Who Built Bryn Mawr?

October 25, 2023 - June 2, 2024
Coombe Suite Gallery
Canaday Library, 2nd Floor

Disoriented: The First Asian Students, 1889-1924 (Summer 2023) explores the early history of Japanese and Chinese students at Bryn Mawr, a history colored by prevailing stereotypes about East Asian people that were circulating on Bryn Mawr’s campus, Philadelphia, and the country at large. At the turn of the 20th century, Bryn Mawr began accepting Chinese and Japanese students through designated scholarship programs. But were these programs actually intended to benefit Asian students? What would their experiences have been like?​

This student-organized exhibition explores the earliest years of the College from its conception in 1872 and the laying of its foundations in 1879 to its opening in 1885 and through its first decade of operation. It was organized by Tessa Famatigan (Class of 2024), Marion Hamilton (Class of 2023), Rhian Muschett (Class of 2023), Madison Wyttenbach (Class of 2023) with academic co-advisors Alicia Walker (Professor of History of Art) and Alexis White (M.A. Candidate, Department of History of Art).

This exhibition highlights the ways in which Bryn Mawr students in the 1960s used ideas and experiences influenced by the national Civil Rights movement to shift the culture of the College. It was organized by Keyla Benitez (Class of 2024), Emma Burns (Class of 2021), Bankston Creech (Class of 2022), Elliot Fleming (Class of 2022), Carolina Molina (Class of 2023), and Katy Rosenthal (MA Candidate) with faculty advisors Ignacio Gallup-Diaz (Marjorie Walter Goodhart Professor of History) and Monique Scott (Director of Museum Studies and Associate Professor of History of Art.

- Sally Brown
- Uméko Tsuda
- Hilda Worthington Smith
- Enid Cook

This exhibit names and celebrates four individuals who helped shape the College’s first 50 years. Some of these names may be familiar, but their contributions to the College may not be. By their work and their conviction, they expanded educational opportunity for women at Bryn Mawr and beyond, even if that opportunity had been denied or made more difficult for them. They changed the lives of students, the nature of the College, and higher education and scholarship. They helped to build Bryn Mawr.