The women behind the buildings: Miami’s architectural history

On March 8, the world celebrated International Women’s Day, marking the start of Women’s History Month. Miami University has a long history of supporting women, especially since part of its campus was the location for the Western College of Women.

Despite this, out of more than 180 buildings on Miami’s campus, 10 are named after women. The women who do have a building named for them led trailblazing lives, with many leaving long-lasting legacies and impacts that can still be seen at Miami today.

Peabody Hall

In 1853, the Western Female Seminary (eventually renamed Western College for Women), was founded by Rev. Daniel Tenney, a local pastor, and his wife to “check the frivolity and wrecklessness of our young ladies.” Its first principal was a woman named Helen Peabody, a teacher from the Mount Holyoke Seminary in Massachusetts.

Serving from 1855-1888, Peabody established a low-cost tuition college option for women in Ohio. Throughout her 33-year-long tenure as principal, Peabody also led the students through the Civil War and two separate fires that burnt down their main academic building: Seminary Hall. In 1905, the newly rebuilt hall would be renamed in honor of Peabody.

After retiring in 1888, Peabody traveled across the United States before eventually settling in Pasadena, California, where she died in 1905. Miami legend says her spirit lives on in Peabody Hall as a ghost, haunting the halls and terrorizing the male students while protecting the females.

Nellie Craig Walker Hall

Although most women earned their college degree at the Western College for Women, female students weren’t allowed to start enrolling at Miami until 1887. Eighteen years later, the first Black student graduated – a woman named Nellie Craig Walker.

Walker was born in Oxford in 1881 and graduated with a two-year teaching certificate from Miami’s Ohio State Normal School College in 1905. After graduating, she taught in Indiana for a few years before marrying James Walker in 1911 and moving to Cleveland.

Miami dedicated the Campus Avenue Building to Walker in 2021, which used to be where Miami’s Ohio State Normal School College was located. Now, it houses One Stop and Campus Community Services Center.

Ogden Hall

When Laura Louise Ogden Whaling died in 1915, her will said that she would donate $430,000 to Miami only if $266,000 went to building a dormitory named after her brother George C. Ogden, who graduated from Miami in 1862.

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Additionally, Ogden requested that the residence hall be built north of the Main Building and west of the Herron Gymnasium, which forced the Board of Trustees to choose the area across the street from the university president’s house, Lewis Place.

However, soon after Miami agreed to her terms, an heir came forward to contest the will, delaying the start of construction for five years. In this time, the Trustees green-lit the destruction of Herron Gymnasium to facilitate Ogden Hall’s construction. Eventually, in 1924, Ogden Hall was completed and served as a male dormitory and as offices for the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), the Alumni Association and the Student Counseling Services.

Hanna House

Martha J. Hanna served as Miami’s first professor and chair of home economics from 1915-1947. Hanna House was designed as a testament to Hanna’s field of study, as it was built to resemble a four-bedroom house with a wing for a nursery school.

The location of Hanna House was determined after Huston House, on 215 E. Spring St., and the Lutheran Parsonage, on 221 E. Spring St., were sold to Miami in 1963. After their demolition, Hanna House was built on their combined lands and was dedicated in 1964.

Flower Hall

Before the Western College of Women was founded, Oxford had several schools for women, including the Oxford Female Institute and the Oxford Female College. The Female College was built in a location northeast of the town, where Flower Hall currently stands. After the merger, the building was sold to the university in 1882 and became a sanitarium and a residence hall.

The Oxford Female Institute eventually merged with the Oxford Female College to form the Oxford College for Women in 1867. However, after facing years of financial difficulties, the college closed and eventually sold to Miami in 1928.

Olive Flower received a degree from the Oxford College for Women in 1897 and stayed to teach chemistry until 1918. During this time, she also served as the college’s registrar from 1906-1928. Eventually, she was promoted to be the dean of the college in 1919 and served that role until the college’s closing in 1928.

After the Oxford College for Women was sold to Miami, Flower served as Miami’s assistant registrar until 1947. Flower Hall was built and dedicated to her in 1966.

Porter Hall

Elizabeth Porter, another graduate of the Oxford College for Women, was married to David Swing, who graduated from Miami in 1855. Swing and Porter lived in Oxford, but Swing, a famous traveling liberal minister, was often preaching in churches across the U.S.

Porter Hall was built in 1956 and dedicated in 1957. It was the first dorm at Miami to have built-in furniture.

Clawson Hall

In the 1940s, the Western College for Women started a $1.5 million expansion of the number of its academic and residence halls. Edith Clawson, who graduated from Western in 1900 and served as the first representative of its Board of Trustees in 1933, donated $207,000 to the Western College for Women to aid in its project.

After delays in its construction due to the presence of quicksand, Clawson Hall was officially built and dedicated in 1948.

Havighurst Hall

Marion Margaret Boyd Havighurst spent most of her life at the Western College for Women. Her father, William Waddell Boyd (the namesake of Boyd Science Hall), was president of Western from 1914 to 1931.

After graduating from Smith College and earning a Master of Arts degree from Yale University, she came back and taught English at Miami and Western. She then met her husband, Walter Havighurst, when they were forced to share the same office during his first year teaching at Miami.

Both Havighurst and Boyd wrote several famous novels and poetry collections, and in 1983, Miami finished construction on Havighurst Hall in honor of their literary accomplishments and dedication to the Western College for Women and Miami.

Emerson Hall

Before she died in 1973, Bertha Metcalf Emerson saw her name christen the newly constructed Emerson Hall in 1970.

Emerson was not native to Ohio; she graduated from Simmons College in Kentucky and earned a master’s degree from the all-female Radcliffe College in Massachusetts. After earning these degrees, she became a secretary in the office of the president at Harvard University.

In 1923, Emerson came to Miami to serve as the Assistant Dean of Women and the Head Resident of one of Miami’s all-female resident halls. In her 26-year career at Miami, Emerson achieved the rank of associate professor of secretarial studies in 1940, dean of women in 1925-26, 1939-40, and 1945-46, and became the associate director of the new division of student affairs in 1946.

McKee Hall

After Helen Peabody retired as principal of the Western Female Seminary, Leila McKee took over. McKee earned degrees from Caldwell College, Kentucky, in 1876 and from the Western Female Seminary in 1877. After graduation, she attended and taught at several women’s colleges throughout the U.S.

During her tenure as principal, McKee sought to increase Western’s size, which included building more academic and residential facilities and bringing in male teachers. One of these buildings, “New Hall” eventually became McKee Hall in 1917, in honor of McKee’s work.

McKee left her principal position in 1904 after she married James B. Welsh and moved to Kansas City. Despite not living in Oxford, McKee still advocated for women’s education by serving on the Western College for Women’s Board of Trustees and becoming a member of the American Association of University Women.

fahymm@miamioh.edu