Nov. 22 talk will deal with how students, in a world of no antibiotics, faced death of classmates from disease.
Sixty of the young women attending Mount Holyoke Female Seminary — which later became Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley — died from disease in its first 14 years.
Elizabeth M. Sharpe, 2012-13 scholar-in-residence at the college Archives and Special Collections, will read from students’ letters that reveal their feelings in an age when such death was viewed as a “spiritual, not a medical event.”
Her Nov. 22 presentation, “A Most Affecting Event: Students Write about Sickness and Death at Mount Holyoke, 1837-1850,” is part of the fall 2013 lunch-time lecture series, “History Bites,” which takes place every other Friday at the Amherst History Museum, 67 Amity St.
“Despite the fact that, at the seminary there was a great emphasis on cleanliness and order, and the girls walked two miles every day, in this early period the germ theory wasn’t developed, and there were no antibiotics,” Sharpe said. “People didn’t know to wash their hands. The seminary building was a domestic environment on a large scale, where as many as 200 women ate, slept and studied. Sadly, the close quarters had the effect of spreading disease.”
On March 13, 1845, Jennie Scudder wrote to her parents, “There is a great deal of sickness in the seminary. No less than 11 diseases within three weeks. Three have gone home to die.” She noted that the diseases were consumption (tuberculosis), erysipelas, scarlet fever and mumps.
“Deaths were a spiritual, not a medical event,” Sharpe said, noting that it was important to be prepared, and to die with acceptance and looking forward to everlasting life. Most important was to give advice to those left behind, always religious in nature.
“In the 19th century, caregiving was women’s domain and duty. It carried status and reputation,” Sharpe said. “It was considered an honor to care, because they nursed the body and they were spiritual guides at the time of death. Sadly, they wore themselves out and often contracted the illness themselves.”
On Dec. 16, 1842, Rhoda Perkins, the daughter of a Weymouth minister, wrote to her brother: “A most affecting event has taken place. One of the young ladies, and one who sat at the same table with myself too, was taken sick on Tuesday, though she thought it was nothing more than a cold. On Wednesday she washed, and Thursday morning she went home. She had been home scarcely 48 hours before she died, how very sudden! Her vacant seat now remains at the table.”
Seventeen students went to Perkins funeral, and her coffin was “borne by six of the young ladies, a thing that I never heard of before,” Rhoda wrote.
“As standard practice women didn’t carry the coffin, but these Mount Holyoke young women did,” Sharpe said. Sharpe said the school did everything possible to address the students medical conditions in an era before antibiotics, and to give them the personal care they would receive at home, she said. Their parents often came to nurse them, and some went home to be nursed.
At the seminary, Sharpe said sick students were moved to separate rooms and given special food, and another student or teacher, who was willing, to nurse them.
Some girls brought disease, like tuberculosis, with them. They died mostly of bacterial and viral infections, that would be non-life-threatening today.
There was an outbreak of typhus, or typhoid fever at graduation in July 1840. During the summer, 40 students were taken ill, and nine died.
Mary Lyon, the school’s founder, contracted an illness from a student she was nursing, and she died in 1849 at age 52.
“Mary Lyon was truly distressed over the illnesses. Her critics had said that it was unhealthy for girls to study, and here was proof,” Sharpe said. “She viewed the deaths as the hand of God, warning these Christian young women to submit to God’s will because they never knew when the hour of their death might be.”
Still, Lyon took medical precautions known at the time, like having the girls vaccinated for smallpox, and insisting on cleanliness and fresh-air exercise.
Participants may bring their own lunch. Coffee, tea or cider will be provided.
The 30-minute program begins at 12:15, with seating and beverages ready just before noon.
The lectures are free and open to the public.
For updated information, go to www.amhersthistory.org.