Frederica Mead received her Bachelor's degree from Smith College (1911) and her Master's degree from Teachers College of Columbia University (1918). From 1914 to 1916, and again from 1918 to 1922, she served on the English faculty at Ginling College in Nanking and was instrumental in getting Smith to adopt Ginling as its "sister in the Orient." In 1923, Mead married Dr. Walter Hiltner, who was working as a physician in Shanghai. The Hiltner family returned to the United States in 1925, settling in Seattle. During a year spent volunteering with the interdenominational Omi Brotherhood in 1957, Mrs. Hiltner edited Poems of East and West (1958), a collection of writings by Merrill Vories, the Brotherhood's founder. She died in Seattle in 1977.

Frederica Mead Hiltner tells her own story

Frederica Mead at Ginling, ca. 1922

Frederica Mead at 1922 Ginling commencement

Frederica Mead's article, "China's First Union College for Women," from the Smith Alumnae Quarterly, July 1915, pp. 255-56

Frederica Mead's article, "Our Sister in the Orient," from the Smith Alumnae Quarterly, July 1917, pp. 319-20

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