November 8, 2017

Today, November 8, is the 180th anniversary of the opening of Mount Holyoke College, the oldest institution for the higher education of women in the United States. Educator Mary Lyon founded the school in South Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1837, at a time when women had few opportunities to obtain a college education. Lyon named the school Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for a mountain that stands near South Hadley. The college adopted its present name in 1893.

Mary Lyon Hall, seen here in 1908, has housed administrative offices, classrooms, and a chapel at Mount Holyoke College since 1897. Credit: Library of Congress

Lyon served as the school’s principal until 1849, establishing strict entrance requirements and a challenging course of study that did not include cooking or other homemaking skills.  It was one of the original members of the “Seven Sisters,” an association of women’s colleges that also included Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Radcliffe, Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley. “Seven Sisters” refers to the Pleiades, seven sister goddesses of ancient Greek mythology who became stars in the sky. Mount Holyoke’s curriculum emphasizes liberal arts and sciences.

This daguerreotype (early photo) shows Mary Lyon, the founder of Mount Holyoke College, in 1845. Credit: Public Domain (Mount Holyoke College Archives)

Well-known alumnae of Mount Holyoke include the poet Emily Dickinson; the physician Virginia Apgar; the playwright Wendy Wasserstein; former governor Ella T. Grasso of Connecticut; Frances Perkins, the first woman U.S. Cabinet member; and Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao. Mount Holyoke’s current enrollment of some 2,200 students includes women (and, since 2014, transgender students) from 47 states and 57 countries.

October 10, 2014

Malala Yousafzai, a teenaged Pakistani activist who survived an assassination attempt by militant Sunni Islamists, is one of two advocates for the rights of children named as winners of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. Also honored was Kailash Satyarthi of India, founder of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Children Mission), which works to end child labor and child trafficking (the selling and buying of children for financial gain). In announcing this year’s Peace Prize winners, the Nobel Committee praised the two activists “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.”

Malala Yousafzai, 17, is the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. (Claude Truong-Ngoc/Wikimedia Commons)

At 17, Yousafzai is the youngest winner of the Peace Prize. She became an international advocate for the education of girls and women while recovering from a nearly fatal gunshot wound to the head in 2012. Yousafzai became a target of the Taliban, a miltant political group, in 2009, after she began writing a blog (web log) for the Urdu-language website of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). In the blog, she reported on the repressive activity of the Taliban in the Swat district, an area of northwestern Pakistan, which had come under the control of the group. The Taliban had banned girls in Swat from attending school and forced many schools to close. In mid-2009, the Pakistani military launched a campaign that drove the Taliban from power in Swat. After that, some schools reopened. However, the Taliban remained active in the region. On October 9, 2012, two Taliban gunmen boarded Yousafzai’s school bus and opened fire on her. Two other schoolgirls were also wounded in the attack. Yousafzai was flown to the United Kingdom for medical treatment and has remained in that country. Despite the international outcry against the Taliban’s attack on Yousafzai, the group vowed to continue their attempts on her life.

Kailash Satyarthi, 60, won praise from the Nobel Committe for “showing great personal courage” in heading “various forms of protests and demonstrations, all peaceful, focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain.” In an interview with Nobel officials, Satyarthi said, “First of all, everyone must acknowledge and feel that child slavery still exists in the world, in its ugliest face and form. And this is an evil … which is unacceptable and which must go. That sense of recognition must be developed first of all. And secondly there is a need … of higher amount of corporate engagement, and the engagement of the public towards it. So, everybody has a responsibility to save and protect the children on this planet.” To call more attention to the problem of child labor, Satyarthi’s organization is planning the first annual End Child Slavery Week, which will be held from November 19 to November 25. According to the Nobel Committee, there are an estimated 168 million child laborers in the world today.

Additional World Book articles:

• Nobel Peace Prizes (table)
• Schooling
• Women’s movement