The following is republished from the WAPUSH campaign, an initiative to get women’s history into US schools. It was written by Shannon Bennitt.
Born: 8 September 1858, United States
Died: 2 October 1929
Country most active: United States
Also known as: May Benton Treat
May Benton Treat Morrison was born on September 8, 1858 in San Francisco, California. She was the daughter of George Treat, a pioneer Californian. She was one of the first females to graduate from the University of California, Berkeley in 1878 with a degree in Literature. On April 27, 1893, she married Alexander F. Morrison, who also graduated from UC Berkeley with the class of 1878, and from the Hastings College of Law in San Francisco in 1881. He was admitted to the California bar in 1881 and became an extremely successful lawyer.
Morrison was known for her civic and philanthropic activities. She worked in San Francisco as a teacher of literature, art, and German, and was the first president of the San Francisco branch of the American Association of University Women from 1911 to 1914. She was president of the San Francisco Children’s Hospital, as well as a trustee of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and Mills College in Oakland.
She was very active in the suffrage movement, becoming one of 90 members of the Northern California branch of the Collegiate and Professional League for Equal Suffrage, and helped to write the organization’s constitution. The purpose of the group was “for the education of women to the cause of suffrage and teaching them the logic and principles of it,” according to an article written about a meeting on January 19, 1908. During this meeting, Morrison spoke on “debt college women owe to the pioneer in suffrage work” and argued that “women’s rights and the higher education have always gone hand in hand.”
Morrison’s most well-known legacy is her donation of her husband’s 15,000-volume family book collection following his death. It became the basis for the Alexander Morrison Memorial Library at UC Berkeley. The donation also provided the resources to build the Morrison Planetarium, the largest all-digital dome in the world.
Morrison had at least two daughters, Alice and Marietta. Marietta graduated from Sequoia Union High School and the San Jose State Teachers’ College. In 1935, she married Willis Caldwell, who graduated from UC Berkeley and worked in business in San Francisco.
May Morrison died on October 2, 1929, in San Francisco, and is buried at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California. She provided $1.5 million in her will for UC Berkeley, and in 1958 the university used the funds in the Morrison trust to build a building for the Music department, which is dedicated as the Mary Treat Morrison Memorial Music Building.
Works cited
Cypress Lawn Cemetery Association. “Alexander Morrison.” Cypress Lawn Heritage Museum. Accessed October 24, 2024. https://cypresslawnheritagefoundation.org/alexander-morrison/.
“May Benton Morrison in the U.S., Find a Grave® Index, 1600s-Current.” Ancestry.com
Oakland Tribune (Oakland, CA). “University Women Mark Founder’s Day.” January 23, 1927
Redwood City Tribune (Redwood City, CA). “Morrison-Caldwell Nuptials Solemnized.” November 13, 1935
San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco, CA). “Women Unite for Suffrage.” January 19, 1908
Sarah, Epstein P., Ph.D. “Women Who Built the Berkeley Campus: a Virtual Tour.” UC Berkeley. Accessed October 24, 2024. https://150w.berkeley.edu/women-who-built-berkeley-campus-virtual-tour-6.
Setty, Cecelia M. “San Francisco County Biographies: Alexander F. Morrison.” Golden Nugget Library. Nancy Pratt Melton. Last modified 2013. Accessed October 24, 2024. https://goldennuggetlibrary.sfgenealogy.org/sfbmor3.htm.