{{Short description|Educator and social activist}}{{Infobox person | name = Elizabeth Powell Bond | image = Elizabeth Powell Bond ca 1893.jpg | birth_date = {{Birth date|1841|01|25}} | birth_place = Clinton, Dutchess County, New York, United States | death_date = {{Death date and age|1926|03|29|1841|01|25}} | death_place = Jeanes Home in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States | education = State Normal School | occupation = first Dean of Women at Swarthmore College, author | spouse = Henry Herrick Bond | children = 2 | parents = {{plainlist| * Townsend Powell * Catherine Macy Powell }} }}
'''Elizabeth Powell Bond''' (January 25, 1841 – March 29, 1926) was an educator and social activist who was the first Dean of Women at Swarthmore College.
==Family and education== Elizabeth Powell was born in 1841 in Clinton, New York, to a Quaker couple, Catherine Macy Powell and Townsend Powell.<ref name=swarthmore/> Her father was a farmer, and when she was four, the family moved to a farm in Ghent.<ref name=willard/><ref name=amelinckx/> By the age of 15, she was serving as an assistant teacher at a Friends’ School in the county.<ref name=willard/><ref name=amelinckx/> She graduated at the age of seventeen from the State Normal School in Albany.<ref name=swarthmore/><ref name=willard/> Her brother married educator and activist Anna Rice Powell in 1861.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cooper |first=Laura |title=Biographical Sketch of Anna Rice Powell |url=https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1010113672 |access-date=2024-01-06 |website=Alexander Street Documents}}</ref>
Like many Quakers, she held strong views against slavery and was a suffragist, peace activist, and temperance reformer.<ref name=amelinckx/> At the age of 16, she was speaking out at local meetings of anti-slavery campaigners.<ref name=amelinckx/> She spent some time in the household of the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison before her marriage.<ref name=swarthmore/>
In 1872, she married Henry Herrick Bond, a lawyer from Northampton, Massachusetts. They had two sons, Edwin (born 1874), and Herrick, (born 1878, died in infancy). Henry Herrick Bond died in 1881.<ref name=swarthmore/>
==Career in education== Bond began her career by teaching for two years in New York public schools.<ref name=willard/> In the early 1860s, she ran a boarding school for three years out of her parents’ house, with the student body including both African-American and Catholic children.<ref name=willard/><ref name=amelinckx/>
In 1865, after training with the physical culture advocate Diocletian Lewis, Bond became the first instructor in gymnastics at Vassar College.<ref name=swarthmore/><ref name=willard/> In the early 1870s, she briefly headed up the Free Congregational Sunday school in Florence, Massachusetts,<ref name=amelinckx/> returning in 1885 to become the resident minister for a year. She also worked for a time as editor (with her husband) of the ''Northampton Journal''.<ref name=willard/>
In 1886, Swarthmore College appointed Elizabeth Powell Bond to the post of Matron of the College.<ref name=amelinckx/> In 1890, she was named Dean, a position she kept until her retirement in 1906, when she was named Dean Emeritus.<ref name=swarthmore/> She was succeeded by Henrietta Meeteer as Dean.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1906-03-17 |title=Gifted Scholar Appointed Dean of Women at Swarthmore College |pages=27 |work=The Indianapolis News |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/111146286/gifted-scholar-appointed-dean-of-women/ |access-date=2022-10-12 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> She played an important role in the development of coeducation at the college.<ref name=swarthmore/>
Bond died in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1926.
==Legacy== An avid gardener, Bond was honored by Swarthmore with a rose garden created in her honor. A room at the college also bears her name.<ref name=swarthmore/>
Her papers, including correspondence, diaries, business papers, pictures, and memorabilia, are held by Swarthmore College. Her correspondents included Louisa May Alcott, Hannah Clothier Hull, William Lloyd Garrison, and many others.<ref name=swarthmore/>
==References== <references>
<ref name=swarthmore>[http://www.swarthmore.edu/library/friends/ead/5014ebon.xml#bioghist "An Inventory of the Elizabeth Powell Bond Papers, 1856-1958"]. Swarthmore College website.</ref>
<ref name=amelinckx>Amelinckx, Andrew. [http://www.registerstar.com/news/article_416099f7-dd7a-5598-9705-5d9c0c1b25d1.html "History Happened Here: Elizabeth Powell — an activist and teacher"]. ''Register-Star'', March 26, 2011.</ref>
<ref name=willard>Willard, Frances E., and Mary A. Livermore. ''A woman of the century: Fourteen hundred-seventy biographical sketches accompanied by portraits of leading American women in all walks of life''. New York: Moulton, 1893, p. 104.</ref>
</references>
==Further reading== *Johnson, Emily C. ''Dean Bond of Swarthmore: A Quaker Humanist''. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1926. *The [https://archives.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/repositories/7/resources/1894 Elizabeth Powell Bond Papers] held at [https://www.swarthmore.edu/friends-historical-library Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bond, Elizabeth Powell}} Category:1841 births Category:1926 deaths Category:Swarthmore College people Category:Vassar College staff Category:People from Dutchess County, New York Category:Educators from New York (state) Category:American women educators Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Woman of the Century Category:American feminists Category:Quaker feminists Category:Quaker abolitionists Category:American Quakers