Millicent Carey McIntosh Papers, 1921-1998

Millicent Carey McIntosh was Dean of Barnard from 1947-1952. The title was changed to President in that year and she served as President from 1952-1962.

Married to pediatrician Dr. Rustin McIntosh and mother of four sons and one daughter, McIntosh was the first Dean of the Seven Sisters Colleges to be both a wife and a mother. A graduate and later a teacher and Acting Dean of Bryn Mawr, McIntosh received her PhD in English from Johns Hopkins and served as the head of the Brearly School for Girls for 17 years from 1930 to 1947. In her tenure at Barnard, she took on the monumental task of procuring greater funding so that Barnard could renovate and increase space and salaries. She initiated Operation Bootstrap, a development fund campaign that, with help from donors like John D. Rockefeller and Barnard alumnae, raised $1.7 million for the remodeling of Milbank Hall, which included the addition of the Minor Latham Playhouse in 1953; the building of Lehman Hall in 1959, with its library and classrooms; and the construction of Reid Hall in September 1961. McIntosh was also instrumental in centralizing all gifts to Barnard though The Barnard Fund and in forming the first long-range development plans of the College. She worked well with successive Columbia presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Grayson Kirk, and advocated strongly for greater cooperation with Columbia in a way that allowed Barnard to maintain its integrity and independence.