Less Well Known Women of Babson College

Less Well Known Women of Babson College

Babson Institute was founded to train men in business. While the earliest instructors were usually colleagues of Mr. Babson, men he knew from his own business experience, not everyone associated with the Institute were men. And while the original intent was to train men for executive roles there were exceptions well before Babson became co-ed. In the following post I hope to acquaint readers with several women who may be unknown to you.

Eleanor Hayward

From its founding in 1919 until 1937 Ms. Hayward held many simultaneous positions at the Institute. Her primary title was as Registrar where she was responsible for the day-to-day academic affairs of Babson Institute. She sat on most campus committees from the academic to the social. She always co-produced Commencement and all of the activities around it. Before the building of the Babson Institute Library (the current Tomasso Hall) she was also the first Institute librarian (for the library housed in a wing of Coleman Hall.) She built the collection and reviewed new acquisitions for the alumni bulletin. If one needed permission to do almost anything on campus, her signature seems to have been the required one. She had more formal education then all but a few of the male faculty and staff (BS, MS, and MBA.) After 18 years at the Institute she left to join the WPA. Unfortunately where she came from and where she ended up are unknown to me. But this “jack-of-all” trades had an impact on the early development of this place. In the absence of documents I have spoken with members of the pre-WWII classes and every man who knew her has stated that she was the person who made sure that things got done.

Teresa Gubellini

I don't know when Ms. Gubellini started at Babson. While her obituary says that she started in 1946 it appears that she may have been one of the workers hired to complete the Great Relief Map formerly housed in Coleman Hall. The map was declared finished on December 30, 1940. The Institute was closed to civilians during WWII and the windows to Coleman Hall painted black while the campus was given over to the U. S. Navy Supply School. When the Institute reopened after the war Teresa was hired (at $0.75 per hour) to give talks and tours of the Map.

Coleman Hall was built to house this map which had a catwalk above which allowed visitors to view the continental US from approximately 700 miles. In 1955 the Babson World Globe was built adjacent to Coleman Hall and these combined exhibits became a destination for thousands of “Baby Boomers” on school trips. Teresa retired from Babson College in 1978 and died shortly thereafter. What makes her special to me is the wonder that because of all of these school groups over the years there must be many, many men and women for whom the name Babson brings to mind an enthusiastic, short, dark haired woman whose talks had even the most recalcitrant children “eating out of her hand.”

BSO “Girls” and others

While it is true that before the 1960s women were not usually welcomed as students at Babson Institute, that doesn’t mean that no woman was allowed to be a student there. In the years before Mrs. Babson founded Webber College for women in Florida, there were several women who attended the Institute in a variety of forms.

Dorothy Boal Brierly 1923

In the 1922-1923 academic year there were three women in attendance. One was Dorothy Boal (Brierley) who had a BA from the Florida State College for Women (now Florida State University.) She completed the years work after paying full price even though she was told that while she could attend but she would not receive the certificate for her work. After leaving the Institute she ran a hotel a few miles from the Babson's winter home. Without explanation she was awarded a certificate in 1932.

Edith Babson Webber Mustard 1923

With the understanding that she stood to inherit a small fortune, Roger and Grace's daughter Edith was given a place in the class of 1923. I understand (but cannot document it) that Edith wanted to study geology at Boston University. In a way not too different from that of many of her male classmates her parents decided that she needed to learn about money and its protection. As if being one of the few female students wasn't enough being the founder's daughter must have had complications of its own. She received her certificate with her class in 1923. Edith married Winslow Webber (Babson 1922) and was involved with the running of Webber College in Florida, among other things. The Archives has an endowment which is a gift from her and her children.

Selma Eversole Henley 1923

In its earliest days the Babson Institute and Babson Statistical Organization were connected at many levels in many ways. Employees of Mr. Babson's business were occasionally allowed to take a term's worth (3 months) of work at the Institute. Several of the early female students were BSO students. Some BSO students had to pay for their coursework while others received scholarships. The third student of the 1922-23 academic year was a woman from Illinois named Selma Eversole. She appears to have been one of the scholarship students. Selma had a Bachelors degree from the University of Illinois (and was a junior Phi Beta Kappa) and a Masters from Simmons College in Boston. She worked at Prescott Street headquarters for about a year before returning to Illinois. In an amazing example of serendipity I have been carrying on a correspondence with her daughter Dr. Mary Henley Rubio, University Professor Emeritus, Department of English and Theatre Studies, University of Guelph.

Mary Ives Dole 1924

Mary Ives was a BSO student who was from Delphi, Indiana. She seems to have gone to work for the BSO after graduating from Wellesley College. I don't know how long she she worked for the Babson Statistical Organization but she remained in the area working for some time at the Katherine Gibbs School in Boston.

Charlotte Reed Marbut 1924

Ms. Reed was from Denver and graduated from Mount Holyoke College before going to work for the BSO. She was one of the BSO staff who paid for her three months at the Institute ($700 tuition.) She returned to Denver and then moved to Montana where her address was a ranch. She and Ms. Ives get paired together in my mind because their pictures are featured in the 1924 Babsonian. It seems that they were not here together.

Harriet Ellison Rogers 1927

Harriet Ellison was a personal friend of Mr. Babson who asked her to take a class at the Institute. She was from Newton and stayed in the area participating in many civic organizations. In her later years she and her husband moved into the North Hill extended care facility which is on land owned by Babson College. She appears to be the last woman to take courses at Babson Institute until the part-time MBA began in 1961. Babson Institute became co-ed in 1968.

In the earliest years of Babson Institute evaluations included a letter grade and a brief written description of the student's work. The women in this group, for the most part, had written evaluations which were across the board better than their male classmates. Each must have had a story about their time here—and afterwards. It is worth noting that even if the Institute didn't offer them all certificates (and most had college degrees when they arrived) their classmates seem to have considered them classmates. This may not be the place to wonder “What if?” but what if...

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