AND
CoLLege HaLL Everything After BY HELEN LEFKOWITZ HOROWITZ ’63
College Hall was the embodiment of Henry Durant’s vision of the College Beautiful—grand and heroic in scale. After it burned down, a new vision of Wellesley emerged. At about 4:30 A.M. on March 17, 1914, fire swept through College Hall. Within 10 minutes, all 198 students who lived in the building gathered in the central common space for roll call and then, amid falling sparks and embers, walked quietly and safely to the exit. Four hours later, all that remained of the heart of Wellesley College were “bare, roofl fless walls and sky-fi filled arches,” recalled Florence Converse, class of 1892, in her 1915 book, The Story of Wellesley. The fire did more than destroy a magnifi ficent building. It erased the visible traces of Wellesley’s origins in the dream of founder Henry Fowle Durant. But as the renewed College took shape, loss ultimately became gain. Out of the ashes emerged a campus expressive of a vision of women’s higher education for the 20th century. Both powerful and flexible, it could adapt and grow over the decades. Today, the campus both serves as a home for the College and remains a fitting symbol of the lofty aspirations of women’s higher education. When Wellesley opened in 1875, to all eyes it was magnificent. fi Erected on the rise above Lake Waban, its single building was surrounded by 300 acres of a country estate with varied terrain of hills, woods, meadows, and water. The building itself was of immense size. At 475 feet in length, and rising four stories with five-story towers, it was one of the largest buildings in the United States at its opening. And it was exactly as Durant wanted it—the perfect expression of the College Beautiful. Durant’s initial conception emerged out of his experience with the pioneer institution for women’s higher education, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. Welcomed as a lay preacher, he had traveled to the school in western Massachusetts many times, and he became a trustee. What he saw there was an institution dedicated to the
creation of Christian teachers whose religious power could civilize and convert the expanding nation. “There is no danger of having too many Mount Holyokes,” he said. What made his view soar beyond the seminary was both the opportunity his wealth allowed and his belief that he could best serve his Lord and Savior by the creation of a splendid building dedicated to the higher education of women. He would make his school for women the most beautiful the world had ever seen. Wellesley’s College Hall was based on the building type that evolved at Mount Holyoke and was made grand by Vassar College at its opening in 1865. What this meant was that one building simply was the College. While their male counterparts went to school in “academical villages” where they recited, studied, prayed, slept, and ate in a variety of structures, female collegians were thought to be best served in a single, all-encompassing one with a great central entrance. In Durant’s era, the single building, associated with the female seminary, appeared to outside eyes as safe for the education of women, protective of their purity. As Durant envisioned Wellesley, both Mount Holyoke and Vassar were in his mind. But he was impelled by unique insights derived from an unusual life. Before his conversion to evangelical Christianity, he had been a lawyer, known for his luxurious tastes and his legal practices, questioned in his time. In 1863, following the death of his only child, Durant found religion and quit the law. Moving to New York, he made a fortune in war production for the Union army. He began to hold religious meetings. By 1865, he was in South Hadley, Mass., where he conducted morning devotions and weekly prayer meetings, and occupied the pulpit on Sunday. As students dedicated themselves to Christianity, Durant found his second calling—Christian education for women.