M. Louise Thomas

Not to be confused with M. Louise Thomas (1825–1907), an American feminist and clubwoman.

Minnie Louise Thomas (née Russell; 1861–1947) was an American educator and the founder of Lenox Hall, a school for girls in St. Louis, Missouri.

M. Louise Thomas

Early life and education

Minnie Louise Russell was born in 1861 in Columbia, Missouri, to Thomas Allen Russell, a judge of the Circuit Court in St. Louis, and Martha Louisa Lenoir. She moved with her family to St. Louis as a young child and graduated from a public high school in the city.

Russell attended the University of Missouri, where she was awarded a gold medal for excellence in oratory by the Press Association. They originally awarded two gold medals, segregating by gender, but the women participating, including Russell, saw this as discriminatory. Russell attended a meeting with other women who believed in equal rights for women, working together with others who had been affected to change the competition, so that men and women would be judged equally.

Career and publications

While Thomas was married, she enjoyed many luxuries and comforts. However, when it became necessary to support herself and two daughters, she began working as a teacher at Hardin College and Conservatory of Music, Mexico, Missouri, where she could keep her children with her. There, she established a course of lectures for girls, which she called "Round Table Talks", continued at Lenox Hall. She allowed her students to visit at stated times to discuss questions and matters that worried or puzzled them, such as morals, ethics, rules for social life, or attitude toward those who were inclined to bad habits.

Remaining in the school for six years, she felt that conditions allowed her to enter a field of work where her ideals for girls' education could have freer scope. Two offers were made to her, one to take charge of a girls' school in Montana, and another in St. Louis. She refused both, entertaining the idea of establishing a school that would enable her to carry out her plans unrestrictedly. About that time, Martha H. Matthews, who had been principal of Hosmer Hall in St. Louis, died, and Thomas felt that this was her opportunity to establish a school for girls. Thomas established Lenox Hall, a high-grade resident and day school for girls and young women, in September 1907.

In 1910, Thomas announced that the school would move to a new building constructed in University City, Missouri. On March 2, 1910, teachers and students of Lenox Hall gathered for the ground-breaking ceremony.

The editor of The World's Work issued a Hand Book of Schools in 1912, as a guide to parents considering the school question. Thomas was requested to contribute one of the two articles allotted to schools for girls; the other articles were written by men who were professors of Columbia University, editors of magazines, and presidents of well-known schools. She frequently contributed to magazines and periodicals, both prose and poetry. One of the poems that she sent out as a New Year's greeting to the patrons of the school was adopted by the president of the Mothers' Congress of Texas to send to members of the different branches throughout the state as her greeting for 1913, printed very neatly in booklet form.

In 1888, Thomas served as a founding member and officer of the National and International Council for Women alongside Susan B. Anthony.

Personal life

M. Louise Russell married J. D. Thomas and had three children: Thomas Allen Russell (1834-1924); Martha Louise Lenoir (1831–1913); Raydell T. Watson (1891–1974),; Russell A. Thomas (died in 1895), and Louise Le Noir Thomas, who was an advocate of women's suffrage like her mother.

She was a member of the Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Thomas passed away in 1947.