HANOVER NEW HAMPSHIRE 1854 STAMPLESS POSTAL HISTORY COVER TO MOUNT HOLYOKE FEMALE SEMINARY, SOUTH HADLEY MASSACHUSETTS

Hanover New Hampshire 1854 stampless postal history cover to Mount Holyoke Female Seminary South Hadley Massachusetts MOUNT HOLYOKE FEMALE SEMINARY, SOUTH HADLEY MASSACHUSETTS

Year: 

1854
New Hampshire

Historic address on this cover.  It is addressed to Miss Harriette A. Melvin. A resident of Chester, NH, she attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary from 1854-6. Attractive cover with full Hanover postmark and full PAID 3 mark in a circle. Mary Lyon, is considered by many scholars to be an innovator in the area of women's education. Her establishment of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was part of a larger movement to create institutions of higher education for young women during the early half of the 19th century. From its founding in 1837, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary "had no religious affiliation". Mount Holyoke Female Seminary was the sister school to Andover Seminary. Some Andover graduates looked to marry students from the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before becoming missionaries because the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) required its missionaries to be married before starting their missions. By 1859 there were more than 60 missionary alumnae; by 1887 the school's alumnae comprised one-fifth of all female American missionaries for the ABCFM; and by the end of the century, 248 of its alumnae had entered the mission field.

 

$20.00