Smith College opened in 1875 with small cottages as living spaces for students and a single academic building, College Hall. This organization was intended to avoid the expense and social pressures associated with congregate dormitories as experienced at Vassar and Wellesley. The cottage system also promoted a domestic identity for female students in order to preserve nineteenth-century values of femininity. At Smith, College Hall housed the mostly male faculty and administration, serving as a patriarchal presence watching over the domestic cottages. Taylor Hall was designed to guard over Merion in a similar way.
Sketch of Taylor and Merion Hall in relation to each other, diaries, vol. 14, July 4, 1882
Pencil on paper
Haverford College Quaker and Special Collections, Addison Hutton Papers, MC.1122
Ink on paper
Haverford College Quaker and Special Collections, Taylor Family Papers, MC.962
When designing Taylor Hall, the founders of Bryn Mawr looked to College Hall as a model. Francis T. King and Joseph Taylor studied a paper cutout of the floorplan of College Hall (shown here) and Addison Hutton worked directly from architectural drawings of College Hall to design Taylor.