Mary Adele France

Mary Adel France, also known as M. Adel France and Miss France, was the first president of St. Mary's Female Seminary Junior College, which is now the coeducational four year Public Honors College, known today as St. Mary's College of Maryland. She is credited with expanding St. Mary's Female seminary into a Junior College. She was both the last Principle of the seminary and the first President of the college that it became.
She was also the supervisor of the Kent County Elementary Schools, and during the following two years, she held the same position in the Shelby, Tennessee school system. She was also a math and science teacher.

Mary Adele France, the first President of St. Mary's Female Seminary Junior College and was also the driving force behind expanding the seminary to college level.
She was both Principle of St. Mary's Female Seminary and then later its first College President, after its expansion.
This is her graduation portrait, dated 1905, she was one of the first women to receive a bachelor's degree from Washington College.

France graduated from Washington College in Maryland in 1905. She was the fifth female graduate of the institution.

Teaching

France was a math and science teacher. She first taught at St. Mary's Female seminary in the 1900s and teens, then she taught at a few other schools in Maryland.

Superintendent of schools

After that she became the Superintendent of elementary schools in Kent County, Maryland followed by being a superintendent of schools in Tennessee.

Return to St. Mary's Female Seminary as Principal

After that she returned to St. Mary's Female Seminary and became its principal.

Role in expanding school to a Junior College, appointment as President

While in this role, she developed the idea of expanding the school into a Junior College. After lobbying the Maryland state legislature for some time, she was successful and the school was expanded into a Junior College in 1926 and renamed "St. Mary's Female Seminary Junior College".

Adelle based her rationale for expanding the school into a college on women recently gaining the right to vote.

1942: Conferral of Honorary Degree from Washington College

Along with Eleanor Roosevelt, in 1942 at the Washington College graduation ceremony, Adele France received an honorary degree from Washington College "for her significant contributions to the education of young women."

Mary Adelle France died in 1954.

The college that France helped to establish today is coeducational and is now the four year Public Honors College, known as St. Mary's College of Maryland.