Author preface:
"The Seven Sisters colleges (“the Seven Sisters”) was a consortium of seven liberal arts colleges for women located in Northeastern United States, founded between 1837 and 1894: Mount Holyoke College, Vassar College, Wellesley College, Smith College, Bryn Mawr College, Barnard College, and Radcliffe College. (Radcliffe and Vassar are no longer part of the consortium.)
Ginling College (“Ginling”), located in Nanking (now Nanjing), China and founded in 1915 by Western missionaries, was the first institution of higher learning to grant bachelor’s degrees to women in China. It had already graduated 999 women when it merged with the University of Nanking in 1951 to become National Ginling University.
This paper sheds light on the connection between the Seven Sisters and Ginling by profiling some of the significant people and events that shaped this special relationship, with an emphasis on the connection between scholars from Smith and Ginling. Each chapter begins by introducing Seven Sisters graduates or faculty who went to China to teach at Ginling, especially two prominent ones: Mrs. Thurston from Mount Holyoke, the first president of Ginling; and Dr. Ruth M. Chester from Smith, who was the longest serving faculty member from the West at Ginling.
The paper also profiles thirty-one Ginling alumnae who studied at the Seven Sisters, including what became of them after returning to China, with a focus on three well-known Ginlingers: Dr. Hu Siu-ying, Ms. Yen Tsai-yun, and Ms. Hwang Li-ming."