Allen, Lilly Bertha
Lilly Bertha Allen of Amherst, class of 1903, was noted affectionately in the yearbook’s Freshman Class History: “[the class] has the very distinguishing honor of being the only class in college that can boast of strength, strong and powerful, but not all masculine. It contains a noted woman. We have a lady in our class. On our roll her name stands first.”
Allen departed either after freshman year or early in sophomore year. Later, the class of 1903—now all-male—contributed to the Index an editorial that argued against the admission of women to the college: “we are not prepared for this class of students and it will take time and money to become prepared, and…we can see no advantage to be derived from the policy.” Part of the justification for this position was the existence of the two nearby women’s colleges.
