Background

McAfee was born on 12 March 1900 in Parkville, Missouri, United States. Her parents were Reverend Dr. Cleland Boyd and Harriet Brown McAfee. Mildred H. McAfee was surrounded at birth with the influences that would fill the rest of her life: faith and education. The daughter of a clergyman, and born at the college her grandfather founded, McAfee, combined religion and learning from her earliest endeavors. She grew up in Parkville, Missouri, and as an adolescent moved with her family to Chicago.

Education

Mildred H. McAfee prepared for college at the Francis W. Parker School.

At Vassar, McAfee studied economics, sociology, and English, while filling her free time playing on her class’s hockey and basketball teams and working with the college’s Christian Association, the debate team, and student government. She served as the president of her class the second semester of her junior year, and, in her senior year, as president of the Christian Association. Graduating as a member of Phi Beta Kappa in 1920, she built a reputation as a devoted and able student and an enthusiastic campus leader.

Mildred H. McAfee studied at the University of Chicago during the summers. She earned her Master of Arts in Sociology in 1928.

Career

After graduating, McAfee taught elementary and middle school-aged girls in her home state for three years. In the fall of 1923, she left Illinois to become an acting professor of economics and sociology at Tusculum College in Greenville, Tennessee. In 1926 Mildred McAfee became Dean of Women and Professor of Sociology. McAfee remained at Centre until 1932, when she returned to Vassar as the Executive Secretary of the Associate Alumnae of Vassar College.

In her new position, McAfee helped raise the necessary funding for the construction of Kenyon Hall and became involved in revisions to the school’s social regulations. McAfee's goal was to give Vassar women more independence. Two years later, McAfee accepted the position of Dean of College Women at Oberlin College. By the time she had reached Oberlin, McAfee had gained a diverse background from 14 years in educational administration. In 1936, Wellesley College ended an 18-month search involving over 100 candidates, by naming 36-year-old Mildred McAfee, as the new president of Wellesley College.

As a president of Wellesley, McAfee had the opportunity and the authority to put to work what she had learned from four different institutions of higher learning. Her presidency emphasized truth as the greatest and most precious object of scholarly pursuit. McAfee also defended the validity of a liberal arts education against accusations of impracticality and indulgence during the great depression. She considered it valuable in building the power of the individual and in shaping a greater internal and external awareness of the world. McAfee subscribed to the belief that the liberal arts cannot be taken as preparation for a career, but as preparation for life. As someone especially concerned with women’s education, she considered this type of learning invaluable toward social equity.

In August of 1942, as the United States was strained for manpower upon entering World War II, McAfee took a temporary leave of absence from the college to serve as director of the Navy’s newly established WAVES. Members of the Naval Reserve, WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) took over many of the domestic positions necessary during wartime in order to free male officers for combat. As director of the WAVES, McAfee was appointed to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, becoming the first woman to be commissioned as an officer in the United States Navy. She remained with the WAVES until 1945, was promoted to the rank of Captain.

The new Mrs. Horton continued her successful administration of Wellesley, retiring in 1949.

After retirement, McAfee pursued her other passion in life, her religious faith. She continued her social and religious work until 1994.

Achievements

• 

  Mildred McAfee was appointed in 1942 by President Franklin Roosevelt to head up the WAVES, which had just been formed. She was instrumental in laying the foundation for the organization and fought for Navy women to have the same pay and benefits as men. For her service to the nation, she was awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, the American Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory medal.
  
  In 1945, McAfee was featured on the cover of Time for a job "well done."

Religion

Mildred H. McAfee devoted herself to working with her husband in church and civic work and was also an active leader in education and social reform. Having written her master’s thesis on the "The Young Women’s Christian Association; a Case Study of a Religious Movement," McAfee was interested in the role that religious organizations could play in the world, and she worked as an influential member of the General Council of Congregational Christian Churches. She considered religion a tool that could bridge gaps, something capable of bringing a greater understanding to people through common devotion, whether Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or Muslim.

Views

Mildred H. McAfee's style differed from that of most other commanders. She sought relative comfort for her women. While others were eager to prove that women could take the ordeals of marching and other military maneuvers, McAfee preferred a low-key approach that simply got the job done without superfluous military tradition. She gave her WAVES a comparative degree of personal freedom, saw that they were assigned to military occupational specialties that suited the individual, and treated them with respect and collegiality.

Quotations: "Being a woman is interesting, but it shouldn’t stop you from being a person."

"I envisage the function of this college, or any college, to prepare an oncoming generation of students to disseminate truth. It is my conviction that truth is more easily given a hearing if it is presented by a healthy, well-adjusted, effective human being who sees the truth in the light of a world-philosophy which gives it meaning."

Membership

Mildred H. McAfee served as a UNESCO delegate, was a director of the New York Life Insurance Company, the National Broadcasting Company, Radio Corporation of America, and the Ford Foundation's Fund for the Advancement of Education, and later co-chaired the National Women’s Conference on Civil Rights.

• 

  At Vassar College Mildred H. McAfee was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

  Phi Beta Kappa , United States

  1920

Personality

Mildred McAfee was a woman possessing intellectual honesty, leadership, tolerance, savoir-faire, sympathetic understanding of youth, vision, and a sense of humor.

Interests

• Writing

• Sport & Clubs

  Hockey, Basketball

Connections

McAfee married in the war and conventionally took her husband's name. Douglas Horton was a dean of the divinity school at Harvard. McAfee's wartime wedding was similarly quiet: the marriage was not generally known to her WAVES or Washington's media - which demonstrates her exceptional ability to manage the press.

Father:

Cleland Boyd McAfee

1866-1944

Mother:

Harriet Brown McAfee

1867-1959

colleague:

Dorothy Stratton

Sister:

Ruth Myrtle McAfee Brown

1893-1968

Sister:

Katherine Agnes McAfee Parker

1896-1980

Sister:

Katharine McAfee Parker

1896-1980

husband:

Douglas Horton

1891-1968

References

• Amazons to Fighter Pilots: A Biographical Dictionary of Military Women
  2003
• The World Council of Churches: A study of its background and history
  1966
• Presbyterian Women in America: Two Centuries of a Quest for Status, 2nd Edition
  1996