Background
Mira Hinsdale Hall was born to Charles and Elizabeth Wing Hinsdale Hall in Leroy, New York, on the twenty-first of April 1863. Her father died when she was very young. She grew up in Leroy and was educated at Leroy Academy and Smith College, from which she graduated in 1883, the youngest member of her class.
According to J. E. A. Smith"s History of Pittsfield, “The first public institution for the higher education of young women was suggested by the successful efforts of Mission Nancy Hinsdale, in instituting a select female school about the year 1800.” Mission Hall’s School is a direct descendant of that first school.
Career
The family had by that time moved to Ware, Massachusetts, where Mission Hall taught Latin in the high school. Mission Hall"s School
In 1898 Mission Hall bought her school, one that had existed in the Pittsfield area since 1800. At least twice during the early decades of the School’s existence, it was known as the Pittsfield Young Ladies Seminary.
When Mira Hall purchased her school at the close of the 19th century, it was from Mary Salisbury, who had owned and led the school since 1871.
In February 1923, Mission Hall’s determination was put to the test when a fire broke out in the gymnasium of the school and the building burned to the ground. Her own resolve through that difficult period was greatly enhanced by the encouragement of many, most particularly Winthrop M. Crane, Junior., who would become the first Board President of the newly incorporated school.
Mission Hall’s talent, vision, and hard work served her well, and Mission Hall’s School became a nationally recognized college-preparatory school for girls. In 1931 Fortune Magazine, reporting on the modern trend in feminine education in private schools, listed Mission Hall’s among the nation’s top ten schools.
Mission Hall herself was recognized for her contributions to all-girl education when, in June 1933, upon the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of her college graduation, Mission Hall was given the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Smith College.
President William Allen Neilson conferred this degree with the following citation:
Death
‘Foreign nearly forty years her fine character and unique personality strongly influenced the lives and ideals of hundreds of girls who passed through her school (Mission Hall"s School). Her humor and charm were the delight of all who knew her.’
Mira Hall led her school with distinction for forty years. Her vision that “a secondary school should seek to develop in every student the power to think independently and clearly, to discriminate between the gaudy and the real, and to be tolerant of others, while holding oneself to a high standard” (The Women's Chronology) continues to underpin the mission.
Mira Hinsdale Hall died on August 25, 1937, in York Harbor, Maine, while on a motor trip.
