Simmons Brings Nine Notable Women to the Boston Public Library

Notable women have always graced the halls of Simmons. Now, thanks to the College, nine "Notable Women of Boston" will grace the wall of the Boston Public Library. Artist Ellen Lanyon originally created the mural "Notable Women of Boston," for a local bank. After the bank went out of business, it donated the painting to the College.

The mural features nine women, three of whom have Simmons connections. Mary Morton Kehew, former president of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, served as a College corporator; Ellen Richards, the first woman graduate of MIT, taught at Simmons in the early 1900s; and Boston civil rights advocate Melnea Cass received an honorary Simmons degree in 1971. Other women in the painting are Anne Hutchinson, Phillis Wheatley, Sister Ann Alexis, Lucy Stone, Mary Baker Eddy, and Anne Sullivan.

The College has temporarily loaned the mural to the Boston Public Library, where it hangs in the Johnson Building lobby. Lanyon visited the library March 24 to commemorate the hanging of her mural and gave a speech on "The People, The Painting, and Public Art."

 

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