Laura Drake Gill (August 24, 1860 – February 3, 1926)[1] was an American educator. She was the third dean of
Barnard College, serving in that role from 1901 to 1907, and president of the
Association of Collegiate Alumnae.
Early life and education
Gill was born in
Chesterville, Maine, the daughter of Elisha Gill and Huldah H. Capen Gill. Her father died in 1873. She graduated in 1881 from
Smith College with a degree in mathematics.[1] She continued at Smith to earn a master's degree in 1885.[2] She later earned a law degree from the
Sewanee College.[3]
Career
Gill taught mathematics at
Miss Capen’s School in Massachusetts, from 1881 to 1898. In 1898, she went to
Cuba among the first group of nurses sent by the
Red Cross, and she headed the Cuban Orphan Society.[2]
After Barnard, Gill became national president of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae,[6] and organized the Vocational Bureau for College Women in America.[7] She was education chair of the
General Federation of Women's Clubs.[8] She worked for Sewanee College beginning in 1911,[9] to develop plans for a Women's College of the South.[8] She was an administrator at
Berea College In Kentucky in her last years.[10][11]
Publications
"Kindergarten and Industrial Training in Cuba" (1901)[12]
"Service of Organized Women to the Public School" (1909)[13]
^Walton, Andrea. "Achieving a Voice and Institutionalizing a Vision for Women: The Barnard Deanship at Columbia University, 1889-1947." Historical Studies in Education/Revue d'histoire de l'éducation (2001): 113-146.