Harriette

Harriette offers a single queen size bed and sleeps up to two guests. This room features hardwood floors, picture molding, a large front window that opens onto a quiet street for those who enjoy night breezes, and an armoire for clothing and travel gear storage. Off the sleeping room you have the en suite bath with charming built ins. French doors lead to a private, furnished porch that overlooks Cornell’s historic campus.

Amenities

Harriette J Cooke’s story

Harriette J. Cooke began her 33-year career at Cornell College in 1857, only four years after the school was founded. During her early years on faculty she taught a wide variety of courses, including English, Latin, art, mental science, mathematics, and surveying. In 1866, she added the title preceptress, with responsibility for the moral oversight of young women on campus. In 1871 she became professor of German and history, thus being the first woman to hold the rank of professor on the Cornell faculty and the first in the United States to receive a promotion to full professorship with a salary equal to that of male professors. She remained preceptress for the rest of her career at Cornell.

Cooke was a pioneer in the women’s rights movement in Iowa, for which she won statewide recognition. She founded the Cornell Association for the Higher Education of Women in 1871. She was active in the Cornell Young Women’s Christian Association, one of the founders of Mount Vernon’s first literary club for women, and a leader in the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement.

In 1890, she resigned as both professor and preceptress under pressure from the administration. The reasons for her resignation have never been made clear, but contemporary accounts refer to her as a person with a strong personality, this at a time of almost complete male dominance of higher education.

With the help of her former student Edgar J. Helms, Class of 1889, founder of Goodwill Industries, she entered a new career of service to the poor and disadvantaged.