Miss Hall's School, located in

Pittsfield, Massachusetts Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Pittsfield� ...

, is a selective independent school for girls in grades 9–12. Founded in 1898 by

Mira Hinsdale Hall Mira Hall (21 April 1863 – 25 August 1937) was the founder of the Miss Hall's School in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Biography Early life Mira Hinsdale Hall was born to Charles and Elizabeth Wing Hinsdale Hall in Leroy, New York, on the twenty-f ...

, a graduate of Smith College, it was one of the first girls' boarding schools established in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...

. Today, Miss Hall's School offers a college preparatory

curriculum In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...

augmented by two programs, Horizons, and the Girls Leadership Project.

History

Miss Hall's School has chosen to date its founding from 1898, as that is when Miss Mira Hinsdale Hall began her forty-year leadership. A broader historical view would be that the present school is a successor institution to one founded in 1800 by Miss Hall's great aunt, Nancy Hinsdale. That was the first girls' boarding school established in Massachusetts and the first attempt to provide advanced education for young women in the town of Pittsfield. In 1898 Miss Hall bought the school that was sitting at South and Reed streets and began to apply her many talents to its expansion. For the next nine years, Miss Hall not only enrolled high school girls but also incorporated a coeducational primary day program into her school. The School held, in 1906, certification in the New England Entrance Certificate Board, which allowed students who satisfactorily completed the College Preparatory Course to be admitted to Mt. Holyoke, Smith, Vassar, Wellesley, and Wells "without examination." In 1908, Mira Hall bought the Colonel Walter Cutting Estate at the present location of the School, 492 Holmes Road. The School was officially moved to the new location in 1909, and the coeducational day school was discontinued. While still offering two courses of study, the "general academic" and "college preparatory," the School grew in reputation, and Mira Hall was well established nationally as a progressive educator of young women. In February 1923, a fire broke out in the ceiling of the school's gymnasium. All of the students and faculty escaped safely, but the fire took the life of one employee and destroyed the estate. A model of vision and gumption, Mira Hall, then 60 years old, chose to rebuild and in October 1924 the school's current Georgian building was completed. At that time, the school incorporated as a non-profit educational institution and established a self-perpetuating board of trustees. Winthrop M. Crane Jr. became the first board president. Miss Hall's School continued to grow in reputation and became a nationally recognized college-preparatory school for girls. In 1931, Fortune Magazine, reporting on the modern trend in feminine education in private schools, listed Miss Hall's among the nation's top ten schools. Mira Hall died suddenly on August 25, 1937, while on vacation in Maine.

Campus

The

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

-style, Main Building was built in 1923. It underwent an eight-year, renovation and expansion that began in 1996. In this building are classrooms, laboratories, choral and instrumental music rehearsal space, administrative offices, the Humes Euston Hall Library, and residential hallways. Other campus sites include the Anne Meyer Cross Athletic Center, Ara West Grinnell Teaching Greenhouse, Elizabeth Gatchell Klein Arts Center, New Dorm, and Linn Hall.

Notable alumnae

Ubah Ali Ubah Ali (born 1996) is a social activist and feminist from Somaliland, who campaigns against female genital mutilation. In 2020 she was listed by the BBC as of the world's most influential 100 Women. Biography Ali was born in 1996 in Burco ...

, anti-FGM activist from Somaliland *

Jean Erdman Jean Erdman (February 20, 1916 – May 4, 2020) was an American dancer and choreographer of modern dance as well as an avant-garde theater director. Biography Early years and background Erdman was born in Honolulu. Erdman's father, John Piney ...

, an influential figure in the world of

modern dance Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th ...

and part of the Martha Graham Dance Company * Jacqueline Mars, (born October 10, 1939) is an American heiress to the Mars Candy Company and a notable investor. * Zelia Peet Ruebhausen, policy advisor, UN observer * Countess Xenia Czernichev-Besobrasov (1929-1968), Russian aristocrat and wife of Archduke Rudolf of Austria

References

External links

*
The Association of Boarding Schools profile
{{authority control 1898 establishments in Massachusetts Boarding schools in Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Pittsfield, Massachusetts Educational institutions established in 1898 Girls' schools in Massachusetts Private high schools in Massachusetts Private preparatory schools in Massachusetts Schools in Berkshire County, Massachusetts