The Bryn Mawr School history

Until about 1905, M. Carey Thomas spent all of her energies on one cause, promoting women’s higher education.

Bessie King turned her full attention to women’s suffrage around 1906 and became one of the white suffrage movement’s foremost leaders in Maryland.

Bryn Mawr’s yearbooks indicate that a Suffrage Club was started in 1911.

In 1912, the club members switched to attending meetings of the Equal Suffrage League rather than holding meetings at school.

The Baltimore Sun, May 20, 1914.

Her involvement with suffrage waned after Mary Garrett’s death in 1915.

Have you wondered how The Bryn Mawr School responded to the pandemic in 1918? The pandemic swept into Baltimore in September of 1918.

The portrait of Edith Hamilton, painted in 1925 by Lydia Field Emmet, has returned to us beautifully restored.

In 1961 she announced that she would retire after the 1961-2 school year.

When the Bryn Mawr School Admissions Policy was changed in January of 1962 to accept students “without regard for color,” part of the impetus for change had come from the new Head, Diane Howell, who had stipulated that the policy must be changed before she would accept the job.

Because of an earlier resolution of the Board, which promised that eighteen months notice would be given, this newly adopted policy will not take effect until September, 1963, — a year from next September.

Erselle would be a sophomore entering in the fall of 1965.

By the time Erselle graduated in June of 1968, there were seven black students at Bryn Mawr.

In 1977, her friends in Baltimore organized a fundraiser to help her.

The archives contains a history of the school’s integration, a master’s thesis written in 1995 by former Upper School Director Marlene David.

In the 1999 interview, Diane Howell credited both Erselle and her classmates with the success of the integration.

Abdul Sabur, Michele Eubanks. “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway!” January 12, 2018.

2020. “Maryland Black Suffragists’ History Finally Being Told 100 Years after Women Won the Right to Vote.” The Sun.

Maryland reports more than 2.7 million fully vaccinated for COVID May 21, 2021