From April 1936 Alumni Magazine. Harriet Eliza Lyon, a transfer student from Vassar College was WVU's first woman graduate. The only woman in the fourteen member Class of 1891, she won the honor of being valedictorian. Born in Fedonia, New York, she moved to Morgantown with her family in 1867 when her father, Franklin Smith Lyon, accepted a position as one of WVU's first professors. After graduating from the University, Harriet Lyon returned to Fredonia and married Franklin Jewett, a professor of science at the Fredonia Normal school. She raised four children and was active as a musician, singer, composer, and community leader. Harriet Lyon was a grandniece of Mary Lyon, the founder of Mt. Holyoke College.
Portrait of Harriet Lyon, West Virginia University
Date:
1936
Description:
Harriet Lyon Jewett from a photo accompanying her April 1936 WVU Alumni reminiscence of life as one of WVU's first female students. Enlarged from Sallie Norris Showalter's copy of the WVU Alumni. Donor: Norris' grandaughter Sallie Showater Barnes.Harriet Eliza Lyon, a transfer student from Vassar College was WVU's first woman graduate. The only woman in the fourteen member Class of 1891, she won the honor of being valedictorian. Born in Fedonia, New York, she moved to Morgantown with her family in 1867 when her father, Franklin Smith Lyon, accepted a position as one of WVU's first professors. After graduating from the University, Harriet Lyon returned to Fredonia and married Franklin Jewett, a professor of science at the Fredonia Normal school. She raised four children and was active as a musician, singer, composer, and community leader. Harriet Lyon was a grandniece of Mary Lyon, the founder of Mt. Holyoke College.
Harriet Eliza Lyon, a transfer student from Vassar College was WVU's first woman graduate. The only woman in the fourteen member Class of 1891, she won the honor of being valedictorian. Born in Fedonia, New York, she moved to Morgantown with her family in 1867 when her father, Franklin Smith Lyon, accepted a position as one of WVU's first professors. After graduating from the University, Harriet Lyon returned to Fredonia and married Franklin Jewett, a professor of science at the Fredonia Normal school. She raised four children and was active as a musician, singer, composer, and community leader. Harriet Lyon was a grandniece of Mary Lyon, the founder of Mt. Holyoke College.
Age 16/17. Sallie Lowther Norris attended Glenville State Normal School before entering WVU. in 1889. Like her classmate and lifelong friend Harriet Lyon, she excelled in her studies, winning a freshman math prize. Norris spoke out frequently and eloquently on behalf of the right of women to a West Virginia University education and was a charter member of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae (now the AAUW) chapter in Fairmont. She raised four children of whom attended WVU, and provided essential assistance to her husband Judge Emmet Showalter, after illness left him partially disabled.
Sallie Lowther Norris attended Glenville State Normal School before entering WVU. in 1889. Like her classmate and lifelong friend Harriet Lyon, she excelled in her studies, winning a freshman math prize. Norris spoke out frequently and eloquently on behalf of the right of women to a WVU education and was a charter member of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae (now the AAUW) chapter in Fairmont. She raised four children of of whom attended WVU, and provided essential assistance to her husband Judge Emmet Showalter, after illness left him partially disabled.
Sallie Lowther Norris attended Glenville State Normal School before entering WVU. in 1889. Like her classmate and lifelong friend Harriet Lyon, she excelled in her studies, winning a freshman math prize. Norris spoke out frequently and eloquently on behalf of the right of women to a WVU education and was a charter member of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae (now the AAUW) chapter in Fairmont. She raised four children of of whom attended WVU, and provided essential assistance to her husband Judge Emmet Showalter, after illness left him partially disabled.
An 1884 graduate of Morgantown High School, Lillian May Hackney taught public school in Monongalia County for several years before entering WVU in 1889. Following her graduation from the University in 1893, she taught high school for one year in Cleveland, Ohio and then accepted a position as instructor of mathematics at Marshal Normal School in Huntington. Hackney remained at Marshall for 45 years. During the course of her lengthy career, she undertook additional work at Cornell, Columbia, the University of Chicago and the University of Marburg (Germany). She belonged to the AAUW as well as to several state and national mathematics associations.
The daughter of WVU professor Powell Benton Reynolds, Richmond native Mabel Curry Reynolds worked her way through WVU by teaching in the Morgantown public schools. She was active in a wide variety of women's organizations during this course of her life, including the Women's League of West Virginia branch of the General Federation of Women's Clubs during the 1920's. In 1908 Reynolds married attorney Samuel Fuller Glasscock. The couple had no children.
Modern Athens Social Organization, Morgantown, W. Va.
Date:
1891/4/15
Description:
From Sallie Norris' copy of original playbill. Most likely a photograph of members of the M[odern]. A[thens]. S[ocial]. O[rganization]. Sallie Norris sits at the bottom right; Harriet Lyon stands to the left rear. Community-based social organizations furnished entertainment in an era when fraternities and sororities were banned and there were no athletic teams.
WVU's first female Mountaineer mascot. One of seven children raised on a family farm in Marion County and the second girl in her family to be her high school mascot, Natalie Tennant sees her role as WVU Mountaineer as part of a longstanding family legacy. In her public appearances, she reminder her audiences, "Our grandmothers and Great-grandmothers were Mountaineers way before I was."
Twins Anna and Stella White were the first women to earn Bachelor of Science degrees at WVU. Science degrees were especially attractive to women, who often had less secondary-level Latin and Greek languages needed for B.A.s--than their male peers. B.S. students took French or German. The White family moved to Morgantown from Ohio in 1886 They came, as did others, to give children access to higher education. In the 1890's all 6 White siblings (4 sons and the twins) attended WVU.
Twins, Anna and Stella White, were the first women to earn Bachelor of Science degrees from WVU. In 1886, the family sold their Ohio farm and moved to Morgantown so their children - 4 sons and two daughters, could attend WVU. Family or one parent relocation with students was not uncommon in and era when mid-western state universities did not routinely erect dormitories.
Lucy Wood was the first WVU woman to go to the far East as a missionary teacher,where she died giving birth to her only child, Faith Lawrence. Infant Faith was sent home to Morgantown to be raised by Ruth Wood. Faith graduated from WVU in 1927.
The Wood sisters, Ruth and Lucy were early WVU students. Ruth entered WVU in 1890 and left after falling ill with typhoid fever. She became the first female stenographer in Morgantown (1895), the first woman to run for political office in Monongalia County, (1926) and the first West Virginia woman to become a certified Realtor.
The Spinster Club at Lucy Wood Lawrence's wedding, February 18, 1908. From left: Bess Brown, Willa Brand, Sallie Bennett, Lucy Wood, Minnie Core, Josie Kunkle, Tillie Bernhardt. The Spinster Club of Morgantown flourished by the first decade of this century. At least two members married. All were Morgantowners who had graduated from high school and several had finished West Virginia University. Most were teachers. The Club met to socialize and visit on Saturday nights, with an occasional male friend or fiance allowed to attend. Members helped Ruth Wood, a pioneer stenographer, Realtor,and political candidate, raise her sister Lucy's daughter after Lucy died in China giving birth to her only child.
![From Sallie Norris' copy of original playbill. Most likely a photograph of members of the M[odern]. A[thens]. S[ocial]. O[rganization]. Sallie Norris sits at the bottom right; Harriet Lyon stands to the left rear. Community-based social organizations furnished entertainment in an era when fraternities and sororities were banned and there were no athletic teams.](/thumb/037179.jpg "Modern Athens Social Organization, Morgantown, W. Va.")
