Yale First Ladies and Fellows: Helen Hadley Hall

The first residence hall built for female students in the graduate and professional schools at Yale opened in 1959. It was named in honor of Helen Morris Hadley—wife of Arthur Twining Hadley, B.A. 1876, who served as Yale president from 1899 to 1921—who was described as “a leader in helping women at Yale, whether students or wives of faculty.”

Graduate student residents look on as Reuben A. Holden, Sec’y of Yale University, presents a portrait of Helen Hadley (1863-1939) to Madeleine Price, Supervisor of Helen Hadley Hall, December 1959.

Mary Brooks Griswold (1906-1997), Helen Hadley Hall Fellow, circa 1970

In 1961 the Yale Corporation established the Fellowship of Helen Hadley Hall, the first open to women, although it was discontinued in 1973 after women were admitted to residential college fellowships. Fellows included Alice E. “Betsy” Chase, Yale University Art Gallery docent and educator; Claude-Anne Lopez, associate editor of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin; and Mary Griswold, wife of Yale president A. Whitney Griswold, B.A. 1929. After the death of her husband in 1963, Mary Griswold served four terms in the Connecticut legislature.

A front view of Helen Hadley Hall at 420 Temple Street, circa early 1960s.

Katherine Angell (1890-1983), May 1961

Betts House at 393 Prospect Street, formerly the Culinary Institute of America from 1946-1971, in a photo from 2012.

The first entrepreneurial Yale first lady was Katherine “Kay” Angell, wife of James Rowland Angell, Yale president from 1921 to 1937. In 1946, assisted by attorney Frances Roth, she opened the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), originally the New Haven Restaurant Institute, with sixteen students. As president and board chair, Kay Angell raised and donated funds while establishing relationships with Yale, New Haven, and the food industry. Yale hired the CIA to cater events, and Angell persuaded the dining hall workers’ union to allow them to provide training table meals for Yale athletics. After over twenty five years in Betts House, the Victorian  mansion on Prospect Hill, the institute outgrew its campus and moved to Hyde Park, NY, in 1971.

Jane Levin, 2013

More recently, Jane A. Levin, Ph.D. 1975, senior lecturer in the Yale Humanities Program and wife of Yale’s 22nd president Richard “Rick” Levin, served as director of undergraduate studies for Directed Studies (DS), the selective freshman humanities program in western civilization.  The first spouse of a Yale University president to be appointed lecturer, she enriched the program and has been honored with teaching prizes.