorrhage that left her partially paralyzed. She died on September 5, 1947 in Westport at the age of eighty-four.

From the guide to the Mary Emma Woolley Papers MS 0842., circa 1845-1947, 1900-1947, (Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections)

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