Luella Wilcox St. Clair Moss (June 25, 1865 – August 18, 1947) was an American educator and suffragist. She was one of the first female college presidents in the United States.
Early life
Luella Henrietta Wilcox was born in Virden, Illinois on June 25, 1865, the sixth of seven children of Julia F. McLynn and Seymour B. Wilcox. Seymour Wilcox was in the grain and hay business and was elected sheriff in 1868. Educated in the public schools, Moss was the first female graduate of Virden High School and the valedictorian of her class.
In 1885, after one year's study, she received a Bachelor of Science degree from Hamilton College, a women's college in Lexington, Kentucky affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Having earned a teacher's certificate at the age of 17, she stayed on at the college to edit the college literary journal, The Hamilton College Monthly. In 1886 she married Franklin P. St. Clair, the business manager and instructor in Latin and mathematics at Hamilton. St. Clair was a graduate of Bethany College (West Virginia) from which many of Lexington's colleges, including College of the Bible president John William McGarvey, had also graduated.
By 1888 the St. Clairs had left Lexington, and they lived for short periods in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. For about four years they lived in Colorado. First they moved to Montrose, Colorado for Franklin to drink the waters from the newly dug "Iron Mike" artesian well in the center of town. Their only child, Annilee, was born on February 7, 1888. According to the 1889 city directory for Pueblo, Colorado Franklin and his younger brother William lived together; and, while she is not listed as living with them, Luella probably was teaching school nearby in a rural area.
Educational leadership
They moved to Columbia, Missouri in the summer of 1893 where both Franklin and Luella were interviewed for the position of president of Christian Female College, another school affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). William S. St. Clair came with them from Colorado and was hired as a teacher of philosophy and religion. Franklin died on November 21, 1893, and the trustees of Christian Female College then - as had been prearranged - appointed Luella St. Clair to the college presidency. She was one of the first women in the U.S. to be appointed a college president. Her goal was to make her college the "Vassar of the West" and insisted that the students use the academic cap and gown as the official uniform rather than the traditional Christian College bonnets.
Her health suffered and in 1897 she turned over the presidency to her friend Emma Frederick Moore (1893-1920). Moore was a graduate of Wellesley College and wife of Dr. William Thomas Moore of Kentucky who had recently accepted the role of dean of the new Bible College of Missouri. She traveled with her sister Maxine in Europe, returning to Columbia recovered. She accepted the co-presidency with her friend, Emma Moore. St. Clair became a founding member in 1899 of the Tuesday Club which took on civic improvements such as developing the city's public library. Suddenly her daughter Annilee died of inflammatory rheumatism on January 24, 1900.
Hamilton Female College in Kentucky
In 1903 the educational reformer Kentucky University president Burris Jenkins, a graduate of Harvard University and Bethany College (West Virginia), recruited Luella St. Clair to serve as the new president of Hamilton Female College in Lexington, Kentucky. Though the school had been chiefly owned by the members of the local Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Kentucky University (later Transylvania University) had in 1878 bought a stake in the school, taking total control in 1903. This change in leadership forced out Hamilton's current president, Barton C. Hagerman, the husband of Mary Campbell who was the granddaughter of the founder of the Disciples Church. Hagerman started a new school for women, called Campbell-Hagerman College, also a private, women's college affiliated with the Disciples of Christ only four blocks away.