Queer Places:
Mount Holyoke College (Seven Sisters), 50 College St, South Hadley, MA 01075
Woodlawn Cemetery, 1502 Central Ave, Toledo, OH 43606, United States

Louisa Phebe Fitz-Randolph, known as Louise Fitz-Randolph (June 25, 1851 - December 29, 1932), was an American art historian and college professor born on June 25, 1851, in Panama, Chautauqua County, New York, to Reuben Fitz Randolph Sr. (1806–1889) and Julia Bell Randolph (1810–1874). Her family included siblings James Bell Randolph (1830–1905), Rev. Reuben Fitz Randolph Jr. (1845–1916), and sister Ella Fitz Randolph Ransom. Before graduating from Mount Holyoke Seminary in 1872, she began her career as a teacher in a district school near her Chautauqua County home. Her early teaching path also took her to the public schools of Sharon, Pennsylvania, and Toledo, Ohio, as well as the Lake Erie Seminary in Painesville, Ohio, where she taught from 1876 to 1890 and served as head of its art department. Her academic pursuits included studying at schools across London, Paris, Berlin, Zürich, Rome, Athens, Chicago, and New York, alongside pursuing degrees at Mount Holyoke, where she earned a bachelor's degree in 1872 and a master's degree in 1904.

In 1892, Fitz-Randolph joined the faculty of Mount Holyoke College as head of the Department of Art, a role she held jointly with Lake Erie Seminary until 1896. Over her twenty-year tenure at Mount Holyoke until her retirement in 1912, she taught art history and archaeology courses, became a full professor in 1904, and was eventually appointed professor emerita. A defining achievement of her career was her instrumental role in establishing the Dwight Art Memorial Hall, successfully advocating for a dedicated art facility and securing the cooperation of alumnae to build its comprehensive collections. She traveled extensively abroad—including multi-year stays and a notable 14-month journey between 1909 and 1910—to carefully select and acquire classical texts, photographs, engravings, original artifacts like Egyptian antiquities, and a vast array of high-quality plaster casts that came to define the college's curriculum and the Louise Fitz-Randolph Gallery of Casts.

Beyond her campus leadership, she was an active member of the Archaeological Institute of America and the Classical Association of Western New England, while maintaining professional correspondence with prominent figures like archaeologist Esther Boise Van Deman. Fitz-Randolph passed away on December 30, 1932, at the age of 81 in Toledo, Lucas County, Ohio, after a brief illness while visiting relatives, including her sister Ella and her niece and fellow scholar Caroline Ransom Williams. Following her passing, she was laid to rest at Woodlawn Cemetery in Toledo, Ohio. Her enduring legacy at Mount Holyoke is preserved through continuous contributions to the art museum, the retention of her curated collections, and the establishment of the Louise Fitz-Randolph Fellowship in Art for alumnae pursuing graduate studies.

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