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  • Title: Williams House Faculty Apartments - Vassar College
  • Location: Poughkeepsie, NY
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Williams House was completed in 1922 as an apartment house for unmarried women faculty of Vassar College. An 1870 Vassar alumna, Harriet Trumbull Williams (1850-1923), donated the necessary funds, saying she “wished to contribute to the welfare of women. No group of professional workers seem to be more worthy of recognition through increased comfort in living conditions than those who have faithfully served Vassar College as professors and instructors.” In 1910 Vassar President Taylor stated that Williams “would give the women of our faculty an independence and a freedom from the constant calls of student life.” Williams Hall stands as a monument to women’s academic liberation by providing them with rooms of their own to carry on their academic and domestic routines in privacy. The architecture offers an example of a Tudor revival style designed by prominent architects, Hunt and Hunt. The firm of Frederick Law Olmsted shaped the green sloping lawn amidst a parkland setting.