Housing at Smith College

This was conceived as a more "domestic" model, and as a way of enforcing socially-approved behavior among the young women attending, including the avoidance of lesbian relationships.

A campaign in 1913 involving the NAACP and Carrie Lee, a student who faced discrimination from Smith, became a precedent that allowed African-American women at the college equal rights to campus housing as their white counterparts.

Unlike the two already existing women's colleges, Mount Holyoke and Vassar, the Smith trustees decided to abandon the model of a large building with many individual student rooms.

[1] In 1877–1879, Smith constructed its first purpose built dorms, all keeping in the style of domestic Victorian architecture, Hatfield, Washburn, and Hubbard Houses, all designed by Peabody & Stearns.

For students who could afford more expensive housing there was the Plymouth, which had large suites, a swimming pool, a gymnasium, and a dining hall with a stage.

[1] As students’ house identity became increasingly telling about their economic and social background, bedrooms became the site of elaborate teas, spreads, and chafing dish parties.

In 1912, Burton hired Ada Louis Comstock to be the new dean of students and she continued in the position into the presidency of William Allan Nielson.

Comstock believed that Smith needed to create a democratic environment where students could socialize with each other regardless of economic background, and she saw the housing system as the chief impediment to her goal.

The design was also created to combat the longstanding fear that if students spent too much of their social life unsupervised in private bedrooms that their close female friendships might form into dangerous lesbian bonds.

[2][3] Lee's case became a precedent that allowed African-American women at Smith the same privilege of campus housing as their white counterparts.