When They Were Girls

by Rebecca Deming Moore

On December 3, 1842, Ellen Henrietta Swallow was born near the village of Dunstable, Massachusetts. She was an out-of-door girl and loved to follow her father and uncles about the farm. She drove the cows to pasture, rode horseback, and often pitched hay. She made a little flower garden too, and tended it carefully.

Little Ellen was also quick and skillful at indoor tasks. Her mother, who had a deft hand at any kind of housework, taught her to sew and cook. Ellen’s doll’s bed had sheets and pillowcases daintily hemstitched by her own hand. At the country fair, one year, two prizes fell to thirteen-year-old Ellen Swallow, one for a beautifully embroidered handkerchief and another for the best loaf of bread.

Ellen’s mother and father were well educated, and had been teachers. They taught Ellen at home until she was ready for the academy.

Mr. Swallow gave up farming and opened a country store in the village of Westford, Massachusetts, so that Ellen could attend the academy there. Ellen enjoyed her studies and mastered them thoroughly. She was such a fine Latin student that later she was able to earn money for her college expenses by teaching that subject.

Ellen Swallow was as active and energetic out of school as in school. She was a capable little business woman. She waited on customers in her father’s store and kept his accounts. She even made trips to Boston to buy goods for the store. This early training was very helpful when in later years she had to handle large sums of money for many philanthropic and educational purposes.

At home Ellen was often the housekeeper for weeks at a time, during her frail mother’s illnesses. She not only cooked and washed, but she cleaned house, papered rooms, and laid carpets, as well. What she learned of managing a house in her school-girl days was a very valuable addition to what science taught her later about good home-making. Ellen Swallow was very quick and capable. In addition to her school, home, and store duties, she had time for reading and for working in her precious flower garden.

After her academy days Ellen Swallow’s hours were filled by teaching a country school, helping in the store and at home, and caring for sick friends and neighbors; but she was not satisfied. She felt a great longing to learn and to do more.

There was no college in New England at that time which admitted women. Ellen Swallow therefore decided to enter Vassar College, at Poughkeepsie, New York, which had only recently been founded.

College days were very happy ones for this active-minded young woman. She wrote home to her mother glowing accounts of her new life and told her all about her school work and the books that she was reading. Science was her favorite study. One of her teachers was Maria Mitchell, who took a great interest in the young girl.

After graduating from Vassar College, Ellen Swallow was eager to go on with the study of chemistry that she had begun there. After some difficulty she gained admittance to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as its first woman student. In fact, she was the first woman to enter any strictly scientific school in the United States. One of the teachers thought that this young woman looked rather frail to be taking such difficult work. The President answered, “Did you notice her eyes? They are steadfast and they are courageous. She will not fail.”