Alice Freeman Palmer

Alice Freeman Palmer (born Alice Elvira Freeman; February 21, 1855 – December 6, 1902) was an American educator. She served as president of Wellesley College from 1881 to 1887 under her maiden name, stepping down to marry Harvard professor George Herbert Palmer. Later, from 1892 to 1895, she was dean of women at the newly established University of Chicago. Palmer championed college education for women, expanding their access through better college preparation, financial sponsorship, public lectures, and involvement in numerous educational organizations. She co-founded and led the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, which eventually became the American Association of University Women. Her achievements earned her a place in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans.

Palmer argued that women should pursue a college education to gain the skills needed for self-support if necessary. She is regarded as a model of the 19th-century New Woman.

Born in Colesville, New York, Alice Elvira Freeman was the eldest of four children of Elizabeth Josephine Higley and James Warren Freeman. She inherited her "moral beauty," height, and reddish hair from her father. She was especially close to her mother, who was only seventeen at Alice’s birth, and they shared the care of younger siblings and household chores. Her mother advocated for children’s and women’s rights, health care, and the temperance movement. Her father, initially a farmer, focused on directly improving people’s lives rather than through reform movements, and he passed on his love of education and science to his daughter. Both parents descended from early settlers and major landowners in New York’s Susquehanna Valley, with interests in farming and lumber.

At age three, Palmer taught herself to read and developed a lifelong love of reading aloud. In 1861, her father enrolled in Albany Medical School, graduating in 1864; his absences placed extra farm-management burdens on her mother. During this time, Palmer attended a rural district school. When she was six, the family moved to a rented house in Windsor, New York, where her father started a medical practice. At ten, she entered the co-educational Windsor Academy in her hometown.

There she met Thomas Barclay, a Yale student working as a teacher to pay his college expenses. He encouraged her intellectual curiosity and became her mentor. They became close and were engaged when she was fourteen, but she ended the engagement in February 1871. Described as "an eager, ambitious student, determined by the very forces of her nature towards the getting of knowledge and the building of a symmetrical character," Palmer won awards for compositions and oratory at regional contests. Inspired by a lecture from Anna Elizabeth Dickinson, she also engaged in community service, giving away some college savings even though she lacked a winter coat. In her final academy year, she joined the Presbyterian Church, both as an expected step and a personal commitment.

Biographer Ruth Birgitta Anderson Bordin suggests Palmer’s drive for college education was shaped by her relationship with Barclay, Dickinson’s inspiration, and her family’s financial instability. Palmer later called a college education "life insurance for a girl" in case she needed to support herself. Her parents could afford to send only one child—a son—to college, so they agreed to help finance her education on the condition that she later support her brother and possibly other siblings.

In 1870, the University of Michigan began admitting women. Palmer took its entrance exam in 1872, then the largest university in the country, and was found deficient in some areas. She impressed President and Registrar James B. Angell and was admitted conditionally, making up the missing coursework before her sophomore year. In 1873, her father lost his farm and possessions in a failed mining speculation and asked her to return home. Instead, with professors’ help, she secured a teaching position in Greek and Latin in Ottawa, Illinois, which allowed her to continue as a junior. From then on, she was self-supporting. Palmer became first in her class and a member of the Students’ Christian Association. At her 1876 commencement, she spoke on "The Conflict Between Science and Poetry."

After graduating, she taught for one school year at a private boarding school in Geneva, Wisconsin. In 1877, she became principal of the high school in East Saginaw, Michigan. That same year, her father declared bankruptcy; Alice assumed his debts and moved the family to Saginaw into a rented house paid for by her principal’s salary and her mother’s income from boarders. Her father eventually built a successful practice there. Palmer’s health began to decline.