Cheney Room History

Learn about the creation of the Margaret Cheney Room and it’s mission to promote community, relationship building, support, and empowerment of all students at MIT as it relates to gender.

Ellen Swallow Richards `73, the first MIT woman student, graduated in 1873. Marie C. Turner was the first Black woman to attend MIT in 1905. Ellen Swallow Richards secured the funds for a woman’s laboratory (1875) devoted to exclusively instructing women in chemistry (that location is now the location of Walker Memorial). Richards petitioned strongly for a women’s space to continue to be on campus. Thus in 1884 Ellen Swallow Richards and Ednah Dow Cheney raised funds to help establish a space for women on MIT’s campus. This space was named Margaret Cheney `82 after Ednah Dow Cheney’s daughter.