Mabel Smith Douglass Papers

Mabel Smith Douglass (née Anna Mabel Smith) was born on February 11, 1877 in Jersey City, N.J. as the elder of two daughters to James Weaver and Wilhelmine Joanne Midlige Smith. James Weaver Smith was a merchant and the descendant of Dutch settlers who had come to New Jersey in the seventeenth century. After graduating high school, Douglass attended Barnard College. After graduation in 1899, Douglass taught in New York City public schools until her marriage to William Shipman Douglass, a commission merchant, in 1903.

From 1911 to 1918 Douglass was a member of the New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs, who lobbied for the creation of an institution of higher learning for women in New Jersey after finding resistance to the admission of women into traditionally male colleges. After securing financial supplementation from the New Jersey State Legislature and the support of the trustees of Rutgers College, the trustees passed a resolution in the spring of 1918 to establish “a Woman’s College as a department of the State University of New Jersey maintained by the trustees” (Denda et al., 2018, p. 18). The New Jersey College for Women (NJC) was formally established as an autonomous unit operating within Rutgers.

In May of 1918, Douglass was appointed Dean of the newly-founded NJC, which enrolled 54 female students the following September. Under Douglass’ leadership, enrollment rose to 1,129 by 1929.

Despite the success of NJC, the early years of the College were stressful for Dean Douglass. She ran into some difficulty during her office procuring an independent identity and adequate budget for the newly founded college. She did get along with Rutgers’ President William H.S Demarest and had many allies such as William Gourley, but disharmony between the administration of the college and the next president of Rutgers, John M. Thomas, combined with decreasing health, finally pushed Douglass to resign on July 1, 1933. Douglass disappeared in October of 1933 while boating on Lake Placid in the Adirondacks. Her body was found on September 27, 1963 in Lake Placid about 95 feet down on a ledge by skin divers, with a rope and anchor tied around her neck. The official coroner’s verdict ruled her death was accidental. Douglass’ body was claimed by Rutgers University under President Mason W. Gross and was interred in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn in 1963.

In 1955 the name of the college was changed from New Jersey College for Women to Douglass College in honor of Mabel Smith Douglass’ accomplishments in founding and firmly establishing the college.

Denda, Kayo, Hawkesworth, M. E., and Perrone, Fernanda. The Douglass Century: Transformation of the Women’s College at Rutgers University New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2018.

Additional information on the history of the New Jersey College for Women, known as Douglass College may be found in Douglass College: a History by George P. Schmidt (Rutgers University Press, 1968).

Douglass, Mabel Smith. The Early History of New Jersey College for Women: Personal Recollections New Brunswick, N.J: New Jersey College for Women, 1930.