140 Years of Bryn Mawr

In the fall of 1885, “a new college for women was formally opened to the public,” wrote Miss Kitty M. Gage for the September 1886 issue of Education. 

“Bryn Mawr College for Women” introduced Dr. Joseph W. Taylor and his founding gift for the College. It set the scene, describing the high hill on Gulf Road, “built by William Penn … Over this road marched Washington to Valley Forge.” It described the brand-new Taylor and Merion Halls as “handsome buildings of Port Deposit stone.”

“The lecture rooms are large and airy,” the story continued, “and in winter a cheerful open fire glows in each one.”

This fall marks 140 years of Bryn Mawr — of first days of class, of traditions, of preparing the next generation of leaders, and growing the strong intergenerational alumnae/i network. The cover for this issue of the Bulletin is a portrait of the undergraduate class of 2029, photographed during orientation alongside members of the faculty and President Wendy Cadge. It mimics an early photo of the class of 1889 with faculty taken — according to a photographic history of the College published in 1985 — in the same spot just after the opening ceremonies of the College in September 1885.

The photos illustrate how the College has grown and changed in the past 140 years while showing some things — like the walls of Taylor — never do. 

This issue finds the Bryn Mawr Bulletin refreshed. The larger, bolder Bulletin incorporates the colors, fonts, and designs created through the College’s Institutional Positioning project, detailed in the Winter 2025 issue. The publication still boasts more than 100 pages of beloved Class Notes and campus news focused on what you, the readers, told us you most want to read: stories about inspiring alumnae/i, student and faculty research, campus life, College initiatives, and more to keep you informed and connected to your alma mater.

Read on for more about our 140th anniversary and how that history and sense of community have been carried forward by generations of alums at Bryn Mawr and beyond.

“This age has well been called Woman’s Century, and the last twenty-five years the epoch of foundations for woman’s education,” Gage’s 1886 article concluded. “Still, the demand goes on for something better, for some place where collegiate education for women is not considered an experiment; where not only young girls may be sure of a sound and vigorous training, but where disciplined college women may look for further instruction or for opportunities and materials for carrying on original investigations. Nothing more strikingly attests the value of the work already done by women than this uncompromising demand for the opportunity for serious and systematic graduate study. It is in this department that Bryn Mawr will stand pre-eminent.”