Ada Howard

After becoming principal of the women's seminary in 1867, Howard was overworked and unable to influence President William Curtis to create an equal co-educational program or even to make the salaries for the women seminary teachers equal to those of the college professors.[9] She, and two other professors, Louise A. Sanderson and Mary J. Farnham, resigned in 1868[7] 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.[10] 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.[11]

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.”[10] Other sources provide additional details to the historical event. According to the College Courier, a Monmouth College newspaper, students even surrounded the president’s residence throwing hisses and complaints before parading the campus the next day armed with weapons. The Seminary female students joined in the commotion with piano and organs. After an unfruitful attempt to halt the noises, Curtis made his way to the Seminary and inquired for Howard to offer an apology, to which she refused.[12] After Curtis’ resignation, Howard's position was reinstated. She also was made professor of literary criticism, rhetoric, and moral philosophy.[6][8] During the June 1868 trustees’ meeting, a committee was created which was allowed to raise her salary.[13] The next college president, Reverend John P. Gulliver promised to offer more opportunities for women,[14] 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.[15]

Before Western College, Howard returned to Mount Holyoke as a professor and then taught at Oxford Female Institute.[16] She moved to New Jersey, where she ran a school for girls, Ivy Hall, in Bridgeton.[2]

She was president of Wellesley beginning in 1875. The founder, Henry Fowle Durant, was very involved in the administration and decision-making of the college.[2] In placing a woman at its head and conferring upon her the full powers of president of a corporate college, Durant was enthusiastic in his confidence and said: "I have been for four years looking for a president. She will be a target to be shot at and for the present the position will be one of severe trials. I have for some time been closely investigating Miss Howard. I look upon her as appointed for this work not by the trustees, but by God, for whom the college was built."[4]

She followed his lead, but his insistence that staff be of the evangelical Christian faith made hiring staff difficult. There was a division in the college between faculty members hired by Durant that supported his position and other staff members who did not support Durant's nearly fanatical beliefs. Conflict at the college escalated at the same time that Durant and Howard's health declined. Durant stopped coming to the campus.[17] Apart from this, her leadership at Wellesley College remained undocumented in their library except for an obituary with a statement that she was the first president.[18] Durant died in 1881 and Howard resigned shortly after taking leave due to health reasons. She then lived in New York City, where she died in 1907.[2]

• This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: Johnson, Rossiter; Brown, John Howard (1904). The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans ... Biographical Society.