Arthur Gilman (June 22, 1837 – December 27, 1909 Atlantic City, New Jersey) was an American educator and philanthropist. He and his second wife founded the women's institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts in association with Harvard University. It eventually developed as Radcliffe College.
Biography
He was a son of banker Winthrop Sargent Gilman and his wife Abia Swift Lippincott Gilman. His immigrant ancestor Edward Gilman, of Welsh ancestry, emigrated from Norfolk, England, to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1638. His father's wealth (made in the wholesale grocery trade) paid for Arthur Gilman's education in private schools in St. Louis, Missouri, and Lee, Massachusetts. Beginning in 1849, he attended the coeducational Chrestomathic Institute of Rye, New York. In 1851 he moved to a school in New York City, where he studied until 1853.
He joined his father's New York City banking firm, working there from 1857 to 1862. His health becoming impaired, Gilman retired and moved to Lenox, Massachusetts (Dictionary of American Biography reports Lee, Massachusetts; American National Biography confirms Lenox). There he devoted himself to literary, historical, and educational work.
In 1870, he moved to Cambridge, and became associated with the Riverside Press. In 1871, he became one of the editors of the American Tract Society in Boston. Concerned for their daughter's education, in 1879 he and his second wife, Stella Scott Gilman (originally from Alabama), founded Private Collegiate Instruction for Women (familiarly known as the Harvard Annex), of which he became executive officer. The new school, which employed Harvard professors part-time, was organized so that women could enjoy instruction equal in quality to the instruction that Harvard men received.
