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Frederica Mead Hiltner

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Frederica Mead Hiltner
A white woman with dark hair, wearing a white top
Frederica Mead (later Hiltner), from her 1918 passport application
Born
Frederica Rutherford Mead

June 15, 1890
Plainfield, New Jersey, U.S.
DiedMay 29, 1977
Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Occupation(s)Educator, Presbyterian missionary
RelativesWilliam Rutherford Mead (uncle)
Larkin Goldsmith Mead (uncle)
Lawrence Mead (grand-nephew)

Frederica Rutherford Mead Hiltner (June 15, 1890 – May 29, 1977) was an American educator and Presbyterian missionary in China.

Early life and education

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Mead was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, the daughter of Frederick Goodhue Mead and Marie Louise Myers Mead.[1][2] Her father died before she was born. Architect William Rutherford Mead and sculptor Larkin Goldsmith Mead were her uncles. Her older brother Lawrence Myers Mead taught and worked in China for the YMCA.[3] Her older sister Margaret Platt Mead (not the anthropologist of similar name) was a national and international leader of the YWCA.[4] She graduated from Smith College in 1911, and earned a joint master's degree in English and Religious Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in 1918.[5][6]

Career

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Mead was a Presbyterian missionary teacher,[7] and the first Smith alumna on the faculty at Ginling College in Nanking. She taught from 1915[8] to 1922, with a furlough from 1916 to 1918 to attend graduate school in New York City. During World War I, she was a member of the Junior War Work Council of the YWCA.[9] She spoke about her work to community groups in New Jersey in 1916[10][11] and in 1922.[12]

Hiltner was active in the YWCA in Seattle.[13] She was president of Christian Friends for Racial Equality, a Seattle civil rights organization,in the 1950s.[14] She volunteered with the Omi Brotherhood [ja], an interdenominational Christian lay organization,[5] and edited a collection of poems, Poems of East and West (1960) by the Omi Brotherhood founder, Merrell Vories.[15]

Publications

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  • "China's First Union College for Women" (1915)[16]
  • Poems of East and West (1960, editor)[15]

Personal life

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Mead married widowed medical missionary Walter Garfield Hiltner in 1923. The couple returned to the United States from China in 1925, soon after their son Frederick died in infancy; they lived in Seattle, where their son John was born in 1926. Her husband was medical director of an insurance company in Seattle, and he died in 1951.[17][18] She died in 1977, at the age of 86, in Seattle.[5]

References

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  1. ^ "Reception for a Debutante; Coming Out Party for Miss Frederica R. Mead a Delightful Social Affair". The Courier-News. 1912-01-06. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-01-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ "Marie Louise Mead". The Courier-News. 1948-12-27. p. 18. Retrieved 2024-01-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ "Collection: Lawrence and Eleanor Mead Papers". Yale Divinity Library. Retrieved 2024-01-20.
  4. ^ "Miss Margaret Mead, former YWCA Officer". The Courier-News. 1971-12-08. p. 50. Retrieved 2024-01-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ a b c "Frederica Mead Hiltner (1890-1977)" The American Context of China's Christian Colleges and Schools, Yale Divinity School and Smith College Archives.
  6. ^ Selles, Johanna M. (2011-04-07). The World Student Christian Federation, 1895-1925: Motives, Methods, and Influential Women. Wipf and Stock Publishers. pp. 239–240. ISBN 978-1-60899-508-0.
  7. ^ Mead, Marie Louise (January 1916). "Ginling College, Nanking, China". Woman's Work. 31: 9–11.
  8. ^ Hunter, Jane (1984-01-01). The Gospel of Gentility: American Women Missionaries in Turn-of-the-century China. Yale University Press. pp. 30, 136, 188. ISBN 978-0-300-04603-8.
  9. ^ "War Work Council" The Association Monthly 11(8)(September 1917): 11.
  10. ^ "Large Attendance at Y.W.C.A. Vespers". The Courier-News. 1916-11-13. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-01-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ "Tells Need of Women of China". The Courier-News. 1916-11-18. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-01-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ "Miss Mead Addressed Y.M.C.A. Vespers; Reception by Guild to Miss Frederica Mead". The Courier-News. 1922-11-20. p. 13. Retrieved 2024-01-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ "Y.W.C.A. Chooses New Leaders". The Seattle Star. 1938-06-17. p. 10. Retrieved 2024-01-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ Cameron, Madeline M. (1955-05-01). "Court Decision Against Segregation is Discussed at CFRE Annual Dinner". Filipino Forum. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-01-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ a b Hitotsuyanagi, Merrell Vories (1960). Poems of the East and West: By Merrell Vories Hitotsuyanagi. Omi-Hachiman, Japan, The Omi Brotherhood.
  16. ^ Mead, Frederica (July 1915). "China's First Union College for Women". Smith Alumnae Quarterly: 255–256.
  17. ^ "Dr. Hiltner Dies in Seattle". The Courier-News. 1951-08-03. p. 9. Retrieved 2024-01-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ^ "Dr. W. G. Hiltner Dies in Seattle; Former Missionary". The Lincoln Star. 1951-08-01. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-01-20 – via Newspapers.com.
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