The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Women's Association (MITWA)
Nettie M Willey '93, C. Belle Kenney '86 Chemistry, and Mabel Warren Sawyer '94 Architecture founded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Women's Association (MITWA) in 1899. Its goal was "to promote greater fellowship among Institute women ".
The women had asked ESR about a group, but she felt it will never be a success, because we have no dormitory life, no campus, and hence no college spirit.
ESR was appointed the first president and did, in fact, provide much support and advice.
In 1916, MIT moved to Cambridge from Boston. The women student population had dropped to about 1%. MITWA conducted a second alumnae survey, prepared a register of the 650 former women students, and raised $8,000 to move the Cheney Room across the river.
Elizabeth Greenleaf Pattee '16 designed the landscaping of the Killian (Great) Court. MITWA president Mabel Keyes Babcock '08 designed the President's House gardens, and later, the grounds
Today, as the Association of MIT Alumnae (AMITA), the group's goals are also:
- to maintain contacts between former women students and the Institute
- to support women students and MIT's constructive role in our society
ESR maintained an alumnae newsletter. She was the first women elected to the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers (c. 1881). Smith, one of the women's colleges then offering science degrees, awarded her a Ph.D. in 1907. She founded and was first president of the American Home Economics Society in 1908.
Ellen Swallow Richards died in 1911.
Technology Women owe a debt of gratitude to her whose wise brain and willing hand opened the way.Mabel Keyes Babcock, 1916