Ada Howard

Ada Lydia Howard (December 19, 1829 – March 3, 1907) was the first president of Wellesley College. In 1875 she was chosen by founder Henry Fowle Durant to become the first president of Wellesley College, Massachusetts. This promotion made Howard the first woman president of a college in the world. Here she worked in full harmony with Mr. and Mrs. Durant and her labors in furthering the plans of the founders were unremitting up to the time of the death of Mr. Durant in 1881. In that year, her failure in health demanded immediate and complete rest, and the trustees gave her leave of absence, but finding herself unable to resume her duties, she resigned in 1882. In appreciation of her work at Wellesley, the alumnae, in 1890, placed in the art gallery a life-size portrait of their first president, and a scholarship was established in her honor, known as the Ada L. Howard scholarship. Her subsequent life was passed in rest and travel, as her continued ill-health called for frequent change of climate. She was obliged to restrict her literary work to occasional articles for leading magazines. She received from Mount Holyoke college the honorary degree of Litt.D. in 1900. She died on Sunday, March 3, 1907. In Illinois, she worked for Knox College as the principal of the Woman's Department and a faculty member, teaching Moral Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Literary Criticism. She, and two other professors, Louise A. Sanderson and Mary J. Farnham, resigned in 1868 after Curtis grabbed her during an argument about the next year's course catalog. James Parks, a Knox freshman at the time, reports that the next day, a Saturday, students rang the bell in Old Main, the oldest building on the Knox campus, for a long time. They had cut the bell rope and also taken Civil War muskets and ammunition up into the bell tower so that they could make noise in protest of Curtis’ conduct. Parks reports that little happened on Sunday. On Monday, when students assembled near the college chapel in the morning, they refused to enter until Curtis resigned. Parks writes that only three students went to chapel services that day. A historian at Knox College reports that six students went to services, but otherwise corroborates Park's description of the strike.

During Tuesday, students repeated this technique which Parks later began to call the first ‘sit-down strike’ which he knew of. Before the 3 pm recitation in the chapel that day, the trustees met. The president of the Knox board of trustees, Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Lawrence, then informed the students that Curtis had resigned. The students went to the chapel for the recitation, “yelling ‘Hurrah for Knox College!’ or words to that effect.” After Curtis’ resignation, Howard's position was reinstated. She also was made professor of literary criticism, rhetoric, and moral philosophy. The next college president, Reverend John P. Gulliver promised to offer more opportunities for women, and in 1871 women were granted access to the college, and could take courses along with their male classmates. Women were able to get degrees rather than just Seminary Certificates. In 1891 Knox College became entirely co-ed.

1870s Before Western College, Howard returned to Mount Holyoke as a professor and then taught at Oxford Female Institute. Durant died in 1881 and Howard resigned shortly after taking leave for health reasons. She then lived in New York City, where she died in 1907. Students formed two lines at the front of the chapel as the funeral procession advanced. Dr. William F. Warren of Boston University, a senior member of Wellesley's board of trustees, and Reverend Mr. Ollphant of Methuen Mass, pastor of the church Ada Howard attended, led the services. At the end of the service, students led the funeral procession to the Wellesley Cemetery where Ada Howard was laid to rest.

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