Caroline Hazard, Wellesley College President

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Special Collections

CAROLINE HAZARD PAPERS

1871-1939

MSG# 7

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Caroline Hazard, educator and author, was born in Peace Dale, Rhode Island, to Rowland and Margaret (Rood) Hazard on June 10, 1856. She was educated by private tutors at Mary A. Shaw's School in Providence and through private study in Europe. She subsequently assisted her father in his various business interests, in addition to maintaining a welfare center in Peace Dale where she taught sewing and other domestic skills.

In 1899 Hazard was elected to the presidency of Wellesley College, where she remained until her resignation for health reasons in 1910. As president of Wellesley, Hazard introduced household economics into the curriculum, placed the department on an academic basis, established a department of hygiene and physical education, founded the college choir, and had built with her own funds the home subsequently occupied by Wellesley College presidents. She presented the college library with 284 letters of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and, in her will, left the college a water color by John Ruskin.

In 1926 Hazard donated twenty thousand dollars to the Yale Divinity School for the Two Brothers Fellowship for biblical study abroad. The gift was made in memory of her two brothers, Frederick Rowland and Rowland Gibson Hazard.

In addition to her accomplishments in education, Hazard was also a prolific writer. During her long career, she authored The Memoirs of J.L. Diman (1886), Thomas Hazard, Son of Robert, Called College Tom (1893), Narragansett Ballads (1894), The Narragansett Friends Meeting (3 vols. 1899), Some Ideals in the Education of Women (1900), Scallop Shell of Quiet (1908), A Brief Pilgrimage in the Holy Land (1909), The College Year (1910), The Yosemite and Other Verse (1917), Anchors of Tradition (1924), From College Gates (1925), Songs in the Sun (1927), Transplanted Puritan (a novel, 1927), Homing (verse, 1929), A Precious Heritage (1929), Shards and Scarabs (verse, 1931), Threads From the Distaff (1934), The Golden State (verse, 1939), and Introduction to an Academic Courtship (1940). She also edited The Works of Rowland Gibson Hazard (4 vols.,1899), Esther B. Carpenter's South County Studies (1924), John Saffin, His Book,1664-1707 (1928), and Nailer Tom's Diary, 1778-1840 (1930). In addition, she was a frequent contributor of articles, essays, and verse to magazines and newspapers, including a column entitled "The Distaff" for the Providence Evening Bulletin.

As well as being an educator and author, Hazard was an active member of many philanthropic and cultural organizations. Her activities included the Gilbert Stuart Memorial, Inc. (president), the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History (honorary president), Rhode Island Historical Society (life member), American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, American Historical Association, American Political Science Association, Archaeological Institute of America, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Religious Educational Association, Daughters of the American Revolution (corporate member), Colonial Dames of Rhode Island, American Board of "Commissioners for Foreign Missions of the Congregational Church," and the Hall of Fame of New York University (elector).

During her life, Hazard was the recipient of honorary degrees from the University of Michigan and Brown University in 1899, Tufts College in 1905, Wellesley College in 1925, Mills College in 1931, and Rhode Island State College in 1942. Caroline Hazard died in Santa Barbara, California on March 19, 1945.

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