Queer Places:
Radcliffe College, Harvard University (Ivy League), 2 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Barnard College (Seven Sisters), 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027
39 Claremont Ave, New York, NY 10027, USA
Mabel Foote Weeks (December 14, 1871 - August 23, 1964) was an influential American educator, college administrator, and prominent literary correspondent whose life intersected deeply with early twentieth-century modernist literature and female queer social networks.
Born on December 14, 1871, in Whitesboro, Oneida County, New York, she was the daughter of William James Weeks and Clara Foote Weeks, growing up alongside her siblings Elizabeth, Francis, and Emily.
Weeks pursued her higher education at Radcliffe College, graduating with the Class of 1894. During her time at Radcliffe, she established herself as an active and dedicated alumna, serving as treasurer of the Radcliffe Alumnae Association from 1896 to 1899 and later holding the position of president of the Radcliffe Club of New York. Her time at Radcliffe also marked the beginning of her most historically significant personal connection. It was during these college years that she met a young Gertrude Stein, initiating a deep, lifelong friendship. Their extensive personal correspondence spanned decades and remains a vital primary source for scholars, as Weeks's letters and Stein’s replies meticulously trace the evolution of Stein’s literary development, personal life, and expatriate existence in Paris.
Beyond her role as a confidante to iconic modernist figures, Weeks built an extensive thirty-two-year career at Barnard College in New York City. Joining the institution in 1907, she initially served as the mistress and head of Brooks Hall during a period when it was the sole residence hall on campus. Over time, her administrative portfolio expanded significantly. She served as an associate in English and took on the role of assistant to the dean in charge of social affairs under Dean Virginia Gildersleeve. In this capacity, Weeks exercised general supervision over extra-curricular student life, managed official calendar records, oversaw student organizations, and guided social programming for non-resident students. Her efforts to document student culture led to her compiling elaborate scrapbooks of campus social activities, playbills, and visits from notable figures such as Robert Frost and Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Weeks's presence within higher education placed her at the center of the era's rich, often informal LGBTQ and homosocial networks. As an unmarried professional woman residing at 39 Claremont Avenue, New York, and navigating elite academic spaces like Radcliffe and Barnard, Weeks operated within networks of women who built lifelong partnerships, lived in "Boston marriages," or formed intimate creative circles outside traditional patriarchal norms. Her deep bond with Gertrude Stein placed her on the inner periphery of the famous Paris queer avant-garde circle that included Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and their artistic peers. Within the women's college environment, Weeks worked alongside figures like Virginia Gildersleeve—herself a prominent woman-identified academic who shared her life with long-term female partners—forming a supportive ecosystem for independent women.
When Weeks retired from Barnard in 1939, her legacy as a pillar of the campus community was celebrated at a large reception in Brooks Hall attended by over 150 faculty members, administrators, and student leaders. In her later years, she maintained her status as one of Radcliffe’s oldest living alumnae. Mabel Foote Weeks passed away on August 23, 1964, on Nantucket Island at the age of 92, leaving behind a legacy woven into the history of American women's education and modernist literature.
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