April 30, 1880

At the Founder’s Day exercises in the chapel, speakers included Harriot Stanton ’78, and Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, reformer, journalist and the first president of the American Association for the Advancement of Women. Mary A. Livermore had lectured at the college in 1877.

“The custom introduced last year of having speakers from abroad, is surely an improvement upon the old style of employing exclusively home talent, when we can have speakers like Mrs. Livermore and the Rev. Robert Collyer…”

Vassar Miscellany, May 1881.

The English-born Unitarian minister and orator, Robert Collyer, spoke at the Founder’s Day exercises in 1872.