WE ARE THE MARY LYONS: STEP BACK AND HEAR OUR ROAR

The name of this post is actually a goofy song my husband made up to mock (in a friendly way) the sports teams of my alma mater, Mount Holyoke College.  Our athletes are known (in a sort of low key way) as the Lions or Lyons, after the college's founder.  Founded in 1837, Mount Holyoke is the oldest American women's college, the fruits of Mary Lyon's extraordinary efforts.

After touring a number of colleges between Virginia and Maine, I decided I really liked the atmosphere and the classes at Mount Holyoke.  Mount Holyoke would probably be considered academically prestigious in many quarters, but  at my boarding school, brimming as it was with academic high achievers, Mount Holyoke wasn't considered any great shakes.  I experienced strong doubts about myself and my choice the summer before I started college as I listened to friends talk excitedly about going to places like Harvard and Brown.  In one particularly painful moment, a friendly acquaintance, well meaning and Princeton bound, gasped, "But you're so smart!" when she heard where I was headed.  When I moved onto campus in the fall, my doubts mounted as it sunk in that I would be in a virtually all-female environment for four looooooong years. 

Those four years turned out to be a great academic experience.  My isolation from male peers was tempered by frequent trips to Manhattan and a struggling artist boyfriend.  But it was the historical example of founder Mary Lyon that got me through my worst periods of doubt.  I have always been very aware of the history of my surroundings, and Mount Holyoke probably has the most inspiring history (for me anyway) of any American institution of higher education. 

Mary Lyon was the daughter of a farmer who had fought in the Revolutionary War.  She grew up in western Massachusetts, which was something of a wilderness during the early part of the nineteenth century.  Although she had numerous domestic responsibilities as a child and an adolescent, she was also an outstanding student and became an acclaimed teacher.  Mary Lyon's dream was to make university education available to female students. Although there were plenty of schools for women that emphasized the arts and domestic pursuits, not a one offered an education equivalent to that available at the numerous men-only universities already in existence.  The learned men at places like Amherst and Yale scoffed when Mary Lyon proposed that their instutions open their doors to women. 

So Mary Lyon rode around New England for three long years from 1834 to 1837 soliciting sufficient funds to open a real college for eighty women.  Her college was unique in its academic rigor for women.  Mary Lyon's academic passion was for chemistry and she insisted that her students receive as thorough a grounding in the sciences as their male peers, including lab and field work.   Mount Holyoke's chemistry department has a particularly strong reputation to this day.   

Mary Lyon's vision and her determination to see it through are revered on campus even now.  On Founder's Day in November, the seniors, dressed in their graduation robes, gather at Mary Lyon's grave (which is on campus) and eat ice cream (brrrr . . .) At graduation, the seniors, along with a host of alumnae present for reunions, march a winding route through the campus in white dresses bearing laurel wreaths which we ultimately drape on the wrought iron gates around Mary Lyon's grave.  We used to refer to this custom derisively as "the virgin parade," but when it came time to do it, I didn't feel at all like a dork, as I had expected.  I felt honored.   

More information about Mary Lyon is available here.

Comments

[L.]

Wow. I went to Smith -- I was right down the road from Mt. Holyoke and had many friends there, and I had no idea that you guys also did the white dress thing, on what we called, "Ivy Day," right before graduation. We had ivy garlands, not laurel wreaths.
I never heard your Lyons sports chant before, either. But I got, really, REALLY tired of hearing, "Smith to bed -- Mount Holyoke to wed."

[The Happy Feminist]

Ugh -- I've heard worse but with the roles reversed. Actually the Mary Lyon chant is just something my husband made up to make fun of me. I think its actually the "mighty Mary Lyons." Next time I'll have to write about Sophia Smith!

[cat]

I go to Bryn Mawr College and we do the white dress thing on May Day, which is always the first saturday after the last day of classes for the year. Everyone wears all white and plays outside and gets drunk all day. It's cool to see that this kind of tradition exists at other women's colleges!

[Jenny K]

ah, but cat - do you have Mountain Day? ;) Seriously though, it's been interesting to discover how many traditions are similar among women's colleges - the seven sisters especially. I've yet to hear of one that did not have "teas" and it was kinda cool seeing all the students in their color-coded berets in Mona Lisa Smile.

If you don't mind my asking Happy Feminist, what year did you graduate? (just curious because as an almost thirty something, if you are a barely thirty something, we may have been on campus at the same time)

[silverside]

I went to Vassar, and we were still doing the white dress daisy chain thing in the early 80s at least.

[The Happy Feminist]

We had traditional teas served in the common rooms of the dorms on Friday afternoons if I remember correctly. There was one group of women who called it "Tits at Tea" and regularly showed up topless.

Uh Jenny K-- thanks for characterizing me as a "barely 30 something." But since I'm going to be 35 on my next birthday (yikes!), I bet we didn't overlap.

[katerine]

I currently attend Mount Holyoke College. Whats so interesting about this institution is that it inspires me everyday. I sense an academic intimacy in this school that encloses me in an aura of knowledge. When i walk everyday through the campus i discover something new, something that i had never seen before. The magical shadows under the oak trees or the delicate breezes near the lake, are havens of inspirations, in this campus. Mount Holyoke College is an academic institution that deserves more recognition.

[Mickie F.]

I'm a high school chemistry teacher composing an article about Mary Lyons and Emma Perry Carr and hoping to put some catchy information/titles in to entice students into reading. For the most part, my students have the "if I wasn't there, why should I care" attitude. May I use your "We are the Mary Lyons - step back and hear our roar" line? Thanks!

[Susan M]

Class of 1991 here - I bet we were there at the same time. I wasn't one of the topless tea takers - but I was one of the early Lunar Howlers. I remember (Sophmore year) Stormin' Norman coming up to us as we howled near Upper Lake and asking us to keep it down - they had received noise complaints!

cool not at all