Home of Edith Koon Lansing Sills

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  • Edith Sills

Home of Edith Koon Lansing Sills

134 Vaughan Street

Edith Koon Lansing Sills (1888-1978) is representative of a civic leader with broad interests. She was the wife of Kenneth Sills, who served as president of Bowdoin College in Brunswick for 34 years. She demonstrated her interest in women’s education when she set up a fund to bring distinguished women lecturers to Bowdoin before women were admitted to college. She also served as a trustee for several women’s colleges. She was a member of many important boards, including Greater Portland Landmarks and the Maine advisory committees on civil rights and the Job Corps Center. A graduate of Wellesley College in Massachusetts, she held terms as president of the College Club of Portland and the Victoria Society of Maine Women, among other organizations. The College Club of Portland, founded by early women college graduates in 1900 for intellectual stimulation and to encourage other women to attend college, established a scholarship for a young woman in honor of Edith Sills.