Elizabeth Powell Bond
Elizabeth Powell Bond(January 25, 1841 – March 29, 1926) was an educator and social activist who was the first Dean of Women atSwarthmore College.
Family and education
[edit]Elizabeth Powell was born in 1841 inClinton, New York,to aQuakercouple, Catherine Macy Powell and Townsend Powell.[1]Her father was a farmer, and when she was four, the family moved to a farm inGhent.[2][3]By the age of 15, she was serving as an assistant teacher at a Friends’ School in the county.[2][3]She graduated at the age of seventeen from the State Normal School in Albany.[1][2]Her brother married educator and activistAnna Rice Powellin 1861.[4]
Like many Quakers, she held strong views against slavery and was a suffragist, peace activist, and temperance reformer.[3]At the age of 16, she was speaking out at local meetings of anti-slavery campaigners.[3]She spent some time in the household of the abolitionistWilliam Lloyd Garrisonbefore her marriage.[1]
In 1872, she married Henry Herrick Bond, a lawyer from Northampton, Massachusetts. They had two sons, Edwin (born 1874), and Herrick, (born 1878, died in infancy). Henry Herrick Bond died in 1881.[1]
Career in education
[edit]Bond began her career by teaching for two years in New York public schools.[2]In the early 1860s, she ran a boarding school for three years out of her parents’ house, with the student body including both African-American and Catholic children.[2][3]
In 1865, after training with thephysical cultureadvocateDiocletian Lewis,Bond became the first instructor ingymnasticsatVassar College.[1][2]In the early 1870s, she briefly headed up the Free Congregational Sunday school inFlorence, Massachusetts,[3]returning in 1885 to become the resident minister for a year. She also worked for a time as editor (with her husband) of theNorthampton Journal.[2]
In 1886, Swarthmore College appointed Elizabeth Powell Bond to the post of Matron of the College.[3]In 1890, she was named Dean, a position she kept until her retirement in 1906, when she was named Dean Emeritus.[1]She was succeeded byHenrietta Meeteeras Dean.[5]She played an important role in the development of coeducation at the college.[1]
Bond died in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1926.
Legacy
[edit]An avid gardener, Bond was honored by Swarthmore with a rose garden created in her honor. A room at the college also bears her name.[1]
Her papers, including correspondence, diaries, business papers, pictures, and memorabilia, are held by Swarthmore College. Her correspondents includedLouisa May Alcott,Hannah Clothier Hull,William Lloyd Garrison, and many others.[1]
References
[edit]- ^abcdefghi"An Inventory of the Elizabeth Powell Bond Papers, 1856-1958".Swarthmore College website.
- ^abcdefgWillard, Frances E., and Mary A. Livermore.A woman of the century: Fourteen hundred-seventy biographical sketches accompanied by portraits of leading American women in all walks of life.New York: Moulton, 1893, p. 104.
- ^abcdefgAmelinckx, Andrew."History Happened Here: Elizabeth Powell — an activist and teacher".Register-Star,March 26, 2011.
- ^Cooper, Laura."Biographical Sketch of Anna Rice Powell".Alexander Street Documents.Retrieved2024-01-06.
- ^"Gifted Scholar Appointed Dean of Women at Swarthmore College".The Indianapolis News.1906-03-17. p. 27.Retrieved2022-10-12– via Newspapers.
Further reading
[edit]- Johnson, Emily C.Dean Bond of Swarthmore: A Quaker Humanist.Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1926.
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