ROWENA
MORSE MANN: FIRST WOMAN DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 1870-1958
(Courtesy Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe
Institute, Harvard University)
By
Catherine F. Hitchings
What follows is an edited collation
of biographical articles appearing in the 1975 and 1985
editions of Universalist and Unitarian Women Ministers
(Universalist Historical Society).
Rowena
Morse Mann was a famous orator, scholar, and the first
woman to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Jena,
Germany. She was born in Ithaca, New York in 1870, the
daughter of Sarah (Fitchette) and Benjamin Morse, and
was extremely well-educated. She graduated from the
University of Iowa in 1891 and taught science in the
Omaha High School in Nebraska before deciding to prepare
for the Unitarian ministry. She attended the Divinity
School at the University of Chicago throughout the late
1890s. Winning a traveling scholarship for 1901 to 1904,
Rowena traveled to Germany where the studied at the
University of Berlin, only to discover the authorities
would not grant a woman a degree. In 1904, after a hard
struggle to gain recognition for her studies, she received
a Ph.D. from the University of Jena. Hers was a test
case, and when she graduated summa cum laude, the university
changed its admissions policy to include women. A tablet
was placed at the university in 1933, commemorating
this event.
Tablet
commemorating Mann's groundbreaking admittance to
the University of Jena. (Courtesy Schlesinger
Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University)
Upon
her return from Europe, Rowena Morse preached one year
in Geneva, Illinois and here was ordained to the Unitarian
ministry March 29, 1906. She was minister for the Unitarian
parishes in Keokuk, Iowa from 1906 to 1910, Kenosha,
Wisconsin for one year, and the Third Unitarian Church
in Chicago from 1911 to 1922. From 1914 to 1917 she
served as a director of the Western Unitarian Conference.
In the summer of 1921, she brought her pioneering spirit
to Harvard University, conducting a service at Harvard
Divinity School's Andover Chapel. Anita Trueman Pickett,
meeting Dr. Mann on this occasion, remembered her as
“a delightful companion, humorous as well as inspiring.”
In 1912 she married the Rev. Newton Mann (1836-1926)
of Omaha, Nebraska whom she had met while teaching in
the Omaha High School early in her career. She had given
a sermon one Sunday in the Unitarian church there, and
soon afterwards she gave up her first teaching job to
study for the ministry. Newton Mann's first wife, Eliza
J. (Smith), had died in 1908, leaving him to care for
their son and daughter.
Rowena
Morse and Newton Mann. (Courtesy Schlesinger
Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University)
When
her husband died in 1926, Rowena Morse Mann retired
from the ministry and began lecturing extensively. Her
scholarly and practical background, as well as her "informed,
unbiased and vigorous" mind made her lectures on
sociology, politics, ethics and art extremely interesting.
In 1919 she was asked to fill out the commitments of
Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, an ordained Protestant Methodist
minister, who had contracted pneumonia and would die
later that year. Thus Rowena Morse Mann became a lecturer
for the Association for the League of Nations. With
notable Americans such as ex-President William Howard
Taft and A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard University, she
toured the country seeking to increase support for the
League of Nations and President Woodrow Wilson's planned
peace treaty.
She
translated Theories of Knowledge (1904) and Moral
Education and the Scientific Method (1925). When
she lectured on philosophy at the Weimar-Jena Summer
School in 1933, she became the first woman to lecture
on that subject in any German university. She was a
director of the Chicago branch of the American Association
of University Women, a member of the American Psychological
Association and of the American Philosophy Association,
and an honorary member of the Chicago Woman's Club.
Well-loved, especially as a minister, Rowena Morse Mann
died March 3, 1958.
The
Education of Rowena Morse
By
Diane Miller
Director, Department of the Ministry,
Unitarian Universalist Association (1993-2000)
Rowena
Morse during her academic career. (Courtesy Schlesinger
Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University)
Since
Rowena Mann wanted to resolve some of the problems that
science had raised for religion and philosophy, she
felt Chicago was the place to go. She entered the Divinity
School at the University of Chicago in 1898. Feeling
that one must study philosophy and theology together,
she worked with Professors Dewey, George Meade, and
George Burnham Foster.
Chief among her friends at the Divinity School was George
B. Foster, whom she admired as "a great religionist,
fighting under persecution," which made him "one
of the greatest theologians in his time.”
After
two years in Chicago, Rowena received a traveling scholarship
and journeyed to Germany for further study. It had been
her wish to study at the Divinity School at Harvard.
William Wallace Fenn, minister of the First Unitarian
Society of Chicago, had been directing her program at
Chicago as her Unitarian advisor. She explained that
she wanted to study at Harvard. Of course she already
knew that it was not their policy to admit women, but
after all, it was now the "twentieth century."
W. W. Fenn wrote on her behalf to Dr. Everett, Dean
of the Harvard Divinity School. In the letter (May 3,
1900), he highly recommended her, as Newton Mann had
done when Morse came to Chicago, saying “She has
had the full equivalent of a college education, having
studied at the University of Iowa...." Fenn explained
that Miss Morse wished to “supplement the work
done here by further study especially in Church History,
Theology, and Comparative Religion.” He wondered
if any arrangements could be made for her to have the
special privilege of study at Harvard. Without questioning
the policy of excluding women, Fenn wrote:
Of
course, I know she can not be a candidate for a degree,
but it seems to me that I have heard of one or two women
who have been allowed to sit behind a screen in the synagogue
while lectures were given. Is there a Court of Women in
the Harvard Divinity School?
As
for Dean Everett's reply, it is apparently not among
the records saved from that period, but it was clearly
negative. Ironically enough, within months Fenn would
be in a position to answer his own questions about women
at Harvard Divinity School, for in that same year he
succeeded Everett as Dean. Rowena Morse sought better
opportunities in Germany.
Rowena
Morse at the University of Jena. (Courtesy Schlesinger
Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University)
Morse
spent vacations in St. Petersburg and in side trips
around Germany. After more courses in the University
of Leipzig, she went on to Jena. There, women had been
admitted as auditors but denied access to examinations
and degrees, in the same tradition of exclusion she
had encountered at Harvard. She was no longer satisfied
with the situation. She pressured her professor of constructive
philosophy, Dr. Eucken, to find a way for her to become
a degree candidate.
Rudolf
Euchen smilingly said: “What are the philosophic
bases of your deserving an education; and what should
you say as to women’s obtaining a university education,
in light of the fact that the university has never been
open to them?”
It
is significant that Rowena Morse argued her case both
from a personal standpoint and to the end of admission
for women in general. This put her in the position of
performing not just as an aspiring doctoral student,
but as a representative of women as well.
Rudolph Euchen was persuaded by her case to look for
a way to alter the university policy. He took up the
matter with officials and heads of departments at Jena,
and with the prefect of education at Weimar. It went
as a petition to the Ministry of Education of the German
Empire. Morse was required to present all of her academic
credentials for scrutiny.
In
due time she was admitted as a candidate for the Ph.D.
with certain provisional qualifications. She was to
be a test case. If her degree "were taken in such
a manner that it should [show] incontestable philosophical
ability, and if the thesis were able and authoritative,"
thenceforth the University would be open to all women
who qualified for entrance, without regard to race or
nationality. But under the circumstances, her exams
would be thorough, covering four or five days. Her thesis
would be read by the entire department. If accepted,
it would be published by the University as a historical
document.
Rowena
Morse responded to the pressure and the challenge. She
took her oral examination after three years. She described
the circumstances:
I
entered the room and found sixty instructors and officials
seated around a big table, with nothing to do but watch
me, while four men gave the tests. On the table was a
large bottle of wine and one glass. A professor asked
if I would not like a little wine before starting. I replied,
“I thank you—no—I am an American and do
not drink wine.” They looked surprised and a little
amused, then one said politely, “I will give you
twenty minutes in which you may discuss as you please
the various methods by which philosophical problems may
be approached.” The test lasted five hours.
She
passed the exams summa cum laude, opening the university
to women and earning her Ph.D. The centennial date of
this degree's award is 2004.
Rowena
Morse was eager to get home. She sailed into Boston.
The new Doctoris Philosophiae decided to stop
in at Harvard to see the famous bust of James Russell
Lowell. She was not allowed to see it. She protested
and was told that the presence of a woman might be very
disturbing to the young men who were studying.
Years
later, while a student in the 1921 Harvard Summer School
of Theology, Rowena was invited to preach in Andover
Chapel. She was the first woman to preach in Harvard’s
Divinity School, and in that sermon she took the opportunity
to tell the story of her exclusion years before. Even
then, however, that Divinity School was not open to
women for degrees; a few were admitted as auditors,
and they were welcome for the Summer Sessions, but women
would not be admitted fully to the program until 1956.
Unitarian Note
Rowena
Morse Mann hoped to be called to serve as minister of
either the Second Unitarian or the Third Unitarian Society
in Brooklyn, New York. Her correspondence mainly with
UUA President Louis C. Cornish led her to be hopeful
of consideration, but she was informed that “the
chairman of the Supply Committee is opposed to having
any woman whatsoever in the pulpit.”
Rowena
Morse Mann in front of her Unitarian Parish (Courtesy
Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard
University)
