History of Women in the United States: Volume 12 Education [Reprint 2012 ed.] 9783110978933, 9783598414664

Citation preview

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES Historical Articles on Women's Lives and Activities

Edited by Nancy F. Cott Series ISBN 3-598-41454-4 1. Theory and Method in Women's History ISBN 3-598-41455-2 P a r t i ISBN 3-598-41477-3 Part 2 2.

Household Constitution and Family Relationships ISBN 3-598-41456-0

3. Domestic Relations and Law ISBN 3-598-41457-9 4.

Domestic Ideology and Domestic Work ISBN 3-598-41458-7 Part 1 ISBN 3-598-41475-7 Part 2

5. The Intersection of Work and Family Life ISBN 3-598-41459-5 Part 1 ISBN 3-598-41476-5 Part 2 6. Working on the Land ISBN 3-598-41460-9 7.

Industrial Wage Work ISBN 3-598-41461-7 Part 1 ISBN 3-598-41693-8 Part 2

8. Professional and White-Collar Employments ISBN 3-598-41462-5 Part 1 ISBN 3-598-41694-6 Part 2 9.

Prostitution ISBN 3-598-41463-3

10. Sexuality and Sexual Behavior ISBN 3-598-41464-1

11. Women' s Bodies: Health and Childbirth ISBN 3-598-41465-X 12.

Education ISBN 3-598-41466-8

13.

Religion ISBN 3-598-41467-6

14. Intercultural and Interracial Relations ISBN 3-598-41468-4 15. Women and War ISBN 3-598-41469-2 16. Women Together: Organizational Life ISBN 3-598-41470-6 17. Social and Moral Reform ISBN 3-598-41471-4 Part 1 ISBN 3-598-41695-4 Part 2 18. Women and Politics ISBN 3-598-41472-2 Part 1 ISBN 3-598-41697-0 Part 2 19. Woman Suffrage ISBN 3-598-41473-0 Part 1 ISBN 3-598-41696-2 Part 2 20. Feminist Struggles for Sex Equality ISBN 3-598-41474-9

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES Historical Articles on Women's Lives and Activities

12

Education

Edited with an Introduction by

Nancy F. Cott Yale University

K G · Saur Munich · New Providence · London · Paris · 1993

Publisher's Note The articles and chapters which comprise this collection originally appeared in a wide variety of publications and are reproduced here in facsimile from the highest quality offprints and photocopies available. The reader will notice some occasional marginal shading and text-curl common to photocopying from tightly bound volumes. Every attempt has been made to either correct or minimize this effect. Copyright information for articles reproduced in this collection appears at the end of this volume. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data History of women in the United States : historical articles on women's lives and activities / edited with an introduction by Nancy F. Cott. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. Contents: 1. Theory and method in women's history -- 2. Household constitution and family relationships -- 3. Domestic relations and law — 4. Domestic ideology and domestic work — 5. The intersection of work and family life - 6. Working on the land — 7. Industrial wage work - 8. Professional and white-collar employments 9. Prostitution — 10. Sexuality and sexual behavior - 1 1 . Women's bodies - 12. Education ~ 13. Religion - 14. Intercultural and interracial relations - 15. Women and war — 16. Women together — 17. Social and moral reform --18. Women and politics 19. Woman suffrage - 20. Feminist struggles for sex equality. ISBN 3-598-41454-4 (set) 1. Women—United States-History. 2. Women—United States-Social conditions. I. Cott, Nancy F. HQ1410.H57 1992 305.4'0973-dc20 92-16765 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP - Einheitsaufnahme History of Women in the United States: historical articles on women's lives and activities / ed. with an introd. by Nancy F. Cott. - Munich ; New Providence ; London ; Paris : Saur. ISBN 3-598-41454-4 NE: Cott, Nancy F. (Hrsg.) Vol. 12. education - (1993) ISBN 3-598-41466-8

Printed on acid-free paper/Gedruckt auf säurefreiem Papier All Rights Strictly Reserved/Alle Rechte vorbehalten K.G. Saur Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Munich 1993 A Reed Reference Publishing Company Printed in the United States of America Printed/Bound by Edwards Brothers Incorporated, Ann Arbor ISBN 3-598-41466-8 (vol. 12) ISBN 3-598-41454-4 (series)

Contents Series Preface Introduction

ix xi

Equally Their Due: The Education of the Planter Daughter in the Early Republic CATHERINE CLINTON

3

Mask of Oppression: The Female Seminary Movement in the United States KEITH MELDER

25

What, Then, Is the American: This New Woman? ANNE FIROR SCOTT

45

The Ever Widening Circle: The Diffusion of Feminist Values from the Troy Female Seminary, 1822-1872 ANNE FIROR SCOTT

70

"Embodied Selves": The Rise and Development of Concern for Physical Education, Active Games and Recreation for American Women, 1776-1865 ROBERTA J. PARK

91

Coeducation of the Sexes at Oberlin College: A Study of Social Ideas in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America RONALD W. HOGELAND

128

The Impact of the "Cult of True Womanhood" on the Education of Black Women LINDA M. PERKINS

145

Self-Help Programs As Educative Activities of Black Women in the South, 1895 - 1925: Focus on Four Key Areas CYNTHIA NEVERDON-MORTON

157

Domestication As Reform: A Study of the Socialization of Wayward Girls, 1856-1905 BARBARA BRENZEL

172

ν

CONTENTS

Sex, Science and Education JANICE LAW TRECKER

190

Homeopathy and Sexual Equality: The Controversy over Coeducation at Cincinnati's Pulte Medical College, 1873-1879 WILLIAM BARLOW and DAVID O. POWELL

205

Expansion and Exclusion: A History of Women in American Higher Education PATRICIA ALBJERG GRAHAM

218

Educating Indian Girls at Nonreservation Boarding Schools, 1878-1920 ROBERT A. TRENNERT

233

Guest Editorial: The Impact of Black Women in Education: An Historical Overview BETTYE COLLIER-THOMAS

253

Young Women and the City: Adolescent Deviance and the Transformation of Educational Policy, 1870 - 1960 MICHAEL W. SEDLAK

261

Doctorates for American Women, 1868 - 1907 MARGARET W. ROSSITER

289

Here Was Fellowship: A Social Portrait of Academic Women at Wellesley College, 1895 - 1920 PATRICIA A. PALMIERI

314

Women's Colleges and Domesticity, 1875-1918 ROBERTA WEIN

334

"After College, What?": New Graduates and the Family Claim JOYCE ANTLER

351

vi

CONTENTS

Opportunity and Fulfillment: Sex, Race, and Class in Health Care Education DARLENE CLARK HINE

377

Black Women and Higher Education: Spelman and Bennett Colleges Revisited BEVERLY GUY-SHEFTALL

389

It Might Have Been Euthenics: The Lake Placid Conferences and the Home Economics Movement EMMA SEIFRIT WEIGLEY

399

Copyright Information

417

Index

421

vii

Series Preface In the space of one generation, women's history has become the fastest-growing area of scholarship in U.S. history. Since the resurgence of feminism in the late 1960s and 1970s, insistent questions about the historical meanings of "woman's place" have sowed and reaped a garden of scholarship. Where scholarly works used to be bare of mention of women, academic enterprise has now produced a vigorous growth of books and articles, bringing to light diverse women of every region, race, class and age. This research is marked by a renovating intent that refuses to accept as "human" history a history of men. Interest is lively and debate is stimulating and sought after: attendance at the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women rivals the size of the annual convention of the American Historical Association. While books in women's history are daily increasing in numbers and strength, as in any fast-developing field the scholarly literature in the form of articles is most expansive and up-to-the-minute. All the history journals now publish articles on women's work, domestic settings, family relations, household matters, female politics and organizations and so forth, and new journals have sprung into being to concentrate on such topics. Women's historians publish in numerous regional and thematic history journals as well as in feminist outlets and in journals of other social science disciplines. This series brings together a collection of outstanding articles from the field, almost all written in the past twenty years and more than half published during the 1980s. It brings together, in volumes organized by topic, essays otherwise widely dispersed. These volumes reprint only articles that originally appeared in journals, not chapters of books; review articles are not included. Articles have been chosen for overall quality and for range. Each one was chosen for one or more of the following reasons: because it is the standard authority on its subject matter; represents an important statement on a topic by a recognized scholar; presages an important book to come; provides a first look at new evidence or new methods; or opens an untapped area or new controversy. Older articles have been reprinted if their data or interpretation have not been surpassed or if they marked an important stage in the historiography, even if since superseded. The historical coverage of the series extends from the Revolutionary era to the 1960s. The articles themselves are dated from the 1940s through 1988. Volumes are organized by topic rather than time period. Within each volume, the

ix

χ

SERIES PREFACE

articles are ordered chronologically (with respect to substance), so that the whole can be read as an historical overview. The only exception to this ordering principle is VolumeOne, on Theory and Method, in which the contents are arranged in order of publication. Within each volume there is an attempt to include articles on as diverse kinds of women as possible. None of the volume topics is regionally or racially defined; rather, all volumes are topically designed so as to afford views of women's work, family lives, and public activities which cut across races and regions. Any volume in the series stands on its own, supplying as full a treatment of a designated subject matter as the scholarly literature will provide. Several groupings of volumes also make sense; that is, volumes two through five all center around domestic and family matters; volumes five through nine consider other varieties of women's work; volumes nine through eleven concern uses and abuses of women's bodies; volumes twelve through fourteen look at major aspects of socialization; and volumes fifteen through twenty include organizational and political efforts of many sorts. As a whole, the series displays in all its range the vitality of the field of women's history. Aside from imbuing U.S. history with new vision, scholarship in this area has informed, and should continue to inform, current public debate on issues from parental leave to the nuclear freeze. By bringing historical articles together under topical headings, these volumes both represent accurately the shape of historical controversy (or consensus) on given issues and make historians' findings most conveniently available for current reference.

Introduction From grammar-school level to university training, formal education was traditionally, in Anglo-American society, the prerogative of men. For a long time, therefore—at least since the rise of the woman's rights movement in the nineteenth-century United States—it has been an assumption that women's access to formal education is the first stage in their progress from a restricted domestic scope of activities to public, professional, and political participation along with men in all arenas of life. Historians have explored the actual process of opening avenues of formal education to women with this assumption in mind and have found a story more complicated than the one of linear and steady progress that nineteenthcentury woman's rights advocates envisioned. In particular, the role of formal education of women in sustaining gender roles—that is, in teaching women their "place" rather than subverting it—has commanded attention. Among the English who settled the American shore in the seventeenth century, little attention was paid to the education of women. Women's intellect was considered inferior to men's; extensive learning for women therefore appeared not only inappropriate, but even dangerous. When Massachusetts leader John Winthrop, for example, reflected in 1645 on the "sad infirmity, the loss of her understanding and reason," that had beset the wife of the Connecticut governor "by occasion of her giving herself wholly to reading and writing and had written many books," he stressed that she had undone herself, and left implicit the danger to the social status quo that he also feared from women's absorption in learning.1 The first public schools set up by New Englanders were for boys; those girls who learned to read and write did so at the knee of relatives or perhaps by going to "dame schools" run by neighbor women. According to Kenneth Lockridge's study of literacy in colonial New England, the gap between men's and women's ability to sign their names—a prime index of literacy—widened during the colonial period, most probably because public schools taught boys and not girls. About half of the men and one-third of the women in the generation who settled New England could sign their names. By the mid-eighteenth century, eighty percent or more of men could sign their names, but the proportion of women thus shown to be literate stayed between forty and forty-five percent.2 About the time of the American revolution, a consensus on the desirability of female literacy seems to have been reached, at least in the North. In the new United States, plans voiced by educators seeking to foster American nationalism

xi

xii

INTRODUCTION

and republicanism typically included primary education for both sexes. When, for example, the American Philosophical Society offered a prize in 1795 for the best essay proposing a system of education for the U.S., every submission included universal free schools open to boys and girls.3 Initially by attending summer sessions covering just basic reading and writing, and increasingly through attendance at regular school sessions, succeeding generations of girls caught up so that literacy was almost general among whites of both sexes, in the North, by about 1840. Literacy in the South lagged behind (for both sexes), because the tradition of free public schools was not as readily realized. Between the Revolution and the early nineteenth century both men and women contributed to the development of a cohesive American rationale for educating girls beyond basic literacy. This rationale added to premises of republican nationalism a strong belief in the formative years of childhood and the corresponding importance of the mother's role in early childhood education. It was a cardinal tenet of republican political philosophy that the persistence and safety of the American republic depended on its citizens understanding the principles of liberty and representative government. Reformist educators further reasoned that that understanding was deepest rooted which began early in life, and thus mothers could be deeply influential in forming the republican citizenry. "If we mean to have heroes, statesmen, and philosophers, we should have learned women," Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John during the Revolution." 4 Further generalized during the next generation, this reasoning held that suitable education of women would protect the republic from corruption and decay by aiding male political participation and entrepreneurship and preserving the family as an agency of moral instruction. The same reasoning also extended to foster the use of young women as schoolteachers. Just as it seemed useful to argue that women needed education in letters, language, history and moral philosophy to discipline their minds and form their good sense as mothers, it seemed possible to argue that young women thus educated were the best (as well as the cheapest to hire) to staff the common schools, to teach young children in school as well as in the home. Catharine Beecher and Emma Hart Willard, the most prominent founders of secondary schools for girls and promoters of female school teachers before the Civil War, both argued that teaching was "woman's profession" because her job, inside the home and in the school, was to form pure minds and healthy bodies. The early justification for women's learning was thus wholeheartedly pragmatic and supportive of the common distinction between men's and women's spheres of usefulness: as Willard's sister educator Almira Hart Phelps exhorted her students, their task was to "prove by your own example, that knowledge is not to be a curse to your sex, that it is to lead them in the path of duty not out of it; that it is to make them better daughters, wives and mothers To move from this conservative and utilitarian rationale to the higher education of women, in

INTRODUCniON

xiii

colleges, graduate and professional schools, was a leap, and yet it was a leap that was taken in the latter half of the nineteenth century. It was a leap that was made possible, in part, and made to seem necessary, by the unlooked-for emancipatory effect of booklearning on women's minds. From rationales rooted in women's domestic and maternal functions, later educators moved to justifications for women's learning for genius's sake, for intellectual ambition or professional training, for worldly success—and yet always connected these with society's advantage. The articles in this volume treat innovations in the education of women at all levels, concentrating, however (as the literature has concentrated), on the higher education of women and its link to personal, professional and societal advancement. Notes 1

Winthrop is quoted in Aileen S. Kraditor, ed., Up from the Pedestal (Chicago, Quadrangle Books, 1970), 30. 2 Kenneth A. Lockridge, Literacy in Colonial New England (N.Y., Norton, 1974). 3 Merle Curti, The Social Ideas of American Educators (Paterson, NJ, Pageant Books, 1959), 47. 4 Abigail Adams to John Adams, August 14, 1776, in Charles Francis Adams, ed., Familiar Letters of John Adams and his Wife Abigail Adams, during the Revolution (N.Y., 1876), 212-213. 5 Almira Hart Phelps, Lectures to Young Ladies (Boston, 1855), 247.

Education

EDUCATION

EQUALLY THEIR DUE: THE EDUCATION OF THE PLANTER DAUGHTER IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC Catherine Clinton I n 1819 Maria Campbell, mistress of "Montcalm" in Abingdon, Virginia, wrote her young cousin Mary Hume at Salem Academy in North Carolina: "In the days of our forefathers it was considered only/necessary to learn a female to read the Bible — the ballance of her time was spent in domestic employments. They, to be sure, were very necessary. But why should a whole life be thus spent [ ? ] . . . Things are happily taking a change. Daughters as well as sons are now thought of by the fond parent. Education is considered equally their due." 1 Maria Campbell, a member of the post-revolutionary generation, directly benefited from this dramatic educational transition. Born in 1785, she married planter-entrepreneur David Campbell, who later served as governor of Virginia. Sent to school as a young girl, Maria Campbell cherished her education as a source of strength and comfort during her many years in isolation on her husband's plantations. She was childless and often alone during Campbell's long political career. This shift in attitude towards female education created dramatic transformations for women in the early national era. With the dissemination of Enlightenment theories as well as an outburst of patriotism, Americans of the late eighteenth century Ms. Clinton is a member of the Department of History at Union College, Schenectady, New York. She wishes to acknowledge the generous advice of Professor Mary Beth Norton on an early draft of this essay. 1 Maria H. Campbell to Mary Hume, September 21, 1819, Campbell Collection (Duke University Library, Durham N.C.). See also Mary G . Franklin to her daughters, May 1, 1838, McDonald and Lawrence Collection, Southern Historical Collection (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill). JOURNAL O F THE EARLY REPUBLIC, 2 (April 1982). © 1982 Society for H m o r ä n · of the Early Amcncw Republic.

3

4

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

became concerned with "republican motherhood." T o build a new, "liberty-loving" nation, female education promoted the socialization of women into "true w o m a n h o o d " and away from the temptation of political rights and the even more dangerous beguilement — feminism. T h e education of women was an essential compromise. T h e campaign to improve female education was linked to women's reproductive roles, rather t h a n to any improvement in their political or economic status. 2 This was a pattern for most upper-class women in America during the antebellum era, and the South proved no exception. But in this, as in many other aspects, southern planters developed a world apart from the rest of the country, especially from their New England counterparts. Some educational improvements may have been identical N o r t h and South, but plantation society segregated itself from Yankee culture. A major problem in charting the southern past arises from the fact that change there was often less dramatic and less permanent t h a n transitions in the N o r t h . Southern education indeed transformed itself during the postrevolutionary era, especially in the schooling of elite females. But this revolutionary transformation of women's education — and it was revolutionary because b o t h the quantity and quality of institutions and instructors improved measurably — was short-lived in t h e South (as compared with the North) and produced far less of an impact o n local culture. Perhaps for these reasons, the movement to improve female education in the plantation South has received less attention t h a n it deserves. Lessened impact, however, cannot undermine the fact that this movement was a dramatic break with the past and an imp o r t a n t factor in the lives of planter class females. A n n e Firor Scott, in her pioneering study of southern women, The Southern Lady: From Pedestal to Politics, 1830-1930 (1970), demonstrated the significance a n d predominance of educated women on southern plantations during the late antebellum era. But Julia Cherry Spruill's earlier study of colonial southern women (Women's Life and Work in the Southern Colonies [1983]) revealed the relative 2 Linda Kerber, "The Republican Mother: Women and the Enlightenment — An American Perspective," American Quarterly, 28 (Summer 1976), 187-205; see also Barbara Welter, "The Cult of True Womanhood, 1820-1860," American Quarterly, 18 (Summer 1966), 151-174, and Alice Felt Tyler, "The Rights of Women," in The Women Question in American History, ed. Barbara Welter (Hinsdale, 111. 1973).

EDUCATION

paucity of education for females, even of the upper-class, within plantation society. Thus, sometime between the periods covered by these two studies, the South underwent a dynamic transformation. This essay explores this transitional period in the education of planter daughters. Although secondary sources have provided useful background material, the bulk of evidence has been collected from a survey of over five hundred manuscript collections containing private papers of the planter class from Virginia to Louisiana written during the first five decades after the American Revolution. 3 Daughters of planters had always had some minimal instruction. Until the late eighteenth century, their studies centered on sacred writings and pious texts. Southern females were rarely subjected to the rigorous training that their brothers enjoyed. Although most plantation mistresses in the eighteenth century could read, fewer were able to write. The emphasis on Bible reading led to this unfortunate condition. Following the Revolution, many fathers penned letters to daughters away at school for mothers unable to write their own compositions. 4 T h e promotion of female education by the southern gentry was not merely an intellectual concern. Many patriarchs of the plantocracy believed what some theorists have alleged, that education essentially maintains class. While a man in antebellum America could achieve upward social mobility by the accumulation of wealth or political influence, no such options were open to women. A woman's status was signified by her education, while her position as a sexual inferior remained intact. Planter fathers supplied their daughters with an education as much to make them marriageable as to improve their intellects. Parents obtained for their female offspring the best education money could buy, even if it meant financial sacrifice. An advantageous marital liaison ar3 This essay is based upon my larger study of plantation mistresses to be published by Pantheon Press in 1982 under the title of The Plantation Mistress. For other valuable sources on this subject, consult Thomas Woody, A History of Women's Education in the United States (New York 1929), and Florence Davis, "The Education of Southern Girls from 1750-1860" (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago 1951). The major problem with the general literature on this topic can best be summed up by stating that the history of the South neglects women and the history of women neglects the South. 4 Boiling Hall to Polly Hall, June 30, 1813, Hall Collection (Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery).

5

6

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES ranged by the planter parent purportedly offset any temporary financial setback. As one father described it, " A girl will be more respected with an education than with wealth." Men of the planter class sought accomplished as well as ornamental wives.5 The first fifty years of American education following independence wrought important shifts in emphasis. Parents turned away from the more "genteel" instruction of the colonial period. Indeed, many spoke disparagingly of the refinement of their forebears. 6 Education for women moved away from style towards substance. Although parents and educators agreed that formal instruction was designed to improve women in their roles as wives and mothers, a reinterpretation of this role led to a virtual revolution in female education. Interestingly, England served as the example to America. During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, political and intellectual ferment fostered a climate of change in England. Evangelical challenges to the established church and revolutionary attacks upon government created a productive and tumultuous outburst of reform literature. During this era two important theorists of female education emerged: Hannah More and Mary Wollstonecraft. Although both had started out as teachers, publishing educational texts of similar substance and structure in their early careers, by the last decade of the century Hannah More and Mary Wollstonecraft had moved into opposing camps. While More wrote Village Politics (1792) as an antidote to Thomas Paine's radical influence, Wollstonecraft penned Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) with undisguised adoration of Paine. In spite of their political differences, both authors agreed that the education of women was a vital intellectual concern. And again, despite political and religious disputes, they advanced identical arguments for many issues of female education. 5 Elijah Fletcher, October 1, 1810, in Martha von Briesen, ed., The Letters of Elijah Fletcher (Charlottesville, V a . 1965), 16; Samuel Bowles, "Unequal Education and the Reproduction of the Social Division of Labor," in Schooling in a Corporate Society: The Political Economy of Education in America, ed. Martin Carnoy (New York 1972); Boynton Merrill, Jr., )efferson's Nephews: A Frontier Tragedy (Princeton 1976), 167-168; to Sarah Cutler, August 4, 1821, Bulloch Collection, Southern Historical Collection. 6 Delia Bryan to John Randolph, April 23, 1810, John Randolph Collection (Alderman Library, University o f Virginia, Charlottesville). See also Myra Reynolds, The Learned Lady in England, 1650-1760 (Boston 1920), 2.

EDUCATION

More and Wollstonecraft, for example, both celebrated "virtue." Although each had her own interpretation of that concept and its social application to women, both deplored the degradation of women that they witnessed in their society. Hannah More's Strictures on the Modem System of Female Education (1799) condemned the "injustice which is often exercised towards women, first to give them a very defective Education and then to expect from them the most undeviating purity of Conduct." Both authors likewise upbraided the superficial nature of female education in their society. They bemoaned the weakness of women on the whole and the particular folly of women at that time. Additionally, they preached the evils of reading popular novels. More wrote that the education of children was woman's acknowledged power, and Wollstonecraft concurred, stating that after a woman's duty to herself, "the next in point of importance, as citizens, is that which includes so many, of a mother." Lastly, these two authors criticized the money and energy wasted on "frivolous" female training because men wanted companions, not "artists." 7 Educators popularized and promoted these theories throughout the United States within a generation. Although Wollstonecraft earned a reputation in antebellum America as an "immoral and dangerous" woman, she nevertheless was regarded as an author of note. Hannah More enjoyed a tremendous vogue, especially in the South. Her works sold well in England and America, and southerners discussed her essays in their correspondence. This popularity continued throughout the fifty years following the Revolution, as the educational precepts of Hannah More were rapidly adopted by the planter class.8 During the eighteenth century, the burden of educating young children fell on the mother. Just as the female parent was expected 7 H a n n a h More, Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education (Philadelphia 1800), I, 1; Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792, reprinted New York 1975), 145. 8 William T. Barry to Susan Barry, May 21, 1826, Barry Collection (Alderman Library, University of Virginia); Mary Telfair to Mary Few, May 26, 1820, Few Collection (Georgia Department of Archives and History, Atlanta). See also Mary Telfair to Mary Few, January 30, 1835 and March 5, 1836, Few Collection; Caroline Pincknev to Charles Pinckney, December 5, 1833, Pinckney Collection (Emory University Archives, Atlanta); Diary of A n n e Caroline Lesesne, March 26, 1836, Lesesne Collection (South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston); William T. Barry to Susan Barry, November 19, 1819, Barry Collection.

7

8

H I S T O R Y O F W O M E N IN T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S

to nurse, feed, clothe, and minister to the health of her young, so was she entrusted with their instruction. One southern gentleman wrote to an acquaintance in England of the advantage of this system: "In our country where the fatigue and trouble of educating their children are necessarily imposed on the Mother, perhaps the pernicious effects of bad examples are not to be so much dreaded as in those countries where Nurses and Governesses who are usually uninterested in the future characters of their pupils are more common."9 But post-revolutionary southern women were illequipped to fulfill these educational responsibilities. Not only were they undereducated as a group, they also had little time to devote themselves to the classroom. One woman typically recounted the necessity of hiring a tutor for her five children because "the interruptions from housekeeping for a black [and often for a very large white] family together with sickness and the claims of society made their progress slow." Women wanted to teach their children themselves, but demands of household and plantation management left them little time to spare.10 Mothers coped with these problems in a variety of ways. Often older brothers and sisters (home from boarding school) were drafted to give basic instruction to their siblings." Similarly, parents encouraged their unmarried sisters to live with them to assist with schooling. Family ties were strengthened by this generational process of educating children, as sons and daughters frequently formed special ties with aunts and sisters who devoted themselves to teaching. This home instruction, however, was very elementary; most plantation women limited themselves to teaching the alphabet and geography. As more sophisticated instruction was needed, planters employed professional teachers. Schoolmasters often taught on several plantations, rotating among plantation families. Tutors, exclusively male during the early part of the eighteenth century, concentrated their efforts on the preparation of male children for 9 Dr. Augustine Smith to Graham Frank, August 17, 1791, Smith Digges Collection (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library, Virginia). 10 Mrs. Ε. T . Bryan, April 14, 1842, Edmund Bryan Collection, Southern Historical Collection; Mrs. S. E. Van Bibber to Georgia B. Screven, November 3, 1833, Forman-Bryan-Screven Collection (Georgia Historical Society, Savannah); Anne B. Cocke to Ann Barraud, March 2, 1811, Cocke Collection (Alderman Library, University of Virginia). 11 Boiling Hall to Polly Hall, February 12, 1816, Hall Collection.

EDUCATION

further education. But by the early nineteenth century, planters sometimes hired female instructors to teach pupils of both sexes. Most of these governesses were young, unmarried northerners. Philadelphia women, especially, found positions in planter homes. Many southern families had married into wealthy Philadelphia families, perhaps fostering this network, but most of the teachers had entered the profession because of economic necessity. Virginian Eliza Robertson, for example, who supported her invalid mother when there was no one else to care for her, explained that "the severe change of times which our country has experienced for a considerable while render'd it necessary that I should exert myself . . . . Dr. Powell boards me and give[s] me $500 for teaching his daughters and a few others of their connections a year." 12 The southern demand for teachers was not met by droves of governesses. On the contrary, a suitable instructor was a rare commodity. "I have been fortunate in getting a young lady to instruct my girls and Joseph," wrote Delia Bryan in 1819. "She is a daughter of a clergyman, and has received the first education. She understands the Latin and Greek and is the best arithmetician and grammarian for a woman I ever saw." 13 Home instruction for older children declined in popularity, however, as the significance and scope of education grew during the post-revolutionary years. In time, schools in the South flourished. As in New England, the beginning of a new century marked also the beginning of the age of the academy. Perhaps the most famous and widely praised such institution during this era was the Salem Academy, located at the Moravian settlement of Salem, North Carolina. This school opened its doors to nonMoravians in 1802 and by 1808 educated an average of 40 pupils per term , a number which grew to 120 by 1835. The success of Salem Academy encouraged similar enterprises. In fact, many southern and religious organizations also founded academies. These establishments were nominally nonsectarian, but all fell heavily under the influence of the faith of 12 Eliza M . Robertson to Mildred P. Campbell, March 15, 1820, Campbell Collection (Swem Library, College of William and Mary .Williamsburg, Virginia); William Dunbar to Diana Dunbar, May 5, 1794, Dunbar Collection (Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson); Robert Lewis to Lawrence Lewis, February 1, 1816, Robert Lewis Collection (Virginia Historical Society, Richmond). There were thirteen pupils. 11 Delia Bryan to John Randolph, April 23, 1819, John Randolph Collection.

9

10

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES their founders. In 1810 the Reverend and Mrs. Turner founded a school at Fayette, North Carolina, where "near two hundred pupils of both sexes are ably instructed in every useful branch of education." H Roman Catholic schools, too, multiplied during the antebellum era. The oldest existing institution, the Ursiline Academy of New Orleans, had been founded in 1727. The Nazareth and Loretta academies of Kentucky were organized in 1808. These schools earned scholarly reputations and attracted numerous nonCatholic pupils. Indeed, as one student wrote in 1821 to her father, politician John J. Crittenden, "the Sisters are becoming vaine, they are too sure of patronage and if they do not change they will ruin their school." 15 Many academies, of course, started out as mere "adventure schools." As in England, widows and spinsters in urban centers would hang out a shingle and advertise in local papers for pupils, but these day schools with limited curricula fell short of the requirements of the times. 16 Boarding schools were founded to provide suitable facilities, as well as a sophisticated course of instruction, for the education of planters' daughters. Proximity to roads and rivers, as well as the support of the local population, dictated the location of these educational institutions. Although most boarding schools sprang up in urban centers, some were located at rural crossroads where major rivers or roads intersected. In either case, these new establishments drew their students from plantations spread throughout the South. The earliest successful academies in the South, following American independence, had been founded by refugees from Santo Domingo. After the Haitian Revolution, Madame Datty and Madame Talvanne (variously spelled Talvande and Talvant) established separate schools in Charleston, South Carolina. Anne Manson Talvanne outlasted her rival, maintaining her academy until her death in the 1850s (the famed Mary Boykin Chesnut was 14 S e e Davis, " T h e E d u c a t i o n of S o u t h e r n G i r l s from 1750-1860," 211-213. D a v i s concerns herself not only with the e d u c a t i o n o f the planter d a u g h t e r s but also provides a competent survey o f education for t h e middle a n d lower classes. , 5 A n n Mary C r i t t e n d e n to H o n . J o h n J. C r i t t e n d e n , M a y 5, 1828, Crittenden Collection (Duke University Library). 16 American Traveller ( S o u t h C a r o l i n a Historical Society); C y n t h i a Jelks to her a u n t , u n d a t e d , Sills C o l l e c t i o n , ibid.

EDUCATION one of her pupils). Julia Datty likewise cultivated an exclusive female clientele which included the daughters of the Manigaults, the Coupers, and many other wealthy low country planters. In Georgia's Washington County another refugee, Madame Dugas, also founded an academy. These women primarily taught French, but to insure a steady stream of wealthy pupils they additionally offered a standard curriculum which included reading, writing, geography, and mathematics. Equally enterprising were various male and female teachers who moved to the South from the Northeast. Many well educated northerners established schools in the ripe climate of the plantation South. In 1817 William Elliott of Beaufort, South Carolina, reported that "Miss Thomson — a Lady from New York is come to establish a female Academy here. Polished in her manners, from association with the first people in New York — acquainted with most modern languages, an author and professed blue-stocking — she has made quite a sensation in our little town." After individuals launched such academies, communities rallied round the institutions to provide financial support. Indeed, the community would often supply the impetus for organizing such an institution. 17 Community spirit was a potent force in the founding of academies throughout the nation during the early decades of the nineteenth century. T h e case of Raleigh, North Carolina, provides an excellent example. In the spring of 1802, several leading citizens sponsored a subscription drive to raise funds to build a school. By year's end, with $777 collected, construction of the school began. In April 1804, the trustees advertised in Boston and Philadelphia papers for a principal. Soon thereafter, tuition was set and a faculty was hired. By 1809 the Raleigh Academy was a thriving institution. In neighboring Tennessee, the people of Winchester funded its West Tennessee Female Academy through a sophisticated system: " T h e capital necessary to put the seminary in motion was divided into shares like bank stock . . . . T h e stockholders elect the president and trustees who have the management of the institution . . . . T h e pecuniary interest of the stockholders as well

17 William Elliott to A n n S m i t h , January 6, 1817, Elliott Collection, Southern Historical C o l l e c t i o n ; Maria Foster C l o p t o n to J o h n C l o p t o n , September 3, 1832, C l o p t o n Collection (Duke University Library).

11

12

HISTORY O F W O M E N IN T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S

as their pride induces them to see that the seminary is well managed." 18 Community leaders in Washington, Mississippi supported Elizabeth Academy, founded in 1818, to promote and maintain "civilization" in their frontier society. Within five years this school for ladies was approaching financial ruin and the trustees appealed to the state legislature for aid. The five male members of the board couched their plea for funds in deferential and suitably subtle terms. They pointed out that mothers gave children their first lessons, that virtue was best guaranteed by education, and that Elizabeth Academy was "an institution, calculated in its nature to reflect, under proper care, so much benefit upon the state." 19 In addition, a document was submitted to the state legislature by a committee of fifty-eight ladies. No doubt this petition was penned by the co-superintendent of the academy, Caroline Thayer. This brief document offered essentially the same arguments as the men, but with a slightly different emphasis. As for motherhood, it asserted that "the duties to which they [mothers] are called are no less complicated and interesting. To them is entrusted the care of rational creatures in the most important period of their existence." There was such an intense concern for female education, they insisted, "that even in these remote regions, the cultivation and mental improvement of the other half of the human species have become objects of considerable interest." Finally, the ladies suggested, "To use persuasion would be impeaching not only the liberality and good sense but the benevolence of the constituted authority of the state."20 As a result of these combined efforts, Elizabeth Academy was saved. An 1826 handbill for the school advertised courses in English, French, Latin, arithmetic, geography, astronomy, ancient and modern history, natural philosophy and chemistry, moral philosophy, and the standard fare of penmanship, epistolary composition, and Bible study. In addition, Elizabeth Academy offered its fifty-five pupils the study of "principles of Liberty, Free government and obligations of patriotism," and pledged to "address the understanding rather than the memory" in all courses.21 18

James Campbell to David Campbell, January 27, 1819, Campbell Collection; Raleigh Academy Collection (North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh). " Petitions to the State Legislature, 1823 (Mississippi Department of Archives and History). 20 21

Ibid. Ibid.

EDUCATION

The curriculum of Elizabeth Academy was not unique. By the second decade of the nineteenth century, the South was supporting dozens of reputable, popular academies which offered a "classical English education." American educators modeled their schools on English institutions. In 1797 Erasmus Darwin had published a detailed guide, A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education in Boarding Schools.22 This popular British work organized the basic ingredients for a successful female school and outlined the major issues of contemporary education. Darwin discussed the importance of diet and hygiene and counseled on such subjects as hot and cold baths, soft and hard beds, and a number of other issues ranging from earrings to ventilation. He particularly warned against the evils of lisping, stammering, squinting, and involuntary motions. Most importantly, Darwin outlined the major academic areas for formal schooling. He advised courses in writing, reading, grammar, languages, arithmetic, geography, history, natural history, and he included chapters on polite literature and heathen mythology. T o further enhance his work, Darwin prepared a catalogue of books, listing over two hundred texts divided into twenty-two categories. This meticulous plan for the curriculum and care of girls at boarding schools supplied a model. Although there is no precise way to measure Darwin's impact on the southern academy movement, women's boarding schools in the South mirrored the principles set forth in his outline of education. Reading and writing were the primary tools of the "English education," with study of the Scriptures a high priority. Although Bible reading was not an "intellectual pursuit," religion was the indispensable core of standard curricula. Rebecca Beverley, who attended Miss Lyman's in Philadelphia (one of the most popular northern schools for southern daughters during this period), wrote to her father in Virginia that "Every Friday night we read 60 pages of Milner's church history . . . . W e study four chapters in the Bible regularly every Saturday so as to be able to answer any question Dr. Staughton the master may ask on Monday as he delivers a lecture on sacred history and explains Payley's Theology to us which we read over several times." 23 22 Erasmus Darwin, A Plan For the Conduct of Female Education in Boarding Schools (London 1797). 23 Rebecca Beverly to Robert Beverly, undated, Beverly Collection (Virginia Historical Society). This was not a distinctly southern phenomenon. Bible study was as critical to a child's training in the North as it was in the South.

13

14

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Literature, on the other hand, was a rather murky business. Americans condemned novel reading, but from all indications the practice was widespread. Most schools did not offer courses in literature and thereby avoided controversy. T h e few which ventured to teach literature concentrated on Aesop's fables, Shakespearean drama, Milton's poetry, and other classical works. Girls also took courses in grammar and composition. Teachers instructed their pupils on the form and style of letter writing and supervised exercises in preparing letters for home. Penmanship was a talent that women particularly cultivated. No doubt they excelled in this area because letter writing was a part of their education, and females, isolated on plantations, often served as family scribes. Indeed, letter writing was a social ritual for women which allowed them to draw attention to their talents while using correspondence as a means of self-expression.24 In the South as well as the rest of the country, arithmetic was important to the curricula. Women were taught the rudiments of cyphering to aid them with their household accounts and to better their understanding of plantation ledgers. As one planter explained, "ladies, as well as gentlemen, should be qualified for all the business of life that is essential . . . . If not capable of business themselves females are ever liable to be cheated and imposed upon." 25 Southerners additionally prized a knowledge of geography, and women studied this subject from an early age. Both ancient and modern geography were offered at academies. School girls wrote home frequently of their geographical explorations: "I have studied Europe, Asia, and I am now studying Africa." 26 Perhaps the next most common subject was history. Both male and female pupils were required to read ancient history as well as a standard southern text such as Ramsay's Life of Washington. The subject was consistently popular with parents and children who viewed the study of history as "pleasing and improving to the mind 24 Rachel Mordecai to Samuel Mordecai, April 18, 1812, Mordecai Collectin, Southern Historical Collection; Anna Calhoun to Patrick Calhoun, August 27, 1837, Calhoun Collection (University of South Carolina Archives, Columbia). 25 William T. Barry to Susan Barry, November 19, 1819, Barry Collection. 26 Frances Barksdale to M. Spragins, January 18, 1832, Barksdale Collection (Duke University). See also Balsora Barnes to Williamson Barnes, January 30, 1822, Barnes Collection (College of William and Mary).

EDUCATION

and understanding." 27 When John Randolph of Roanoke drew up a reading list of essential works for his niece, Elizabeth Tucker Coalter, in 1822, he summarized the popular and important texts for "an English education": Rollins Ancient History, Gille's History of Greece, Plutarch, Russel's Modern Europe, Hume's England, Sismondi's France, and Smith's History of America. He also recommended Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucydides, Livy, Tacitus, Bacon, and Voltaire. 2 8 The study of languages, too, was critical to female education in America. Above all, women learned French. As one planter wrote to his granddaughter, "no lady is considered well bred who cannot converse and correspond in it." 2 9 T h e French tongue was so essential to a southern lady's education that in some cases girls went to Paris to study. At the very least, planters expected their daughters to read French: "I want you to commence the study of the French language as soon as possible," wrote Charles Cotton to his daughter. "I am desirous that your education should be inferior to none." This Francophilia reflected the southern sense of academic advantage, although somewhat ironically the crowning accomplishment of the English education was the reading of Telemachus.i0 Latin was also considered a mark of intellectual accomplishment. Contrary to popular myth, male relatives encouraged southern women to learn Latin and it was frequently included in the standard curriculum of an English education. If not, Latin was often offered at female academies at a minimal extra charge. Although not all planter daughters took advantage of this educa27 to Lucy, June 21, 1805, Peter Lyons Collection, and to William O. Gregory, March 3, 1822, Robert A. Jackson Collection, Southern Historical Collection; Delia Bryan to Georgia Bryan, Forman-Bryan-Screven Collection; Charlotte Chisholm to Robert McKay, February 20, 1827, Mackay Collection (Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina). 28 John Randolph to Elizabeth Tucker Coalter, January 19, 1822, John Randolph Collection; John Lyle to Edward Graham, April 17, 1810, Graham Collection (Duke University Library). 29 to Lucy, June 21, 1805, Peter Lyons Collection. 10 Charles Cotton to Eliza Cotton, August 29, 1838, Cotton Collection (Emory University Archives); Edward Rutledge to his daughter, 1795, Rutledge Collection (South Carolina Historical Society); Lucy Nelson to William Nelson, 1810, Byrd Collection (Virginia Historical Society). Telemachus, published by Franfois Fenelon in 1699, was one of the most widely read and translated works of eighteenth and nineteenth century children's texts. The Catalogue General Des Litres Imprime de la Bibliotheque Nationale lists 730 editions.

15

16

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES tional opportunity, it was by no means rare for southern women to study Latin. Far rarer were females who studied Italian and Greek, although neither of these languages was forbidden by custom to women. 31 Most southern schools offered a variety of subjects under the heading of natural history. Chemistry, botany, and mineralogy were but a few. By the 1820s, astronomy was a popular addition and one female pupil wrote: "I have lately commenced Astronomy and find it a most fascinating study. I think it expands the ideas more than any other science, by its means we acquire a knowledge of the Heavenly bodies, trace the footsteps of the Great Creator, and learn in what manner he regulates the great machinery of the Universe." 32 Women's academies offered a variety of additional courses, according to the talents and training of the faculty. Courses in rhetoric and moral philosophy were especially popular. Schools used Locke's essays as a standard text. But the core curriculum remained the Bible, the "three Rs," languages, history, natural history, and geography. In the decades immediately following the Revolution, not only were daughters given a more intellectual training, they also were subjected to a far more rigorous academic schedule. For example, Jefferson advised his daughter Patsy in 1783: from 8 to 10 o'clock from 10 to 1 from 1 to 2 from 3 to 4 from 4 to 5 from 5 till bedtime

Practice music dance one day and draw another draw on the day you dance and write a letter the next day read French exercise yourself in music read English, write French.

11 John Randolph to Elizabeth Tucker Coalter, January 19, March 21, 1822, John Randolph Collection; Susanna Bowdoin to Joseph Prentis, December 20, 1825, Prentis Collection (Alderman Library, University of Virginia); Jonathan Smith to Edward Campbell, July 10, 1804, Campbell Collection; Lucy H. Barnes to Williamson Barnes, November 17, 1825, Barnes Collection; Sally Lacy to William Graham, February 7, 1819, Graham Collection; Monthly Report, September 1839, Bedford Female Seminary, Barksdale Collection; Journal of Grace Garnett Hunter, 1838, Hunter Collection (Alderman Library, University of Virginia). 52 Charlotte Chisholm to Roben McKay, February 20,1827, McKay Collec-

EDUCATION

In comparison, the school regimen fifty years later of Mary Ann Hunt, daughter of a wealthy Mississippi planter, was more rigorous: Monday rose at five, prepared my lessons to recite . . . . We breakfasted at seven, at eight we assembled for school, during the morning recited several lessons which were very interesting, particularly Philosophy to which study I am very partial; at twelve school dismissed, we then took calisthenics in the upper hall . . . . Dined at one, at two school commenced, we attended reading, writing and French, from four to five took my music lesson . . . . Tea . . . . At seven I returned to my room to prepare my recitations for the following day, retired at eleven.33

This contrast highlights the new style of female education. The ornamental and superficial instruction of the colonial period was swept away by the Revolution. Republican ideology stressed the moral and political necessity of women's participation in the building of the nation. The stir of ideas produced a virtual outpouring of addresses and enterprises. By 1815 the educational transformation was well under way and women's academies were firmly at the center of this movement. Schools were not established to replace mothers; rather, schools were expected to make better mothers of planter daughters. The academies prided themselves on propriety and piety. As a rule, girls were given stiff doses of discipline at southern schools. Boards of trustees outlined a strict set of rules for their institutions, such as those established by the Euphradian Academy at Rockingham, North Carolina. Founded in 1824, it would not accept any student who had been expelled by another institution. The school required tuition in advance. Students observed the Sabbath, were moral and respectful to the faculty, and rose with the sun and retired by nine o'clock. Parental permission was required for bathing. "Tale bearing" was punishable and the trustees admonished that "talents in Rags is to be esteemed and respected equal with wealth in gaudy array." These attitudes made attendance at balls a sensitive issue at female schools. Many principals imposed a ban but most, such as the head of Lincolnton Academy in Lincolnton, tion; Mary Jackson to Martha Jackson, October 25,1821, Jackson and Prince Collecrion, Southern Historical Collection. 13 Thomas Jefferson to Patsy Jefferson, November 28, 1738, Jefferson Collection (Virginia Historical Society); Journal of Mary Ann Hunt, October 1, 1834, Eunice J. Stock well Collection (Mississippi Department of Archives and History).

17

18

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES North Carolina, were forced to repeal their prohibitions following student protest. 34 Many schoolmistresses subjected their charges to rigid supervision. As one pupil observed about her principal: "She will not allow her scholars to miss a single word. If they do, they are marked down, and if that happens three times in the week, they are kept until two o'clock on Saturday and if they then fail, they remain until night and dine upon dry bread and water and if they won't eat it, they are slapped until they do." In contrast, Rachel Mordecai reported on the discipline at her family's academy at Warrenton, North Carolina: "We make no use of corporal punishments» Cards are given them regularly on Friday evenings fully expressive of their conduct during the week, which are sent home to their parents, they are most anxiously awaited; and one word of disapprobation in the card has a greater effect than the most severe correction of any kind could possibly produce." One can only imagine Miss Mordecai's horror when one of her father's students, Charlotte Myers, was so outraged by her bad report that she set a bed afire and nearly burned down the school. 35 Discipline varied from school to school. Generally, however, teachers did not whip or beat girls. Corporal punishment was prescribed liberally for planter sons at school and home, but a teacher rarely spanked or strapped a planter daughter. Instead, female disobedience was punished by a denial of meals and a curtailment of privileges. "Deprivation" rather than "retaliation" was deemed more suitable for female delinquents. 36 Academies operated throughout the year on either a half year or quarter system. Most schools issued monthly reports as well as final marks, with public examinations held at the end of each term. Often there were two exhibitions, for Bible study and for regular academic subjects. T o most pupils, these examinations were traumatic ordeals. A n Alabama girl wrote home to her sister in 1811: "I do expect it will be the most frightening time that I ever witnessed. But I will try to have enough to support it." 37 M Euphradian Academy Collection and Lincolnton Academy Collection (Duke University Library). 35 Mary Manigault to Charles Manigault, November 25, 1811, Pickens and Hall Collection (Alabama Department of Archives and History); Rachel Mordecai to Samuel Mordecai, undated and March 11, 1816, Mordecai Collection (North Carolina State Department of Archives and History). 36 Maria Carr Memoir, 29, Carr Collection (Duke University Library). 37 Patsy Lenoir to Eliza Lenoir, September 27, 1811, Pickens and Hall Collec-

EDUCATION

Parents were very demanding of their children away at school. Mothers and fathers alike requested letters on a regular basis and forwarded their own advice and guidance at every opportunity. One Virginia planter sent his requirements to his daughter in 1805: "It is not enough," he pronounced, "for me to know that you make as much progress in your French and Geography as you possibly can! I wish to know precisely what that progress is — I wish to know how each day is employed — what proportion is devoted to study, to writing, to cyphering, to reading, to sewing, to amusement, to idleness — a complete journal." 38 Boarding schools were expensive investments for planters. In addition, most schools charged fees for extracurricular activities such as music, dancing, drawing, and needlework. Schools would often operate in conjunction with private boarding homes, thereby offering parents a selection of boarding establishments. For all but wealthy families, however, the costs of educating a daughter away from home were prohibitive. An English education at a girl's boarding school cost approximately $150 per year during the post-revolutionary period. Although the cost varied from institution to institution and region to region (with costs steadily increasing during the antebellum era), planters annually expended at least this amount for each daughter for a period of two to five years. Occasionally, of course, the expenses were much greater. In 1811 John Couper of St. Simon's Island, Georgia, paid $772.52 for his daughter Ann's schooling at Miss Datty's in Charleston. The charge for room and board and French language instruction was $220; additional education fees included music, $134; dancing, $40; geography, maps, and globes, $26; penmanship, $24; drawing and art supplies, $67; and embroidery, $10. Ann's washing bill was $27.50, her school picture and frame cost $26, and her account at the local store was $73.50. Other expenses ran the gamut from handkerchiefs to pew hire, from Telemachus to tortoise combs, and totaled $100.52. Generous father that he was, Couper also provided his daughter with $2 per month pocket money. 39 tion; David Campbell to Margaret Campbell, November 10, 1828, Campbell Collection. 3e Charles Macmurdo to Elizabeth Macmurdo, July 4, 1805, Gibson Collection (Virginia State Library, Richmond); Elisha Barksdale to Fanny Barksdale, April 26, 1834, Barksdale Collection. " 1811 Folder, Couper Collection (Georgia Historical Society). These figures

19

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Mothers, more so than fathers, seemed unhappy at sending their daughters away from home for schooling. The family, isolated on its plantation, was the sum total of society for most mothers; moreover, women were loathe to let their children escape maternal supervision. One Virginia woman expressed her regrets at sending her eleven year old daughter to a distant academy: "Would to God she would have the advantage of a good school and the protection of her Parents at the same time — I have always disliked Boarding Houses for Girls — but we must often yield to circumstances." 40 A father or some male relative usually accompanied a girl to school to inspect the boarding facilities. He would evaluate the "propriety" of the staff and conscientiously peruse the sleeping quarters to insure proper hygiene and ventilation. If satisfied, he would then leave his daughter to fend for herself. In spite of their interest in education and their numerous school friends, most schoolgirls experienced an initial homesickness while boarding at academies. Occasionally, as in the case of Cornelia Barksdale, this was accentuated by separation from a favorite sister. Parted from her beloved sibling Frances, Cornelia complained that "after I came here I felt like a lost sheep that had wandered from the others, and like I was in the wilderness although I found all of them as kind as ever. O! sister 1 often think of you." Schoolgirls who wrote home begging to leave, however, generally received stern parental replies: "You appear to be affected my dear with thoughts of being so far and long from your parents and your sisters but willing to suppress those tender immay be exaggerated due to currency inflation, but they nonetheless are significantly high. In 1800 John Woolfolk of Virginia paid $30 for board and tuition for his daughter for one quarter. The Salem Academy charged $165 for annual tuition and board in 1806. In 1810 Abraham Steiner sent Alexander Brevard a quarterly bill for his daughter at Steiner's school in Salem; board and tuition $20, washing $4, music $2, needlework $2, and expenses (postage, books, medicine, etc.) $9.76. In 1816 Charles McDonald paid $22.65 for tuition and board for his daughter Catherine's three months at Mt. Zion Academy in Hancock County, Georgia. May 9, 1800, Woolfolk Collection (Virginia Historical Society); Catherine H. Lyon, "The Development of Secondary Education for Women in the United States," (M.A. thesis, Duke University 1936), 21; April 27, 1810, Brevard Collection (North Carolina State Archives); January 3, 1816, McDonald Collection (Georgia Historical Society); Susanna Bowdoin to Joseph Prentis, December 20, 1825, Prentis Collection. 40 Susanna Bowdoin to Joseph Prentis, December 20, 1825, Prentis Collection.

EDUCATION motions which your situation is calculated to call forth and tho' painful remain at school." Daughters, more than sons, had difficulty "suppressing tender immotions." Because women were restricted to a private and domestic sphere throughout their lives, they treasured the family circle perhaps more than men. Fathers, however, believed that education was an economic as well as a moral consideration. They therefore insisted upon sending daughters to school, even over objections from mothers or daughters themselves. Education, no matter how miserable for the daughter and disruptive to the family circle, was a patriarchal priority. Education could often make up for a lack of fortune on the marriage market. 4 1 Ironically, these years at school — so lamented by women at the time — were quite often the only periods in their lives when southern women were able to develop intellectual interests unencumbered by domestic and reproductive responsibilities. Shortly after school, and indeed sometimes while still a schoolgirl, females would marry and soon thereafter start their own families. Their cares and concerns as wives and mothers often would curtail literary pursuits and hamper intellectual development. "Now is the time for your improvement," one father warned his daughter at school. " A s you advance in life tho* your inclination may lead to reading, your situation may prevent your doing so." 4 2 Education thus was a foundation upon which many women built their future happiness. A t school they treasured their academic training as a precious commodity: " A good education is a sufficient passport to a person no matter what part of the world their destiny, may place them." Afterwards plantation mistresses looked back on their schooldays as some of the happiest of their lives, for most were destined to live out their lives on a remote plantation. Maria Campbell, a Virginia plantation mistress, advised her niece to value her education because "when the frosty part of life shall arrive, it will be a support for you under every vic-

41 Cornelia Barksdale to Frances Barksdale, October 1, 1836, Barksdale Collection; Boiling Hall to Polly Hall, June 30, 1813, Hall Collection; Elisha Barksdale to Fanny Barksdale, May 24, 1834, Barksdale Collection. 42 to Laura Rootes, December 9, 1815, Jackson and Prince Collection. See also Maria Winn to Mary Jane Winn, April 20, 1831, Winn Collection (Duke University Library), and Mary Howard to Georgia Bryan, January 1823, Forman-Bryan-Screven Collection.

21

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

citude of life." It is significant t h a t Campbell was only twenty-six at the time she expressed this sentiment. Low morale caused by living isolated lives created a tristesse strain in the letters of southern women. Although Maria Campbell's isolation was increased by her childlessness, she suffered only a slightly exaggerated case of t h e intellectual melancholy which plagued other antebellum women. 4 3 Most females accepted the fact t h a t their plantation environment afforded few opportunities for intellectual enrichment after marriage. Their mental and cultural interests were kept in tight rein by the boundaries of the domestic sphere. Early marriage a n d t h e taxing aspects of household duties m a d e southern women feel old by the time they reached t h e age of twenty-five. In 1786 a lecturer addressing a S a v a n n a h audience extolled t h e equal rank, importance, a n d reason of women. H e chided any w h o would carp against learned ladies because "there is rather a deficiency t h a n superabundance of [them] in this country, more observable t h a n in t h e n o r t h e r n parts of t h e country." Fifty years later, a schoolmistress justly observed t h a t female education in t h e S o u t h was "far from being what it is in t h e N o r t h . " It would be wrong to assume, however, t h a t women's education h a d not improved in the intervening years. T h e S o u t h h a d made measurable improvement. These strides produced a highly educated planter class. Female academies prepared women for their roles in plantation culture, creating a cultivated, well read female elite serving as wives a n d mothers to t h e master class. 44 However equal women might be proclaimed in spiritual a n d intellectual terms, m e n remained t h e acknowledged authority in social, political, and economic matters. Females were always aware of their total dependence u p o n males. T h e doctrine of male dominance was pervasive b o t h in the N o r t h and in the South. But a more u r b a n and economically diversified n o r t h e r n society offered a wider range of opportunities for women to use their education a n d provided a secular impetus for reform. During these crucial fifty years following t h e American Revo43

Mary E. G. Harden, February 15, 1826, Harden Collection; Maria Campbell to Elizabeth Russell, August 19, 1826, Campbell Collection; Virginia Terrell to Edward Graham, March 12, 1812, Graham Collection. 44 Anonymous Pamphlet, 1786 (Georgia Historical Society); Delia Hurd to A n n Cocke, February 3, 1832, Cocke Collection.

EDUCATION lution, northern and southern elites were moving in the same direction but along different lines. T h e sexual ideologies of each culture illustrate the fundamental regional divergence. T h e postrevolutionary gentry throughout the nation embraced the notion of "republican motherhood." However, by the 1830s celebrations of women had perceptibly shifted along sectional lines. In a sense, regional vocabularies developed to convey sexual imagery. Virtue was the single most prized feminine characteristic throughout the states. Yet in the North, virtue was synonymous with industriousness. Yankee female virtue was epitomized by the "frugal housewife." In the South, the plantocracy created a cult of chastity and idealized woman as alabaster white, unsullied, and untouchable. This cult was an explicit ideological tool, indispensible to the ruling class males of a biracial slave society. Planters demanded unchallenged chastity, and indeed fidelity, from their women. Southern womanhood became the personification of purity. A n d pure and virtuous ladies were not to be impeded by intellectual pursuits. Plantation culture therefore severely restricted southern women. While the North moved in a new, more modern direction, the South was willfully lagging. With slavery the backbone of the economy and patriarchy the heart of social organization, the position of southern women remained fixed. O n a visit to the North, one planter sharply observed: "I have no very high opinion of any superior advantages from these more northern schools. Besides, girls here are imbibing habits and manners not so perfectly congenial with those of the people of the South, where they are destined to live." 4 5 Because plantation mistresses were destined to live their lives in the company of their family, surrounded by slaves in the relative isolation of the rural South, their education was for limited purpose. However, this does not indicate that planter daughters lacked education or that their education was lacking. Rather, fathers preferred their daughters to cultivate their intellects to make themselves more attractive to eligible bachelors. In addition, education would allow them to provide the best of all possible environments for their children. A strict and severe training at academies would fulfill the expectations of bachelor planters seeking fit females to marry and to mother their children. 4 5 Israel Pickens to General Lenoir, May 31, 1826, Pickens Collection (Alabama Department of Archives and History).

24

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Although plantation mistresses could not always find the time to pursue lingering intellectual interests after housekeeping commenced, their girlhood schooling gave many women an abiding sense of direction. Maria Campbell wrote to her politician husband, absent on one of his many trips, "I must assure you that much the most interesting and agreeable companions I have are my books. The stream of mental pleasures, those which of course all persons of whatever condition may equally partake, flow from one to the other."·46 Antebellum southern women were confronted by the irony of their education. Although in the days of their colonial ancestors they would have been denied any intellectual pursuits in favor of Bible study and "ornamental arts," post-revolutionary plantation mistresses (even with their classical English educations) faced identical domestic restrictions to those of their foremothers. And although mothers and daughters warmly greeted improvements in their education, women of the planter class realized that their intellectual development would most likely wane with marriage, decline with housekeeping, dwindle at motherhood, and at no time result in any measure of social recognition. Women accepted this pattern equally as a fact of life and a product of culture. Nevertheless, southern women flocked to academies during the post-revolutionary years and well into the nineteenth century. Although education would not provide true equality, their schooling would offer them the hitherto denied opportunity to improve the quality of life they were destined to lead. Their access to education, at least for some women, was "a sufficient passport." Even though denied the "right to travel," daughters of southern planters eagerly pursued an education which previously had been forbidden them and, at long last, was "equally their due."

44

Maria Campbell to David Campbell, June 4, 1825, Campbell Collection.

EDUCATION

Mask of Oppression: The Female Seminary Movement in the United States By KEITH MELDER

Though nineteenth century female seminaries are often considered as instruments of women's liberation, it may be argued that they actually served to perpetuate the dependent status of women in American society. Keith Melder is visiting professor at the Cooperstown Graduate Programs/ State University of New York.

F

today would accept the notion that physiology is destiny, yet this principle underlay most conventional views of the last century. To nineteenth century intellectuals and educators, woman seemed naturally to occupy a realm of action quite distinct from that of man. Character in woman was the product of natural proclivities, refined by moral and religious influences, determined principally by the simple fact of her biological nature. Institutions had a role in character formation to smooth nature's way, in easing the girl's passage from an unsure childhood into assured feminine maturity and domesticity. One of the institutional reflections of this principle of physiological determinism was the female seminary movement. Higher education for women in the first half of the nineteenth century was intended to smooth the way for students to realize their full natural potential as women. The seminaries were not what they seem today to be— progressive institutions offering women new opportunities and new freedoms.1 To be sure, the new schools for young women had many positive consequences, but they aimed essentially to program their students academically and emotionally into beE W C A R E F U L THINKERS

1 Treatments emphasizing positive, progressive aspects of the female seminary movement include Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States (Cambridge, 1959), ch. 2; and Mabel Newcomer, A Century of Higher Education for American Women (New York, 1959).

26

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

"The Examination Room." From Emma Willard and Her Pupils.

EDUCATION

coming ideal women according to contemporary standards. The process was circular: T h e seminary promoters assumed that women ought "to follow the ways of martyrdom and high purpose," in the words of Jane Addams, one of the most eminent seminary graduates, and when they succeeded, their achievement demonstrated indeed that woman's nature derived from her female sexuality. 2 T h e seminaries thus accepted oppressive definitions of woman's sphere. When Jane Addams graduated at Rockford Female Seminary in 1881 the seminary movement was more than sixty years old. Following a period of educational experimentation and uncertainty in the post-Revolutionary years, an organized movement for female seminary development appeared about 1820 and expanded during a time of great educational reform and change. Seminaries and academies for girls appeared in the eighteenth century, but with few exceptions such schools were proprietary, temporary, often fly-by-night operations. The organized seminary movement attempted to overcome the worst defects of early girls' schools. Major promoters of reform such as E m m a Willard, Catherine Beecher, and Mary Lyon, along with numerous lesser advocates, agreed on most of the needs required of good schools. In place of temporary institutions they would substitute permanent chartered seminaries with boards of trustees, endowments, and sources of income. Adequate financial support would, the reformers hoped, permit construction of suitable buildings, acquisition of apparatus and libraries. Studies would be restricted to "those which are solid and useful," eliminating many "showy accomplishments" and teachers would be able to specialize in certain subjects to improve the quality of instruction. The new schools attempted to set standards of admission and achievement and they established regular graded courses of study. In contrast to many of the proprietary schools that seemed destitute of moral and religious impulses, the seminary movement promised regular attention to religious and moral guidance. 3 2 Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull-House, foreword by Henry Steele Commager ( N e w York, Signet Classic ed., 1961), p. 58. See pp. 4 6 - 5 9 for recollections of the religious and intellectual life at Rockford Seminary. See also Christopher Lasch, The New Radicalism in America, 1889-1963: The Intellectual as a Social Type ( N e w York, Vintage ed., 1967), pp. 3 - 2 9 , for perceptive comments on Jane Addams' personal and educational experiences. 3 The principal secondary account of the seminary movement is Thomas Woody, A History of Women's Education in the United States (2 vols.; N e w York, 1929), vol. 1, chs. 8 - 9 . Among useful primary sources are Emma

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Developing in a particular religious context, many female seminaries were part of a massive outpouring of religious enthusiasm now known as the Second Great Awakening. Innumerable revivals and an unprecedented growth of institutions characterized this large-scale evangelical excitement, leading to the formation of thousands of new churches, some new sects, an empire of benevolent and charitable societies, schools, and colleges in the wake of revivals. Recent scholarship suggests, however, that the Second Great Awakening had profound social as well as religious implications. Accounting for the massive organizing power of the revival in a period of widespread social strain, Donald G. Mathews has written: T h e Revival in this general social strain promised a "positive o u t c o m e in an uncertain situation" f o r it proposed to m a k e men better by putting t h e m into direct contact with G o d . It also provided values or goals for which to work and codes which regulated behavior giving ideological as well as social order to life. 4

Responding to the restlessness of the time, seminaries for young women offered goals and codes of behavior that answered some doubts and anxieties posed by a changing society. To some extent female seminaries were analogous to the scores of colleges that grew out of the same social-religious flux and denominational rivalry. Yet they must be understood as distinct institutions, influenced by colleges but not intended to duplicate the men's schools. The three-year programs offered by the best seminaries did not include such classical studies as defined a collegiate education, nor did the seminary advocates consider their schools as equals of colleges. In her eloquent 1819 Address to the New York legislature, appealing for public support for women's education, Emma Willard declared: "I . . . hasten to observe, that the seminary here recWillard, An Address to the Public; Particularly to the Legislature of New York, Proposing a Plan for Improving Female Education (Middlebury, Vt., 1819); Thomas H. Gallaudet, An Address on Female Education, Delivered . . . at the Opening of the . . . Hartford Female Seminary (Hartford, 1828); Catherine E. Beecher, "Prospectus of the Hartford Female Seminary," reprinted from the American Journal of Education, nos. 16, 17 (dated Hartford, March 1, 1827); Catherine E. Beecher, Suggestions Respecting Improvements in Education, Presented to the Trustees of the Hartford Female Seminary. . . . (Hartford, 1829). 4 Donald G. Mathews, "The Second Great Awakening as an Organizing Process, 1780-1830," American Quarterly, XXI (Spring, 1969), 23-43. The relationships between social-religious movements and socio-economic conditions are major themes of Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850 (New York, Harper Torchbook ed., 1965).

EDUCATION

ommended, will be as different from those appropriated to the other sex as the female character and duties are from the male." 5 The seminary movement thus institutionalized a double standard of education for men and women. Echoing and underlying the double standard in academic standards was an increasing split in nineteenth century American culture which contrasted male and female roles. Not a new concept, the separation of men's and women's ways of life had been decreed in Scripture, validated in the patriarchal Judeo-Christian tradition, and wonderfully demonstrated in the double moral standard of Western Europe. For reasons not now clear, the divergence between male and female sex-roles accelerated in the early nineteenth century. Elements of this pattern are well described and named "The Cult of True Womanhood" by Barbara Welter. The sexes assumed polarized roles: Men were aggressive, exploitive, materialistic, unchaste, impious and mobile; women were passive, delicate, pure, pious, maternal, domestic, and self-sacrificing. 6 As the cultural division became pronounced, it infected the popular literature where distinctions between men's and women's spheres received increasing emphasis. Hundreds of passages similar to the following might be cited: Where would a worldly man find honor and integrity? "At home—in the wife of his bosom. It is for her to keep man within the sphere of duty, of charity, of virtue, religious, and peace. . . ."T When the seminary advocates embraced a sexual division of labor, they added little to it ideologically, but they contributed a mighty power of persuasion and diffusion. They helped support and spread the doctrine of women's subordination and self-sacrifice. Catherine Beecher throughout her long career as educator, polemicist, and organizer for women's educational activities, insisted that her sex should be trained for their special domestic responsibilities, or as she put it enthusiastically, "their profession" as homemakers. 8 While Miss Beecher was 5

Willard, Address, pp. 3-4. Barbara Welter, "The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860," American Quarterly, XVIII (summer 1966), 151-174, defines and describes the 19th century attitudes. 7 Elizabeth Erskine, "Female Education, its Importance, and in What it Should Consist," Common School Assistant (Albany, Ν. Υ.), IV (June, 1839), 44. 8 Catherine Beecher's views of motherhood and its profound influence are expressed in many publications; see especially, "An Address to the Protestant Clergy of the United States," n.p., n.d. She wrote extensively on the theme 6

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

preaching through countless essays and textbooks, other seminary advocates were teaching in environments which enforced the practice of female subordination. In the final analysis the seminary reformers occupied a complicated position. They believed in and sought to demonstrate women's intellectual capacities by offering and succeeding with studies that were comparable in the best schools to courses in men's colleges. Yet they supported the academic, religious, and social inequality of the sexes. Perhaps as pious females they accepted the conventional wisdom of their time, beliefs based on Old Testament and Pauline doctrines governing woman's conduct, assigning her an intellectual and social position subordinate to man. How did the seminaries inculcate their assumptions about woman's duties and "appropriate sphere?" It is possible, by studying in some detail one of the most influential seminary prograips, to illuminate practices that emphasized different attitudes toward men and women. One of the earliest reformers of female education, Joseph Emerson, opened a seminary at Byfield, Massachusetts, in 1818, where he attempted to overcome the defects found in other girls' schools. 9 T o his seminaries at Byfield and later at Saugus came two talented, independent young women, both experienced teachers. Zilpah Grant and Mary Lyon absorbed Emerson's concern for instructional techniques, his enthusiasm for education, and his near-fanaticism for religion and discipline. His students embarked on their first joint educational venture at Adams Female Academy, Londonderry, New Hampshire, where they taught from 1824 until 1828. They then took over the Ipswich Female Seminary in Massachusetts, where Miss Grant of educating women for their domestic duties; see for example A Treatise on Domestic Economy for the Use of Young Ladies at Home, and at School (rev. ed.; New York, 1855), ch. 3 and passim. Her views are summarized in Barbara M. Cross, ed., The Educated Woman in America (New York, 1965), pp. 3-13. The same attitudes are reflected in periodicals of the period, as described in Eleanor W. Thompson, Education for Ladies 18301860: Ideas on Education in Magazines for Women (New York, 1947), pp. 30-40. 9 Joseph Emerson, Prospectus of the Female Seminary at Wethersfield Ct. Comprising . . . Maxims of Education, and Regulations of the Seminary.... (Wethersfield, 1826), pp. 15-21. References to Joseph Emerson's pedagogical techniques may also be found in Joseph Emerson, Mr. Emerson's Recitation Lectures, Upon the Acquisition and Communication of Thought. . . . (Wethersfield, 1826); Ralph Emerson, Life of Rev. Joseph Emerson (Boston, 1834); Harriet W. Marr, "Joseph Emerson Educator: Early Organizer of Academies in Byfield and Saugus," Essex Institute Historical Collections, LXXXIX (July, 1953), 197-210.

EDUCATION

Zilpah

P. Grant

Banister.

T h e A m e r i c a n Magazine, November

1909.

served as principal until 1839, and Miss Lyon as assistant principal until she left to organize Mount Holyoke Seminary in 1834. The two women and their Ipswich and Mount Holyoke schools set standards which influenced scores of other seminaries during the next thirty years. 1 " Academically, Zilpah Grant and Mary Lyon were very much in the mainstream of reform. Like other leading seminary advocates, they established a curriculum that emphasized fundamentals rather than ornamental studies: a heavy emphasis on English grammar, rhetoric, and composition, ad10 The richly detailed official history of Mount Holyoke College, Arthur C. Cole, A Hundred Years of Mount Holyoke College: The Evolution of an Educational Ideal (New Haven, 1940), chs. 1-6, clearly establishes the close relationship between Ipswich and Mount Holyoke seminaries. I have depended heavily on its informed account. Scores of manuscripts and publications in the Mount Holyoke College archives (hereafter referred to as M H C ) illustrate even more fully the development of the one school into the other.

32

HISTORY OF W O M E N IN T H E U N I T E D STATES

vanced arithmetic, geography, United States government, history, and basic natural science. Miss Grant boasted of the advanced courses introduced during her tenure at Ipswich, particularly in the sciences and religious studies. As in most schools of the period, teaching methods at Ipswich stressed the use of textbooks and recitations, although the principal encouraged students to treat their texts critically, to ask questions, and to engage in vigorous discussions.11 Since one of their chief purposes was to train competent teachers, the two women early provided explicit instruction in the art and techniques of school keeping based on their own experience and the notions of their mentor, Joseph Emerson.12 The Mount 11 Catalogue of the Officers and Members of the Seminary for Female Teachers, at Ipswich, Mass. for the Year Ending April 1839 (Salem, 1839), pp. 30-32; Zilpah P. Grant, Maxims for Teachers (n.p., n.d., copy located in Mount Holyoke College Archives), p. 4. 12 Evidence for teacher-training at Ipswich may be found in Ζ Ρ Grant Maxims f$r Teachers; Asa D. Lord, "Maxims for regulating the conduct,' given by Miss Grant. . . ." MSS notes on lectures by Miss Grant, ca 1838 Sophia Smith Coll., Smith College; Leonard W. Labaree, ed. "Zilpah Grant and the Art of Teaching: 1829 as recorded by Eliza Paul Capen," New England Quarterly, XX (September, 1947), 347-364; Harriet W. Marr,

Southwest view of Ipswich, about 1839, showing the Congregational Church, Courthouse, and part of The Female Seminary. From Barber, Historical Collections Relating to . . . Massachusetts.

EDUCATION

Holyoke course of study, based on that offered at Ipswich, carried advanced subjects even further and according to the historian of Mount Holyoke College, "set a new standard for the higher education of women." 1 3 Like some of the contemporary educational reformers, Zilpah Grant and Mary Lyon emphasized useful studies—useful to future teachers and prospective mothers. More interesting in illustrating the attitudes represented by many seminaries were their programs of discipline and their communication of values. They were scenes of intense religious activity, as befitted their Second Great Awakening origins, but their pious enthusiasm reflected a special attitude toward women's responsibilities. Commenting on the unhappy state of women's education and its lack of financial support, Mary Lyon observed: This is a sad picture to those, who reflect, that all our children—our future statesmen & rulers, and ministers & missionaries, must c o m e inevitably under the moulding hand of the female, & must experience, through their lives & our country & the world experience with them, the salutary or the bitter effects of this moulding influence. This is a picture of mournful reality over which many an eye has wept, & many a heart bled. 14

What the mournful situation required, unfortunately, was an abnegation on the part of woman, a willingness to dedicate her whole self to a life of service to others, an almost total subordination of her will to higher ends than her own pleasure or comfort. In governing their students, the seminary principals aimed to teach self-sacrifice, piety, and domesticity in accordance with their view of woman's destiny. The atmosphere preferred by Zilpah Grant and Mary Lyon was authoritarian. The best government of immature minds would occur, they assumed, when pupils became totally subordinate to their teachers. But proper discipline required seclusion; hence seminary pupils lived segregated from the surrounding communities. Life at Ipswich and Mount Holyoke was bound closely by regulations of every sort including those that would isolate pupils from the local society. Other rules "Study of Zilpah Polly Grant Banister, Noted Educator of Ipswich Seminary," Essex Institute Historical Collections, LXXXVIII, 348-365. Many letters in the Mount Holyoke archives document this program. 13 Cole, A Hundred Years, p. 38; Cole's study is invaluable in its treatment of the female seminary movement as a whole. 14 Mary Lyon, "Schools for Adult Females," p. 11, MS, MHC. See also Zilpah P. Grant to the Rev. Rufus Anderson, Feb. 23, 1837, MHC.

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

defined their sheltered situation as women: "They will not make themselves prominent in any public p l a c e , ' "They will not conduct improperly in the street, as stopping, loud conversation &c.," "They will not expose themselves at windows & front doors." By "expose," the teachers meant permitting their faces to be seen from outside. 15 T h e seminaries operated on rigid schedules. F r o m the time they arose between five and six-thirty, depending on the season, until bedtime between nine and ten, the pupils had little free time. School bells were not ornamental: The Mount Holyoke bell rang at least twentyseven times each day in the early period. A n Ipswich pupil described the morning ritual: "Quarter before six—The gong rings for us to rise—All bound to the floor, and the labor of the day commences—Half past six—The breakfast bell rings —All start simultaneously for the dining room, for if we are tardy half a minute, it is recorded against us." 18 Zilpah Grant and Mary Lyon organized their seminaries as families with a program of "family government." At the household's head stood the principal or mother; numerous section teachers served as older sisters; pupils played their roles as younger children in need of supervision. Basic order was maintained within each section by the "self-reporting system" of discipline, which required each young woman to "render her accounts" before her teacher and section mates. Rendering accounts consisted of daily recitations of faults and broken rules from each individual. Forgiveness could be obtained for some transgressions but others resulted in demerits. Another inducement to good conduct and piety was the period of "secret devotions" required of all pupils. E a c h young woman spent two half-hours each day alone in prayer and meditation, no doubt contemplating her failures and indiscretions. The entire system encouraged much soul-searching and personal agony. 17 T h e family system, with its severity and its graduated 15 Ipswich Seminary rules, MS; Holyoke Seminary, circular listing disciplinary "items"; notebook listing questions and rules of M o u n t Holyoke, MS, box Pb, folder 5c, all M H C . 16 M. S. Howell t o Betsey M . Cowles, Feb. 21, 1835, Cowles Papers, Div. of Political History, Smithsonian Institution; see also Harriet Johnson ( H a l e ) to parents, J u n e 1, 1833; M. A. Gillett to Sarah Rowland, July 21, 1832; Mount Holyoke bell schedule, M H C . 17 "Seminary for Female Teachers, at Ipswich, Mass.," Annals of Education ( B o s t o n ) , February, 1833, pp. 7 2 - 7 3 ; J. E. Hoar, "The Self-Reporting System," Massachusetts Teacher, VII ( M a y , 1854), 129ff.; Cole, A Hundred Years, pp. 7 6 - 7 7 .

EDUCATION

levels of authority, rights, and duties, offered another example to the seminary pupils of a stratified society in which they would be expected to obey. Rules and regulations defined many nineteenth century institutions such as schools, businesses, and manufacturing establishments; thus it is not surprising to find extensive formal codes established at the female seminaries. Although such discipline was typical of the times and would have been essential under any circumstances, with the seminary principals acting in loco parentis, the discipline exercised in these schools takes on special significance in the context of behavioral expectations for women. The repression and subordination of seminary life were not simply incidental to attendance at boarding school; in a larger framework they tended to set the boundaries of women's adult lives. Colleges too had elaborate rules, but whereas college rules seemed necessary to achieve temporary discipline among impulsive young men who would later be removed from their subordinate station, the female seminary regulations defined, in a compelling way, the relationships of women in American society.18 Zilpah Grant and Mary Lyon attempted to exercise direct influence over their pupils through familiar lectures—"the subject of moral culture" Miss Grant called them—dealing with behavior, attitudes, and woman's sphere in particular. Notes preserved from a lecture by Mary Lyon on the "Duties and stations erf the sexes" are revealing: Males should go forward in all public duties, the female should go forward in private duties with courage patience & submission. Men are to earn a support, & the women to save. It is ridiculous for women to earn money. Females must take care of the children & sick. Females should be very benevolent, without they are almost monsters. A mere intellectual lady is a monster. 1,J

Miss Grant considered familiar lectures to be a critical factor in the formation of character: "The proprieties of life, the domestic qualifications requisite to perfect the female character, are exhibited in these lectures as only a lady could do it, in the presence of ladies alone." She taught her pupils to be extremely self-conscious about deportment, dress, and other per18 On college rules see Frederick Rudolph, Mark Hopkins and the Log: Williams College, 1836-1872 (New Haven, 1956), pp. 58-60, and The American College and University, A History (New York, 1962), ch. 5. " " I t e m s from Miss Lyon's lectures on education," MS, folder N/1, MHC; see also "Report of the Winter term in Ipswich Female Seminary, ending April 19, 1836," MS, MHC.

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

sonal matters lest they tend to "retrograde from civilization."10 Occasionally familiar lectures stirred the young women into a powerful response, as in 1831 when the urge to serve and do good affected a number of Ipswich pupils, leading them to "sacrifice home, friends, & New England privileges, for the sake of doing good to minds in the Valley of the Mississippi," as teachers." Not every prospective do-gooder was happy with the prospect. One young woman wrote poignantly from South Hadley about becoming "an inmate of the Mt. Hotyoke convent where I expect to be a nun 40 long weeks!"*1 One of the most controversial features of the Mount Hotyoke regime was the requirement that students perform all housekeeping functions at school. Mary Lyon had elaborate theories about this practice, justifying it as a money-saving arrangement and a natural adjunct to family government. The responsibility of sharing domestic work would tend to break down social distinctions and could be accomplished readily with little expenditure of time. The principal assumed that no serious instruction in domestic work would be required by young women from proper New England homes, but working together might improve the pupils' housekeeping skills. Family and domestic labor would have its most important consequences in the realm of values, however, giving seminary members "just views of the true dignity of woman in the domestic circle." Preparation for housekeeping was as essential for young women as was preparation in Latin and Greek for young men entering college. Their domestic work would prepare the seminary graduates to serve as mistresses or laborers in the household, depending upon their fortunes, but whatever might be their fate, they should welcome their status as housewives. The program of domestic labor was one in which Mary Lyon took great pride.23 20 Catalogue of the . . . Seminary . . . at Ipswich, . . . 1839, p. 32. See also "Notes from some remarks by Misses Grant and Lyon," Box Ld, folder 5, MS, MHC. 21 Maria Cowles to Rev. Henry Cowles, March 29, 1831, typed copy, MHC. 22 Lucy P. Putnam to Col. Nathaniel Clarke, Oct. 11, 1845, MS, MHC. The "Protestant nunnery" complaint was made in a review of Mary Lyon's prospectus of the Mount Holyoke school, Religious Magazine and Family Miscellany, new series, I (Boston, April 1837), 184-189. Responses to this criticism include an unpublished letter of the Rev. Edward Hitchcock to Dea. Daniel Safford, June 10, 1837, typed copy, MHC; and an unsigned article, "TTie Ipswich School," Religious Magazine and Family Miscellany, I, 320-324. 23 Mary Lyon, "Schools for Adult Females," MS, MHC, pp. 20, 33, 27;

EDUCATION

E m m a Willard. F r o m Emma

Willard

and Her

Pupils.

The seminaries aimed to build character and stimulate piety, yet in a general sense they were also centers of vocational training for those occupations that especially suited women. Since the future of the Republic and the church rested with the moral impulses of American mothers, the seminaries concerned themselves with motherhood and child-rearing. 24 The Mary Lyon to the Rev. Theron Baldwin, July 12, 1838, typed copy, MHC. See Cole, A Hundred Years, ch. 5 for additional details on the family system. 24 For example, see "Items from Miss Lyon's lectures on education," MS, box N / 1 , MHC. Attitudes toward women's maternal responsibilities are ably treated in Anne L. Kuhn, The Mother's Role in Childhood Education: New England Concepts, 1830-1860 ( N e w Haven, 1947).

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

missionary field was a special concern of Mary Lyon, who hoped that some of her graduates might carry the Gospel to heathen lands.25 Seminary pupils received special encouragement to teach. Indeed, the female seminaries were major sources of trained teachers before the advent of public normal schools. They not only offered instruction in pedagogy and school government, but also provided an apprenticeship system allowing more advanced students to become assistants and teachers, thus permitting them to have practical experience. Mary Lyon made the point very clear, however, that teachers were not to be motivated by materialistic wants. In her lectures on education, the wish "to gain a pecuniary reward" was far below the higher purposes of service to God and country and self-sacrifice. The seminary advocates cheerfully accepted salaries for women teachers that were less than one-half those paid to men. Miss Lyon assured her pupils: "The true secret of independence is to live within our income. It takes very little money to support a female of good taste."26 This was cheering news to school officials. The Ohio Superintendent of Common Schools reported in 1839 that, "As the business of teaching is made more respectable, more females engage in it, and the wages are reduced." 27 In advocating women as missionary-educators, the seminary principals became recruiting agents for teachers, and participated in crusades to send teachers into the West and South as cultural and civilizing influences. Deeply concerned for the great "Valley of the Mississippi," and aware that Yankee maids outnumbered their male counterparts in the East, Ipswich and Mount Holyoke seminaries sent forth hundreds of teachers.28 A Society for the Education of Females "to assist females in the Ipswich Female Seminary, to qualify themselves for the business of education, and other benevolent labors in the cause of Christ" helped to subsidize many Ipswich students by lending money for tuition and other expenses.29 Many of " C o l e , A Hundred Years, pp. 115-120. 26 "Items from Miss Lyon's lectures on education," MS, MHC. Many letters in the Mount Holyoke College Archives describe teacher preparation at Ipswich and Mount Holyoke. See for example, Maria Cowles to the Rev. Henry Cowles, March 29, 1831, typed copy, Reports of Winter Terms at Ipswich Seminary, April 19, 1836, and April 11, 1837, MSS. 2T Connecticut Common School Journal, II, (March 1, 1840) 155. 28 Catalogue of the . . . Seminary . . . at Ipswich . . . 1839, p. 35. Numerous letters from the missionary-teachers are preserved at the Mount Holyoke College Archives. 29 "Constitution of the Society for the Education of Females," (n.p., n.d.),

EDUCATION

these intrepid young women fulfilled their purposes in a threefold manner—by teaching, serving as cultural and religious missionaries on the frontier, and eventually by becoming wives and mothers, married often to respectable clergymen. Hie same influences that brought the seminary movement into being—the drive to expand and reform education, the religious awakening, and the separation between men's and women's cultural roles—encouraged seminary growth, especially in the West. Catherine Beecher's prodigious output of promotional literature is well known, but the examples set by Ipswich and Mount Holyoke seminaries may have been more influential even than Miss Beecher's writings. Between 1830 and 1850 Zilpah Grant and Mary Lyon provided much assistance to other schools. The Wheaton Seminary at Norton, Massachusetts, which opened in 1835, received much assistance from Mary Lyon and employed one of her best students as a teacher)10 At Oberlin College the young ladies' course and female disciplinary procedures were copied from those used at Ipswich Seminary. In Ohio the Western and Lake Erie Seminaries emulated Mount Holyoke closely, while Ipswich and later Mount Holyoke inspired Monticello Female Seminary, founded by a Congregational clergyman in Illinois.31 At Rockford, Illinois, the seminary opened in 1851 after great financial located in MHC; see also manuscripts of the Society, MHC. 30 General comments on the background of Wheaton Seminary may be found in Louise S. Boas, Woman's Education Begins: The Rise of the Women's Colleges (Norton, Mass., 1935), pp. 33-48, 94-106. Primary sources in Wheaton College Archives include Eunice C. Cowles to Mrs. Wheaton, June 6, 1860; Mary Lyon to L M. Wheaton, July 8, 1834; Mary Lyon to the Trustees of the Female School in Norton, July 8, 1834; Mary Lyon to Mr. & Mrs. Wheaton, Feb. 25, 1835; Report of Wheaton Seminary, excerpts from MSS of Eliza R. Knight, 1838-40; Report of Wheaton Seminary, Oct. 25, 1842, all typed copies in Wheaton Archives. 31 Robert S. Fletcher, A History of Oberlin College from Its Foundation Through the Civil War (2 vols.; Oberlin, 1943), vol. I, ch. 24; vol. Π, 41; Alice W. Cowles to Rev. Henry Cowles and Zilpah Grant, MS copy from Robert S. Fletcher papers, Oberlin College Archives. Other evidence in the Oberlin Archives suggests the Ipswich influence at the Ohio school; see notebooks containing subjects for familiar lectures to young ladies by lady principal Alice W. Cowles, copies in the Fletcher papers, and the letters of Nancy Prudden, a student, 1837-38. The Western Female Seminary story may be found in Narka Nelson, The Western College for Women, 18531953 (Oxford, Ο., 1954), chs. 1-3; Western Female Seminary, Memorial. Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Western Female Seminary . . . 1880 (Indianapolis, 1881), pp. 6-11; Western Female Seminary, Circular. . . . (2nd. ed.; Cincinnati, 1854). On Monticello Seminary, see A Junior Eighty-nine Years Old (Godfrey, III., 1924); Rev. Theron Baldwin to Zilpah P. G. Banister, Oct. 7, 1841; Mary Cone to Zilpah P. Grant, May 12, 1838; March 14, 1839; June [10?] 1841, MSS, MHC.

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

difficulties. Its earliest catalogues and trustees minutes indicate clearly the debt to Mount Holyoke—a three-year course of study, family government, and pupils performing domestic labor. Rockford's first principal, Anna Peck Sill, a stern religious leader not unlike Mary Lyon, kept her pupils oriented toward their duties for more than thirty years.32 As far west as San Francisco Bay, a tiny female seminary founded in 1852 at Benicia, California, was transformed a few years later by one of Miss Lyon's students into the Mills Seminary, which remains to this day as the oldest women's college on the Pacific Coast. 33 Already in the 1850s, however, the seminary movement was past its zenith. Promoters of higher education for women had begun to establish colleges and, while few of these efforts were successful, they showed the way toward higher academic objectives. Where the first woman's college opened is a matter of dispute but with the opening of Elmira College in 1855 the movement for women's collegiate education came into its own. Female seminaries themselves answered more ambitious aims of students by gradually improving their courses of study.34 For all their enthusiasm to extend full collegiate status to women, the new colleges made few breaks with patterns of social and cultural indoctrination as practiced in the seminaries. The founders of Elmira College consciously emulated Mount Holyoke's domestic arrangements, with a female vice president who served a function like that of the lady principal at most seminaries, inculcating piety and morality, governing conduct, teaching correct attitudes of subordination and conformity. At Elmira also, the head of the domestic department superintended household work done by students, gave instruction in home economics, and sought to awaken in each pupil a "just 32 Rockford Female Seminary, Catalogue of the Officers and Pupils . . . for the Academical Year 1853-54 (Rockford, 1854), pp. 15-19; Marion Bonzi, "Material on Aratus Kent and the American Home Missionary Society," TSS, Rockford College Archives; copies of letters of Anna Peck Sill, Rockford College Archives; Sally Lou Coburn, "Anna Peck Sill 18521884," in Profiles of the Principals of Rockford Seminary and Presidents of Rockford College 1847-1947 (Rockford, 1947). 33 Rosalind A. Keep, Fourscore and Ten Years: A History of Mills College (Oakland, 1946); Elias Olan James, The Story of Cyrus and Susan Mills (Stanford, 1953), chs. 3-4; Catalogue of the Young Ladies' Seminary, Benicia, . . . 1857, . . . 1858-59, . . . 1860, . . . 1861, . . . 1862, . . . 1870 (San Francisco). 34 Woody, History of Women's Education, vol. 2, chs. 4—6; lames Monroe Taylor, Before Vassar Opened: A Contribution to the History of the Higher Education of Women in America (Boston, 1914).

EDUCATION sense of the dignity and honor" of housekeeping. 35 In its early years Vassar had a formidable lady principal who terrorized students by enforcing her rigid notions of piety and conduct. Wellesley College's rules and goals were scarcely less harsh than those at Mount Holyoke had been nearly forty years earlier. Wellesley students also had a daily quota of domestic work. Time altered the opinions of educators concerning women's academic capabilities, but during the nineteenth century few advocates of higher education for the fair sex supposed that their students ought to be morally or culturally liberated. Not until the pronounced influence of M. Carey Thomas at Bryn Mawr College did the women's colleges begin to work toward complete educational equality. 36 Perhaps, then, the seminary movement's most important legacy to the college was its conservative emphasis on woman's subordination, on her appropriate Sphere as mother and teacher. In an article whose purpose is suggestive rather than definitive, only a few implications and complexities of the seminary movement can be indicated. One of these complexities, the critical support given the new schools by men, chiefly evangelical ministers and professional men, apparently had a great deal to do with the attitudes towards women's status fostered by the seminaries. Not surprisingly, early female seminary boards of trustees consisted largely of reverends, doctors and esquires, but they seem to have been dominated by clergymen. Ministers were frequently organizers and fund raisers for the schools also. The clergy had not altogether disinterested motives in encouraging institutions that emphasized piety, support for missionaries, and deference for the pastoral office. Some of their number even found employment as seminary principals and teachers. Whatever their aims in supporting the seminary movement, ministers found that membership on school boards of trustees gave them authority and roles in policy formation for the schools, their teachers, and pupils. It was typical of 35 First Annual Catalogue and Circular of the Elmira Female College, 1855-1856. . . . (Elmira, 1856); W. Charles Barber, Elmira College The First Hundred Years (New York, 1955), chs. 1-7; Records of the Auburn Female University of the Elmira Collegiate Seminary and the Utica Female College, April 11, 1851, Nov. 16, 1853, and pp. 52-55, MS, Elmira College archives. 36 Mary Harriott Norris, The Golden Age of Vassar (Poughkeepsie, 1915), pp. 20-43; Alice Payne Hackett, Wellesley: Part of the American Story (New York, 1949), chs. 2-3; Edith Finch, Carey Thomas of Bryn Mawr (New York, 1947), chs. 3-6; Cross, Educated Woman, pp. 30-45, 139-175.

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES many nineteenth century women's benevolent activities that although they aimed to benefit women, they were governed by men and assured their male sponsors that existing relationships of authority between the sexes would not be disturbed. Evidence suggests that clergymen feared a dissolution of the American family structure because of social and geographical mobility, the influence of secular egalitarian ideas, and other disturbing forces. To meet this threat they encouraged female seminaries to make young women more aware of their responsibilities as mothers and teachers, to maintain stable households and rear children in paths of righteousness. Perhaps ministers realized that the school rather than the church would be the nineteenth century battleground for loyalty and social control of new generations. Functioning as state supported value oriented institutions, the common schools offered a rich field for indoctrination and gave their teachers, increasingly women, roles as secular counterparts of preachers in the churches. Trained thus in female seminaries, many young women became happy servants of the clergy in and out of school. Oppressive though they may have been in some respects, seminaries had certain positive consequences. They demonstrated, for instance, that women were quite as capable as men of sustained intellectual activity. The controversy over woman's brain capacity continued, but the academic success of seminary students gradually dislodged assumptions about sexrelated intelligence. Quality performance by seminary graduates prepared the way for other academic work by women at college and, by the 1880s, even at the graduate school level. It is unlikely that women's colleges, coeducational institutions, and co-ordinate colleges would have accepted women students without the proof of ability provided by seminaries. In the äC= ademic world, the seminaries helped to open a professional vocation for women in the field of school teaching, although compromises were made which have yet to be repaired. Educational reformers were too anxious to assign women to teaching young children as mother-substitutes, and too willing to accept discriminatory treatment of women teachers in compensation, working conditions, and opportunities for advancement. Other features of the seminary environment encouraged a sense of self-consciousness among students. The entire situation of many schools—segregation from the outside community, strict discipline, self-doubt, and group pressure—stim-

EDUCATION

ulated a kind of "consciousness-raising," as it would be called today, that helped young women to think female, because of the efforts of seminary teachers and principals to control their students' thinking. Their school experience encouraged women to have high aims, despite a limited field of action. Women were promised by their teachers that they might influence the destiny of the nation by properly carrying out their responsibilities as mothers and teachers. For many, the roles assigned to them for sustaining religious faith and social stability must have enhanced their self-esteem, for they appeared to constitute a female elite to which other women of inferior education and social standing might look. Seminary training opened the way to other social movements. It helped to create the network of women's organizations identified by William O'Neill as "social feminism," organizations devoted generally to moderate reform and social amelioration—extensions of maternity into society, self-sacrificing, prepared, as seminaries taught them, to serve others.37 Yet if the basic theme of this article is valid, that the female seminary movement grew out of and adhered to conventional nineteenth century attitudes toward women, then the movement represented a kind of oppression. Under different circumstances the seminaries might have challenged the status quo by questioning female stereotypes of domesticity and subordination instead of embracing and disseminating these forms. Instead of asserting that motherhood, teaching, and missionary work should be woman's highest callings, seminary advocates might have contributed to the opening up of other opportunities for women in the professions. Like many men's colleges, however, female seminaries endeavored to avoid controversy over issues such as slavery or woman's rights. At a time when small numbers of daring women were speaking out in public in behalf of their sex, the seminaries seemed oblivious to such radicalism.38 An evaluation of the seminary movement illustrates some of the difficulties of investigating women's history and the women's movement, for like other institutions and practices affect37 William L. O'Neill, Everyone Was Brave: The Rise and Fall of Feminism in America (Chicago, 1969), chs. 2-3; John P. Rousmaniere, "Cultural Hybrid in the Slums; the College Woman and the Settlement House," American Quarterly, XXII (Spring, 1970), 45-66. 38 Cole, A Hundred Years, pp. 48-54; Newcomer, Higher Education, pp. 18, 225.

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

ing women, their schools cannot be neatly categorized. Although often treated as examples of progressive change, female seminaries had contradictory relationships to the changing status of women. While they offered some new academic choices, their definition of woman's sphere was not truly liberating. Consistent with nineteenth century attitudes, female seminaries made no bold assault on conventional values, although they may have encouraged their graduates to assume limited societal responsibilities that correspond to woman's maternal, self-sacrificial roles and offered no threats to male dominance. But they were not friends of feminism. Feminism has been described as an effort by women to achieve autonomy, to define and determine their own destiny rather than to be victimized and exploited by sex-role stereotypes.33 If this description approximates feminist aims, then the seminary movement cannot be considered an instrument of independence, for autonomy cannot be asserted in the face of inclusive restrictions placed on their graduates by the seminaries. Autonomy demands alternatives, but these nineteenth century institutions did not offer realistic alternatives. The seminary movement represented a double standard in education, especially in the attitudes communicated, that remains with us today.40 This is why the female seminary movement may be called a mask of oppression. M Aileen S. Kraditor, Up From the Pedestal: Landmark Writings in the American Woman's Struggle for Equality (Chicago, 1968), pp. 7—11. 40 Barbara Harrison, "Feminist Experiment in Education," New Republic, March 11, 1972, pp. 13-17.

EDUCATION

What, Then, is the American: This New Woman? A N N E FIROR SCOTT

The selection of Mrs. Emma Willard to occupy a place in this gallery of eminent American Teachers was . . . because she is preeminently a Representative Woman, who suitably typifies the great movement of the nineteenth century for the elevation of women. . . . 1 The Reverend Henry Fowler, D.D., 1861 Σ

began to happen among American women in the first decades of the nineteenth century. In 1782 J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur had posed the question, "What, then, is the American, this new man?" that has challenged historians ever since. Few people noticed that new personality types and new forms of behavior were also appearing among American women; and historians have paid more attention to the social constraints of woman's role than to the ways in which talented and ambitious women first began to break through those constraints. By the mid-1830s two significant kinds of change were going on: able women, shut out by social convention from leadership, and often even from participation, in major social structures, were beginning to build organizations and institutions that they themselves could control; women engaged in these organizational and institutional inventions were also establishing bonds with others similarly engaged, creating networks for communication and mutual support. These developments, originally the work of a handful of mavericks, in time contributed to the great nineteenth-century movement for the "elevation of woman" and changed important aspects of American society. A detailed examination of the career of one of these "new women" exemplifies both of these major developments and provides a case study in the means by which a determined woman could reach a position of power and influence in a male-dominated society. The woman in SOMETHING

Anne Firor Scott is professor of history in Duke University. ' Henry Fowler, "Educational Services of Mrs. Emma Willard," Henry Barnard, ed., Memoirs of Teachers, Educators, and Promoters and Benefactors of Education, Literature and Science (New York, 1861), 167.

45

46

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

question, Emma Hart Willard, created several institutions herself and trained others to be institution-builders as well, developed a significant female network, gained national recognition as a teacher, organizer, and author, and yet never once admitted that she had stepped out of "woman's sphere." The question, "How did she do it?" is of considerable interest. Much depends, in any life, on timing. Emma Hart was born in 1787, the year of the constitutional convention. She was fifteen years old when the Louisiana Purchase added the vast trans-Mississippi west to the national domain, and was a young wife with her first child in the year the Boston Associates opened their mill. She grew up at a time of active institution building. For two centuries Americans had managed with a handful of familial, religious, political, and economic structures appropriate to a society in which change was measured over generations rather than decades. But by 1815 many individuals and groups were beginning to seek organized ways to take advantage of expanding economic and political opportunities, and to deal with the social consequences of that growth. From savings banks to historical societies, from canal companies to benevolent organizations, from schools and libraries to antislavery associations, people were associating themselves together in new organizations and institutions. Alexis de Tocqueville's amazement when he witnessed this phenomenon in the 1830s is well known—to him it seemed a new thing under the sun. Americans, he said, had "carried to the highest perfection the art of pursuing in common the object of their common desires, and have applied this new science to the greatest number of purposes." 2 Interested though he was in American women, he seems not to have noticed, as historians after him also failed to notice, that many of these associations were the work of women, and that these usually served two purposes: an announced, substantive purpose, care for widows and orphans, education, temperance, or abolition of slavery, and an unannounced purpose of providing talented women with an opportunity to exercise their ambitions and develop their abilities. "Mrs. Willard's Celebrated School," like Thomas Jefferson's University, Tapping Reeve's Law School, Lyman Beecher's church, Horace Greeley's newspaper, was an institution that bore the strong stamp of an individual personality. Its formal name was the Troy Female Seminary, and between 1821 and 1872 more than 12,000 pupils spent * Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Henry Steele Commager, ed. (London, 1946), 377.

EDUCATION

some time there. The degree to which they were affeaed by the experience varied widely, but the surviving evidence gives some credence to the judgment of George Combe, the Scottish phrenologist and friend of most of the leading American educational pioneers, when he described Emma Willard as "the most powerful individual at present acting upon the condition of the American people of the next generation."3 Her particular choice of career, again, had much to do with timing. Her life had begun at almost the same time as the great educational surge that followed independence. Many people had followed George Washington's advice in his Farewell Address to promote institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. These institutions were as diverse as the people who founded them: colleges, lyceums, mutual improvement societies, female seminaries. Together they formed a growing structure of American higher education.4 The first schools for women had appeared in the mid-eighteenth century, and after 1815 female seminaries multiplied, particularly in New England, but also in middle Georgia, the Moravian settlements, southern Mississippi, frontier Tennessee, and Ohio. Beginning with Benjamin Rush's Thoughts on Female Education, published in 1787, the subject of women's education had become a favorite with college debaters, commencement speakers, ministers, essayists, at least one novelist (Charles Brockden Brown), and with women themselves.5 The new American Journal of Education announced in 1826 that female education was among its prime interests, and Sarah Josepha Hale's American Ladies Magazine, launched in 1828, likewise devoted much of its space to the pressing need for improved education for women. The argument was repeated so often it threatened to grow hackneyed. Just as widespread educational opportunity for men was justified in college charters and public orations as being essential to the preservation of republican virtue (Washington had warned that public opinion must ' Quoted in Alma Lutz, Emma Willard: Daughter of Democracy (Boston, 1929), 193· 'For some provocative thoughts on this development, see Douglas Sloan, "Harmony, Chaos and Concensus: The American College Curriculum," Teachers College Record, 73 (Dec. 1971), 221-51. ' Thomas Woody, A History of Women's Education in the United States (2 vols., New York, 1929). Though now outdated in many ways, this monograph was in its time a monumental accomplishment and so far no modern scholar has had the courage to undertake a thorough revision. For information about many long-vanished schools, see I. Μ. E. Blandin, Higher Education of Women in the South Prior to 1860 (New York, 1909). On the post-independence ferment on the subject of educating women, see Linda K. Kerber, "Daughters of the Republic Columbia: Educating Women for the Republic, 1787-1805," The Hojstadter Aegis: A Memorial, Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, eds. (New York, 1975), 36-59.

47

48

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

be enlightened), so women's education was repeatedly urged as a way to ensure the wise training of young republicans from the cradle. Piety was linked to learning, and education to the formation of moral character. Women were to be turned from frivolity by serious study, and insured against one of the problems of aging, since a well-trained intelligence could rescue a woman from oblivion when she was no longer able to attract men by her physical charm. A complex set of social changes that coincided with Emma Willard's lifetime gave added force to the idea that women should be taught something more than spinning, weaving, food preparation, and piety, which had been the informal curriculum designed to create "notable housewives" in the age of homespun. In New England, particularly, economic development was already making it difficult for a young unmarried woman to pull her own economic weight solely by domestic industry. Urbanization and factory production of cloth were making domestic production less significant for women of all ages. The westward movement was drawing off more men than women, even as it created a series of rough, new communities in obvious need of the civilizing force of schools. A rapidly growing population meant large numbers of children. As opportunities for men to make money in business increased, proportionately fewer were available to teach school. These developments and others yet to be explored were increasing the size of the potential clientele for schools for women. 4 Thus republican ideology, economic development, and demographic shifts worked together to prepare the way for educational leaders who could begin to press the outer limits of what had hitherto been defined as appropriate education for women. A set of visible social needs made possible the emergence of a woman who wanted to change the shape and nature of women's education. Emma Willard's personality, and her sense of her own destiny, were central to her work as an institution builder. T h e basic elements of that personality became visible early in her life. Most of what is known about her youth comes from her own and her sister's recollections, which suffer from the usual deficiencies of such accounts written long after the fact. 7 Yet even allowing for the rewriting of the past, which is inevitable ' For essential background on the developments in the men's colleges in the first half of the nineteenth century, see David Allmendinger, Paupers and Scholars (New York, 1975). ' Emma Willard's sister, Almira Lincoln Phelps, recognized this deficiency when she wrote, " W h o can describe himself truthfully. . . . Even ourselves, as we were last year or even yesterday, we cannot paint to the life, for the most difficult of all knowledge is that of self. . . . " Almira Lincoln Phelps, Reviews and Essays (Philadelphia, 1873), 183.

EDUCATION

in later life, the surviving record leaves no doubt that Emma Hart was an unusual young person. Born on a farm in Berlin, Connecticut, sixteenth of seventeen children in the family, she grew up in a hardworking religious household. In addition to his farm her father had public responsibilities in church and town; her mother (his second wife) she would remember and admire as an almost legendary frugal housewife. Two things seem clear from her later recollections: among the children still at home she was her father's favorite, and even as a child she had unusual drive, energy, ambition, and capacity for concentrated effort. Such a child was almost bound to be bored in school, and Emma Hart was, until she had the good fortune to encounter young Thomas Miner, an able Yale graduate teaching at the local academy while he saved money to study medicine. Miner and an older woman in the neighborhood recognized the girl's ability, and encouraged her to use it. Under their combined influence she began to teach at the local school when she was seventeen. 8 A rural New England classroom in 1804 typically contained pupils of many sizes, ages, and degrees of motivation. There is a recurrent story in the folklore of the teacher who by force of personality and sometimes by physical force, establishes control over such a school, and is thereafter much admired by the pupils who strive to learn in order to please. In Emma Hart's version of this tale, she used a switch to establish her authority on the first day, and never found it necessary again. Whatever that first day was like, she succeeded as a teacher, for her reputation spread rapidly and brought her new opportunities. At seventeen she had a sense that it was important to know influential people; she made friends easily and—as older men found her interesting—she soon attached herself, as a young person seeking their guidance, to several of Hartford's leading professional men. She was careful also to cultivate their wives. She had already begun to see herself as having a special mission, one that the Almighty had chosen her to accomplish, and one that would take her beyond the ordinary bounds of woman's sphere. Such ambition in a woman exacted a price. In a sympathetic letter written in 1824 to a ' F. B. Dexter identifies Thomas Miner as a son of a country parson, graduate of Yale in 1796, who studied law but because of bad health began to teach at Berlin, and later studied medicine. Dexter singles Emma Willard out as one of two pupils of whom Miner was particularly proud. She always spoke of him as her much valued friend. Dexter calls him one of the most learned physicians of his time. F. B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of the College History (6 vols., New Haven, 1885-1912), V, 206-10.

49

50

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

younger contemporary who was suffering from the constraints society imposed on women's talents, she described a youthful nervous affliction of her own that she attributed to the "peculiar organization of my mind,'' and to agitation brought on by high hopes that she had not yet found a way to achieve. " I t requires the nerves of a man to stand undisturbed the conflicts and inward fires of minds like yours and mine. . . . It is the pent-up fire which causes the earthquake. . . . " In her case the "pent-up fire" provided the energy to underwrite her ambition.® She worked hard to increase her knowledge and improve her pedagogy. As her reputation for effective teaching spread beyond Connecticut, invitations came from several communities. At twenty she was in charge of a female academy in Middlebury, Vermont. There, she wrote, " M y neighborhood to Middlebury College made me bitterly feel the disparity between the two sexes." 10 Women's educational opportunities must have been meager if a raw, new college could hold so much that seemed desirable. In a characteristic reaction Emma Hart, far from accepting the inevitability of " t h e disparity between the two sexes," set about teaching herself the subjects the college offered to men. Then, in 1809, under the influence of what she called "an uncommon ardor of affection," she married one of the town's leading citizens, a medical doctor and public official thirty years her senior. Although she once said that for love of him " I gave up my literary ambition and became a domestic drudge," there is considerable evidence that John Willard, like Miner, played an important part in her intellectual development. Many years afterward she recalled that he "sought my elevation, indifferent to his own. Possessing, on the whole, an opinion more favorable of me than any other human being would ever have,—and thus encouraging me to dare much, he yet knew my weaknesses and fortified me against them. . . . " " For many nineteenth-century women marriage was a way to improve one's social and economic position, but Emma Willard did not see hers in that light. She told a disgruntled stepson that she had married his * Emma Willard to Harriet Munford, Dec. 26, 1824, typed copy in the Archives of the Emma Willard School (Troy, New York). Mary Lyon and Elizabeth Cady Stanton used similar metaphors. Lyon spoke of a "fire shut up in my bones," and Stanton said: " M y latent fires shall sometime burst forth." All three women were behaving in ways that were socially deviant, while maintaining in varying degrees the outward mein of respectable ladies. It was a strain. Marion Lansing, ed., Mary Lyon As Seen Through Her Letters (Boston, 1937), 129; Theodore Stanton and H. S. Blatch, eds., Elizabeth Cady Stanton As Seen Through Her Diary, Letters and Reminiscences (2 vols.. New York, 1922), 1, 102. •· John Lord, The Life of Emma Willard (New York, 1873), 34. " Fowler, "Educational Services of Mrs. Emma Willard, 134.

EDUCATION

father for love, and not for the usual reasons, offering as evidence the observation that " M y standing in society was as good as his. My income arising from the exercise of my talents, of which I was fond, was . . sufficient for my support. . . , " ' J She married him less for "standing in society" or money, than for intellectual stimulation, and the kind of tutoring he was willing to offer so eager a pupil. He was a selfeducated medical man of unusual acumen, independence of mind and information. She was his third wife, and the gap in their ages made his relationship to her somewhat fatherly. For most of their married life both Willards concentrated on her career. The five years after her marriage were the only ones in her long life devoted exclusively to domestic pursuits. She gave birth to her only child, managed the affairs of both house and farm with considerable administrative skill, carried on as head of the family during her husband's frequent absence on business and political missions, and continued her program of study. She must have welcomed the financial reverses that, in 1814, gave her a socially acceptable reason for opening her own school—to wit, that she could help her husband recover from financial losses. From this time forward her life is reminiscent of H e r n d o n ' s Abraham Lincoln whose "ambition was a little engine that knew no r e s t . " The new school was scarcely underway when she set herself the goal of making it better than " a n y heretofore k n o w n , " and to " i n f o r m myself, and increase my personal influence and fame as a teacher, calculating that in this way I might be sought for in other places, where influential men would carry my project before some legislature. . . . " 1 3 Enlisting "influential m e n " continued for the rest of her life to be an important part of her strategy for getting what she wanted. " M y project" was a secret enterprise. She told no one but her husband, thinking she would be regarded as "visionary, almost to insanity, should I utter the expectations which I secretly entertained in connection with i t . " 1 4 She drafted a proposal addressed both to the public and to the legislature of some as yet undesignated state proposing a comprehensive plan for the improvement of female education. That giving advice to legislators was not an accepted part of women's role in 1818 did not deter her at all. The plan in its final form was polished like a first-rate lawyer's brief. " Lutz, Emma Willard, 43-44. It may be significant that in no written record was she ever referred to as Mrs. John WiUard but always as Mrs. Emma Willard. IJ Herndon 's Life of Lincoln (Cleveland, 1949), 304; Lord, Life of Emma Willard, 34-35. " Fowler, "Educational Services of Mrs. Emma Willard," 134.

51

52

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

She argued the necessity for educating as many as possible of the women of the country, the impossibility of accomplishing such a large undertaking with private means, and the rationale, therefore, for publicly supported female seminaries. Her proposal was carefully designed to prevent " a jealousy that we mean to intrude upon the province of men." 15 Her central argument was the familiar one that educating women would elevate the character of the whole community, since children receive better nurture from educated mothers. To this she added her own conviction that mothers, in order to do their job, needed to be trained in psychology, or, as she phrased it, needed to study "the nature of the mind." She adverted to the familiar statement that the republic must have an educated citizenry to survive, and argued that this required universal public education. There were not enough men to staff a system of common schools; hence the only way the state could meet its responsibility for educating all its children was by training women to be teachers. She also suggested that hiring women would save the state money, since they could afford to teach for a smaller wage—an argument she lived to regret. The Plan was one of those formative documents in the history of American culture that laid out a set of ideals and expectations so persuasively that it set the terms of discussion for half a century. It was destined for a long career, independent of its immediate purpose, and succeeded, as she had hoped it would, in spreading her views and in making its author's name known in distant places. As was her habit, she turned to a knowledgeable man for guidance, and, on the advice of the father of one of her pupils, sent it with a long and somewhat flowery letter to DeWitt Clinton, the governor of New York, who had shown a great concern for education. There is no record of what she was doing, or thinking, during the ten months that elapsed before he replied, praising her work and assuring her that the Plan itself was evidence of "the capacity of your sex for high intellectual cultivation." He said nothing about what he might do, but in his next message to the assembly he recommended that it look into legislation for improving women's education in the state.16 With this much encouragement, the Willards had the Plan printed, distributing copies to a number of bookstores, including some in New York City and Philadelphia, to be sold on consignment. They went to 15 Ezra Brainerd, " M r s . Emma Willard's Life and Work in Middlebury," read at Rutland, Vermont, Sept. 20, 1893 and printed for private distribution by a member of the Troy Female Seminary, class of 1841. " Lutz, Emma Willard, 644.

EDUCATION

Albany, where Emma Willard read and discussed her Plan with any group of legislators who would listen. She solicited letters of support from John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, President James Monroe, and lesser lights. She asked her friends, women as well as men, to write members of the legislature, and suggested that they persuade their influential relatives to write, also. She assured Clinton that if the money for a model female seminary were to be appropriated nothing would prevent her from "embarking her reputation" on the execution of the project. It was to be simultaneously a great public undertaking and a major personal effort. This vigorous lobbying was not as successful as she had hoped. The legislature did grant a charter to a female seminary at Waterford, New York, and toyed with the idea of granting it an appropriation from the Literary Fund, but in the end no money was forthcoming. The idea was one whose time had not yet come. Emma Willard thought wildly of appearing before the legislature herself to plead the case. " I felt it almost to a frenzy. . . . Could I have died a martyr in the cause, and thus have insured its success, I would have blessed the faggot and hugged the stake.'" 7 The historian trying to pierce the mist that veils the past in order to see clearly this able, ambitious young woman behaving in ways so far from those prescribed for her sex, gets a little help from John Lord, her authorized biographer. Lord lectured at Emma Willard's school and had access to her letters and diaries, now apparently lost. On the basis of these he believed that by 1 8 1 9 , at the age of thirty-two, " h e r soul panted for a wider s p h e r e , " and she longed for " s o m e institution which she could direct." 1 8 T h e cause of women's education and her own desire for a position of influence in the world were by now closely intertwined. Though the New York legislature failed to meet their hopes, the Willards did not give up. Instead they moved from Middlebury to Waterford, New York, to take charge of the seminary, which did at least "Ibid., 81. " Lord, Life of Emma Willard, 46. John Lord's book inadvertently provides insight into the ambivalence of a well-intentioned, even admiring, nineteenth-century man confronted with an ambitious, driving woman. He admired Willard, and so always was at pains to assure his readers that she was indeed a proper Christian lady; but he was also a good reporter, so that his facts sometimes contradict his assertions. Thus he could write that her only purpose in all her work was to make women better wives and mothers (a purpose he could approve), while at the same time he reported in detail her ambition to step beyond the restricted sphere allotted to women, her desire to become a person who influenced legislatures, commanded institutions, rewrote scientific theories, and set public policy. Once, in a forgetful moment, he praised her for her "good sense and masculine force.''

53

54

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

have a state charter and which might become eligible for a grant from the Literary Fund. Gathering pupils and teachers as she went along, Emma Willard set out to create a model school, hoping that example would persuade the legislature if argument would not. She was by now developing both a pedagogical and an administrative philosophy. The first was a compound of Johann Pestalozzi and John Locke, with a good many additions of her own. She understood the pedagogical principle that has to be constantly rediscovered by educational reformers: start where the student is. Thus in her geography classes, the first assignment was to draw a map of one's home town. From Pestalozzi she took the principle of using concrete objects for teaching, and from her own conviction came an emphasis on " o r d e r " and " s y s t e m . " " From the most able young women among her pupils she selected assistant teachers, and was soon able to create a faculty. Those who, like herself, were seeking an outlet for ambition, were strongly attached to her, and some became lifelong friends and associates in the building of a model school.20 At Waterford Emma Willard adopted from the men's colleges the practice of holding public examinations. She lured members of the legislature, governors, and Supreme Court justices to attend. The young women were thoroughly prepared, and so impressed observers that many were converted into supporters of the Plan.11 To her developing skills as a teacher and organizer she was adding those of public relations. In the midst of all this activity she did not neglect politics and public policy, an interest she dated from her childhood and her father's knee.22 In 1820 she published a pamphlet, "Universal Peace to be Introduced by a Confederacy of Nations Meeting in Jerusalem," a proposal for a league of nations a century before the idea became a staple of western diplomacy. Though the Waterford school gained rapidly in reputation, the legislature did not provide the expected funds, and the town fathers were not ready to fill the financial gap. Meanwhile, down the Hudson, " Willard's pedagogy is too important to be briefly summarized and will be treated in some detail in a separate article. The point here is that its success contributed to the growing recognition of her ability in the community. " An example from the brief Waterford interlude was Miranda Aldis, who first studied with Willard and then became her collaborator in the composition of textbooks. She also read law with her father and worked as his legal assistant. Comparatively late in life she married a lawyer, for whom she performed the same office. Willard to Miranda Aldis, Dec. 26, 1824, Archives of the Emma Willard School; see also the files of the Emma Willard Association, ibid. " Willard to Sally Russ, April 19, 1820, ibid. " Emma Willard, Journal and Letters, from France and Great-Britain (Troy, N.Y., 1833), 48.

EDUCATION citizens of the ambitious and growing town of Troy were more alert to the commercial advantage of having a good female seminary, and offered to provide both a building and a committee of women overseers if the Willards would move their school there. After some careful negotiations, and encouraged by convincing promises of long-term support, the move was made in 1821. Various teachers and pupils came along, and Troy became Emma Willard's base of operations for most of the rest of her long life. Like Jefferson's university, chartered by the state of Virginia in the year that Emma Willard's Plan appeared, Troy Female Seminary was the founder's mind writ large. Like Jefferson, she planned the layout of the building, organized the curriculum, chose the books, and dictated the diet. Her interest in details extended to the careful placement of roommates. She like to combine "spoiled and petted misses" with serious young teachers-in-training, saying that the teachers would need soon enough to learn how to cope with spoiled brats, and the latter might (though she was never unduly optimistic about undoing the effects of parental indulgence) be inspired to higher ideals by living with hard-working companions. Convinced that the only possibility for achieving universal education lay in multiplying the number of women teachers, and convinced, too, though she did not say it so often, that women were usually better teachers than men, she designed a revolving scholarship program. Ambitious young women who could not pay Troy's high tuition were educated on credit with the understanding that they would repay her from " t h e avails of their teaching." Her part of the bargain was to find them jobs. 23 In addition, a few talented pupils were able to pay their way by working as assistant teachers while they studied, a kind of apprenticeship that was soon recognized by potential employers. Except for language teachers who were recruited abroad, the Troy faculty consisted of Emma Willard's trainees, who paid as much attention to pedagogy as to substance. Amos Eaton, a self-made botanist, a dedicated Pestalozzian, and a gifted teacher, was building a science curriculum at the new Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, and willingly admitted women to his classes. In addition, he gave individual tuition to her younger sister, Almira Hart Lincoln, a widow with two young children who had joined the staff in 1824. Almira Lincoln, under Eaton's tutelage, experimented with inductive methods of teaching " In 1839, the first year for which records have been (ound, half the pupils were receiving tuition on credit. This may have been the highest proportion in any year.

55

56

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

science: she and Eaton may have been the first teachers in the country to permit their students to carry out their own experiments. With his help, she prepared for her classes a botany text that became a best seller, used in colleges and schools for nearly fifty years. Troy soon had a reputation unique among female seminaries for its instruction in science. Mathematics was stressed, and the capacity to deal with higher mathematics was offered as evidence of women's intellectual potential. While her sister wrote textbooks in science, Emma Willard composed books in geography and history (the first in collaboration with William Woodbridge) to suit her own methods of teaching. The search for fame was never far from her consciousness, and the books were one way to achieve it. Nor was the money they brought in unwelcome. 24 Her vision grew. Like Lyman Beecher, who sought to spread his version of New England culture through the union by educating and sending on their way "intelligent and enterprising ministers," Emma Willard aimed to impress her cultural values on the developing society through the agency of well-trained women teachers who would go out, not only nearby but also to the growing South and West, and wherever possible, found schools modeled upon the original. 25 Troy was to be the fountainhead and her goal was nothing less than to make it the best school for women in the country, with a curriculum equal to that of the New England men's colleges and pedagogy better than theirs. By 1833 she was convinced that the colleges might learn something from examining her methods. She thought she accomplished more, and in a shorter time, than they did. Troy's reputation grew rapidly, and in due course at least one woman would enroll for a few weeks, solely " f o r the influence the name would give me." 2 6 Part of this growing reputation came from solid accomplishment: teachers coming from the school were so well trained that demand for them soon outran the supply. Some of her time was required each day to answer letters from would-be employers. Troy graduates were taking over or founding schools in various parts of the country, and sending back to Troy for staff. In addition, well-educated and confident young women were returning to the towns and cities of New York and nearby states to marry members of the rising professional class. Lawyers, " William Woodbridge's and Willard's Geography was the first of its kind, and went through a number of editions. " For a discussion of Lyman Beecher's cultural imperialism, see Richard Lyle Power, " A Crusade to Extend Yankee Culture, 1 8 2 0 - 1 8 6 5 , " New England Quarterly, ΧΠΙ (Dec. 1940), 638-53. " Pamelia Murray recollection, Archives of the Emma Willard School.

EDUCATION judges, college presidents, and members of Congress found wives among Troy alumnae: William Seward, Eliphalet Nott, Mark Hopkins, Henry B. Stanton were a few of these. Meanwhile, Emma Willard's and Almira Lincoln's textbooks carried their authors' names across the country and occasionally across the sea. The school's reputation and that of its founder developed pari passu. John Willard died in 1 8 2 5 , and Emma Willard took over the business side of the school and the responsibility for her own financial affairs, conducting them with such acumen that her style of life increasingly befitted that of a leading citizen. She continued to recognize the need for good public relations, and to coax members of the legislature and the judiciary to public examinations. She admitted daughters of Troy's leading citizens at whatever age their parents wished; she kept in close touch with former pupils. She was not willing, however, to rest on her laurels. Good as the school was recognized to be, it fell far short of her vision. She wanted to have no pupil younger than sixteen, to have a clearly marked three-year course that all would follow, to have only boarders so that her control could be complete, and to offer only an advanced curriculum. She wanted a permanent endowment, and a faculty made up of specialists. Neither the necessary preparatory institutions nor the necessary public understanding and willingness to supply money yet existed to underwrite such ideals. As things were, she had to admit girls of all ages, had to accept pupils for only one year or even one term if their parents insisted, had to admit day students as well as boarders, and had to cope with many who were only prepared for the most elementary course work. She had not yet been able to persuade the legislature to give Troy a charter and provide it with money. Feeling both her success and the great weight of what she had not achieved, she decided in 1 8 3 0 to go abroad in search of wider horizons. Turning over the management of the seminary to Almira Lincoln, and taking her twenty-year-old son along for propriety, she set sail for Europe. She was Edward Gibbon's ideal traveler, displaying " t h e flexible temper which can assimilate itself to every tone of society from the court to the cottage; the happy flow of spirits which can amuse and be amused in every company and situation." 2 7 From Paris she sent home careful descriptions of buildings, art works, and the Chamber of Deputies for the " J o h n Murray, The Autobiographies of Edward Gibbon (London 1896), 270. Landing at Le Havre her first thought was to observe peasant homes and peasant dress, noting "human beings ever interest me most." Willard, Journal and Letters, 14.

57

58

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

edification of her pupils, and sought out women who shared her interest in education. During her six-month stay she visited every kind of French family, including that of the maid in her pensione; had clothes made so that she could discuss French life with seamstresses; recruited teachers; bought art works for the seminary and presided over her own salon where politics and education were the central topics. Like other Americans before and since, she was surprised that her school-book French served her so ill among the Parisians, but characteristically she began at once to take daily lessons.28 A carefully cultivated friendship with the Marquis de Lafayette, begun when he had made a ritual visit to the seminary on his grand tour in 1826, opened many doors, including those of royalty. " H o w differently," she reflected, " a t different periods of our lives do similar events affect us. At fifteen I was all in a flutter at the thought of entering on a village ball-room, with plenty of company; how could I then have believed that a time would come when I should enter the court of France alone, pass through a long room . . . without any particular emotion whatever." 1 9 She examined the state of women's education in France, decided it was deficient, and that the country was paying a high price for this deficiency. Gathering letters of introduction to English educational reformers, she moved on to the British Isles where women's education again seemed to her sadly deficient, though Scotland appealed to her as the home of " t h e graves of some of the fathers of my mind. . . . " She returned to Troy " n o t reluctantly, but gladly"—more than ever convinced of the importance of what she was doing there. The European tour added to her education and to her self-confidence. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a pupil at Troy at the time, recalled years later her first sight of Emma Willard upon her return from Europe. She had, Stanton wrote, "profound self-respect (a rare quality in woman) which gave her a dignity truly regal. . . , " 3 0 The trip had also improved her credentials in America. Her Journal and Letters were quickly copied by a team of Troy pupils and teachers and sent off to the printer. The woman exhibited in its pages was a careful and astute observer, a person who spoke her mind with considerable freedom, and one who—after seeing the best the old world had to offer—was happily returning to " Willard, Journal and Letters. "Ibid., 202. x Quoted in Lutz, Emma Willard, 173. Stanton's recollection was part of a speech she made at the Emma Willard Reunion at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.

EDUCATION

continue her mission in the new. She was ready, indeed, to move upon a larger stage. The opportunity presented itself almost at once. Emma Willard joined many other Americans in the romantic enthusiasm for the effort of the Greeks to free themselves from Turkish rule. She was acquainted with the work of J o h n and Frances Hill, Episcopal missionaries, who were in Athens attempting to set up a school, and was convinced that Greek society was just then "dissolved into its original e l e m e n t s " and hence fluid enough, as France and England were not, to take a truly progressive step by setting up a school to train women teachers who would thus be ready to help shape the society as the new independent nation took form. Her observations on the continent had confirmed her view that what she called " t h e tone of s o c i e t y " depended very much upon the degree of education among its women. To carry out her plan for the Greeks she turned to a tool that she would use increasingly in the years to come: a voluntary association of women. She organized the T r o y Society for the Advancement of Education in Greece to raise money for a teacher-training school, which would be supervised by a Troy graduate who, by good fortune, was already in Athens. Willard gave lectures, contributed the royalties from her recently published Journal, and recruited to the cause her friends Lydia Sigourney and Sarah Josepha Hale, both influential names among American women. T o old friends and T r o y alumnae she sent circulars to be spread among " y o u r most influential ladies." In a typical letter she wrote: Perhaps you will do well to go round and see them, and consult them in the first place, and get them individually stirred up, and then appoint a meeting, which I hope will result in your forming a cooperating society . . . I hope you will be corresponding secretary; and further (which I take a deep interest in) I hope you will be a delegate to our convention on the 8th of August. I hope to get together at that time a number of the most talented . . . women in the country. . . . 3 l The association raised $ 3 , 0 0 0 for the school in Athens, and more significant in the long run, Emma Willard had learned something about the potential of the growing network of women, among whom Troy alumnae were key figures, which she had been developing. 32 Lord, Life of Emma Willard, 177. The teacher training program was incorporated into the school run by John Hill and Frances M. Hill, and the association supported young Greek women as students for a number of years. For a brief biographical sketch of Frances M. Hill, see Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S. Boyer, eds., Notable American Women, 1607-1950 0 vols., Cambridge, 1971), II, 1 9 1 - 9 3 . 11

11

59

60

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES Even among the citizens of Troy who knew her well, such aggressive assumption of leadership on the part of a woman was not altogether acceptable. There were, she told Sigourney, "slanderous aspersions" that her work on the Greek project had been less for the benefit of Greece than for her own fame. To diminish this kind of talk, she had declined to take the presidency of the association, but in the end, as she wrote her sister, she got " m o r e praise to my face than even I like." 3 3 Leadership in public affairs was more and more exhilarating, and her self-confidence continued to grow. She began to feel herself at a crossroads. Her personal standing and influence in the country at large had never been greater, but for some reason not entirely clear she had not yet succeeded in obtaining a charter for the school from the New York legislature, nor the permanent endowment she felt to be so necessary if the seminary was to have a secure future. She did not think the men who controlled the city of Troy were giving their wholehearted support to the school. With these thoughts in mind, she toyed with several possible lines of action. The University of Vermont was in financial trouble, and it occurred to her that one solution would be to make it into a female university with herself at the head. At the same time, since her textbooks were bringing in a comfortable income and she owned a house in Middlebury, she considered retiring to Vermont in order to devote herself entirely to writing. Things came to a head in the spring of 1 8 3 3 when the time came to renew the school's lease with the Corporation of Troy. She spelled out the issues in a " M e m o i r " composed for the seminary trustees, who had apparently been troubled by rumors of her flirtation with the University of Vermont, and who wanted to know her future plans. In this carefully drafted if somewhat wordy document, she first laid before them the alternatives open to her: she could retire to Vermont and write, thereby taking better care of her health (a matter she considered of some importance, she told them, to a "mind which fancies itself gifted"). She had no doubt that if she had time to write, her fame would increase. 34 Having established the fact that she had more than one option, she spoke of her sense of duty to the cause of female education and education in general. " I have the satisfaction of believing my past labors have had a beneficial effect upon the general frame of society among u s , " she observed, indicating that with the right encouragement she would Lord, Life of Emma Wilkrd, 161. "Memoir Addressed by the Principal of the Troy Female Seminary, April 21, 1833 to the Trustees," Vermont Historical Society (Montpelier). M

M

EDUCATION

continue such labors. 35 If the trustees were willing to take responsibility for developing stronger support for the seminary among their fellow citizens, above all if they would work to raise a permanent endowment, then she would consider staying after all. But only, she made clear, on her own terms. She wanted a new building as well as a professor of chemistry and natural philosophy who was also a good classical scholar. To assure them that no part of her demand was for personal gain, she offered to contribute $ 5 0 0 from her own pocket for these improvements. She also wanted a new lease that she, but not they, could terminate at will. The trustees had expressed fear that she might marry again; she assured them that this was unlikely since she had come to enjoy her independence. Admitting that her demands were a bit onesided, she nevertheless justified them. How could she run a school if she never knew when the Corporation of Troy might unexpectedly cancel the lease? On the other hand, if she should choose to leave they should have no complaint since: It is the spirit within m e which has wrought to do what I have already done, so it is only by giving that spirit its play by confidence and encouragement that you can expect m e to do things, whereof your city may be glad hereafter. It is that spirit you want, not m e without it. Depress it by want of confidence and encouragement so that I lose hope of accomplishing what I desire, and the sooner you are rid of m e the better. 1 6

Did they find this peculiar? Well, she concluded, " I f I had not been somewhat of a peculiar woman I should not have been here at this time negotiating as I am. . . . " 3 7 And indeed the " M e m o i r " showed her to be a tough negotiator in her own interest. Communicating with a group of men whom she knew well, she spent no time in ritual obeisance to the idea of woman's sphere or male superiority. Instead, she laid out the issues as she saw them and stated her demands boldly. Unfortunately, at this exciting moment, the record becomes obscure. What the trustees said to her or she to them at the meeting is not known. One can only infer that since she did not leave, and since four years later the long-awaited charter was achieved, she got her way. The events of 1 8 3 8 - 1 8 3 9 marked a break in Emma Willard's life to be followed by a series of new directions. Before analyzing these " Ibid., 4 - 6 . "Ibid.

" Ibid., addendum.

61

62

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

changes, one of the techniques she developed in a continuing quest to increase her influence in promoting women's education and women's progress must be examined: the building of a female network. Similar networks developed in increasing numbers as the nineteenth century passed, and by 1900 there were dozens of interlocking ones, some visible, some obscure, which provided women with powerful took available for many different purposes. As far as it can be determined, Emma Willard and her younger contemporary, Catharine E. Beecher, were the first to grasp the possibilities inherent in such networks and the first to experiment with institutional links among women going beyond a single community.38 In Emma Willard's case the beginnings were not planned. As soon as a few pupils of her Middlebury School were trained to be teachers, she found places for them and encouraged them to take charge of schools whenever possible. An illustration of the almost inadvertent way the network began can be found in the biography of Julia Pierpont, whom Emma Willard sent to Sparta, Georgia, to open a school in 1819. Sometime in the following five years, Pierpont married and had a child, but by 1824 both husband and child were dead, and the young widow came to Troy for further training. In 1832 she married Elias Marks, an unusual schoolman from South Carolina who had first studied medicine and then had become interested in women's education. He had once laid before the South Carolina legislature a proposal quite similar to Emma Willard's Plan. By the time of his marriage, he had created a school for women in Barhamville, just outside Columbia, South Carolina. When his wife joined him, the school was remodeled to meet Troy standards and renamed the Barhamville Collegiate Institute. Soon it became a center for intellectually aspiring young southern women. Emma Willard and Julia and Elias Marks were in regular communication. A South Carolina scholar who studied the history of Barhamville found himself tracing the second generation of Willard influence. " T h e far reaching hand of the Barhamville Institute in Southern culture in the days of its extension to the Southwest," he concluded, owed "much of its skill and influence to the Northern institution." 39 " For a discussion of some of Catharine Beecher's experiments, see Kathryn Kish Sklar, Catharine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity (New Haven, 1973), 168-83. The earliest one is described in Catharine Beecher, Educational Reminiscences (New York, 1874), 6 2 - 6 5 . " Handwritten notes of Henry Campbell Davis, deposited in South Caroliniana Library (Columbia, S.C.)· Davis tried to trace the influence of Troy in the South and West, particularly in South Carolina, and concluded that it was " a n important fact in the history of culture in America." Apparently, none of Davis' research has been published. Julia Marks' daughter felt strongly that her mother was "acting in union" as she put it, with

EDUCATION

Caroline Livy, who studied at Troy for four years beginning in 1837 provides another example of Emma Willard's expanding network. Livy married a minister, J. M. Caldwell, and moved south with him. In 1845 she became principal of the Rome Female Academy in Georgia, and according to her son, presided, in due course, over the education of 5,000 girls. He concluded that the influence of this Troy graduate " i n moulding the afterlife of her pupils and thus refining and elevating the community cannot be overestimated." 4 0 As time went by, other new outposts were established. Not long after Almira Lincoln married John Phelps, she became head of a school in Patapsco, Maryland. Although modeled on Troy, it was modified by Almira Phelps' mind and character. Younger sisters do not usually care to be complete replicas of their elders. Sarah R. Foster had taught for awhile before she decided at the age of thirty-one to enter Troy for additional education. Like many others, she admired Emma Willard and "yielded herself implicitly" to her direction, which meant, after her training, being sent to Cadiz, Ohio, to take charge of two schools. At the end of four years, she had established a sufficient reputation to be sought after as principal of the Female Seminary in Washington, Pennsylvania. According to an admiring pupil, she infused a new vigor into the school that was felt throughout the area. Eight years later, she paused to marry a minister, but did not give up her school. On the contrary, she added to her responsibilities the long-distance oversight of two additional schools, one in West Virginia and another in Ohio. Described as having a character that inspired respect, she was reported to have intimidated James K. Polk, who remarked that she was the only woman whose strength of personality ever made him lose his presence of mind. 41 Her executive ability was the source of wonder among her neighbors, and she energetically spread Willard principles in three states. She continued in full charge of the Washington Female Seminary until the age of seventy-two. The original pattern of deploying young women as missionaries in the cause of women's education began without a preconceived plan; but when Emma Willard sensed the potential influence of her network, she set about systematizing and strengthening the ties that kept it alive and functioning. As early as 1832, she traveled in a private carriage from Willard and Phelps, and that the three together were the leading educators of women in the country. See her letter to the women collecting material for Mrs. Emma Willard and Her Pupils, Archives of the Emma Willard School. " Mrs. A. W. Fairbanks, ed., Mrs. Emma Willard and Her Pupils (New York, 1898), 45. 41 "Manuscript questionnaire for Sarah R. Foster," Archives of the Emma Willard School.

63

64

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Troy to Detroit, spending almost every night in the home of a former pupil, reinforcing feelings of loyalty to her and to the Troy idea. She also seized the opportunity to spread her view among parents and friends of alumnae, many of whom were influential people in their local communities. 41 By now Emma Willard was a confident and charming woman in her mid-forties, and the father of one former pupil described her as the most attractive woman he had ever met. 43 In 1833 the network had successfully campaigned for a teacher-training school in Greece. In 1837 Emma Willard institutionalized network activities in the Willard Association for the Mutual Improvement of Teachers, with nearly 200 members, a list of honorary members, and another list of honorary members drawn from "literary ladies'' who approved of her plan for educating teachers. 44 The following year she published a distillation of her years of thought on the subject of pedagogy. Members were reminded that one of the principal objects of the association was to communicate correct views about female education to teachers of the different sections of the country and to gather facts that could form the basis for lobbying.45 When Emma Willard began in the 1840s to meet with superintendents and teachers in New York State to discuss the work of the common schools, she expanded her network to include women who would agree to form community associations for common-school support. In 1846, with her niece Jane Lincoln, she traveled 8,000 miles to all the states south and west of New York except Florida and Texas. She visited former pupils, collected old debts, lectured on pedagogy, and again tightened the bonds among Troy alumnae, while encouraging them to organize local associations for the common schools. She followed up her visits with extensive correspondence. Thus Troy teachers spread through the republic to train others and to convince community leaders of the importance of women's education. Sometimes Willard's vision verged on hubris, as when she said in an offhand moment that if enough Troy graduates could marry southern leaders perhaps the sectional conflict could be resolved! " A study of 3,501 Troy alumnae made by the author in collaboration with Patricia Hummer shows at least 268 fathers to have been public officials. There were many daughters of congressmen, governors, and judges among the pupils. " Diary of Thomas Bog Slade, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library (Chapel Hill). " Emma Willard, Letter Addressed as a Circular to the Members of the Willard Association for the Mutual Improvement of Teachers; Formed at the Troy Female Seminary, July 18} 7 (Troy, N.Y., 1838). 45 Ibid.

EDUCATION

The network, as it developed, was made up of a series of concentric circles. At the center was Emma Willard herself. The smallest and most integrated circle was made up of the carefully selected teachers who stayed on at Troy and carried on the seminal work of the seminary under the founder's watchful eye and control. Next was a larger but still well-integrated circle of women who made teaching a lifelong career and who founded or headed schools of their own. This circle was incorporated in the association and strengthened by regular communication. Largest and most loosely attached of the circles contained the thousands of women who had attended Troy for anywhere from one to ten years, who had gone on to domestic lives as wives and mothers or as single women living with parents or siblings. Many of these were active in the local associations for the common schools, and many took part of their adult identity from their association with Emma Willard. Among the inner circle, one member had been selected to carry on when the founder herself should decide to give up active direction of the school. Sarah Lucretia Hudson came to Troy as a pupil when she was eleven. She became an assistant teacher, a teacher, and then assistant principal. In 1834 she married John Willard, the only son of the principal. (Could this have been simply fortuitous, or was it, too, part of Emma Willard's plan?) Thus it was that in 1838 when Emma Willard decided to take the step the trustees had feared, and engaged herself for a second marriage, Sarah Lucretia Willard became principal, and her husband, as his father before him, took on the task of business management. The failure of Emma Willard's second marriage had little bearing on her life as an institution builder. But having given up direction of the seminary, she found herself, in less than a year, looking for a new outlet for her energies. The result was a second career, related to but in some respects quite different from her first. When she left her husband in the spring of 1840, her first stopping place was her old home in Connecticut that was still inhabited by many members of her extended family. There she encountered Henry Barnard, just then in the midst of his crusade to improve common-school education in Connecticut, inspired as he described it " w i t h the zeal of Peter the H e r m i t . " 4 6 When Emma Willard returned to her hometown to collect her wits and plan her next " The story of Willard's brief second marriage is too complex to relate here, but at least one reason for its failure was, she said, that her husband found her fame and sense of own abilities "inconvenient." See Lord, Life of Emma Willard, 201. For Henry Barnard's comment, see Henry Barnard to Horace Mann, Feb. 13, 1843, Mann Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston).

65

66

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES step, Barnard swept her along with his great enthusiasm and persuaded her to stand for the post of school superintendent for the town of Kensington. Elected overwhelmingly, she set up a model school where she both taught children and conducted a "normal class" for teachers. In addition, she organized the mothers of the community into the Female Association for the Common Schools, and encouraged them to undertake a wide variety of responsibilities. First, they were to seek out every "forlorn and neglected" child in order to provide clothing and to ensure school attendance. Then, through a systematic effort, they were to make life for teachers more attractive so that able young women would be willing to accept teaching jobs. Finally, she urged mothers to study with the children in order to "keep up with the improvement of the times." If " y o u would but try i t , " she said, " y o u would find that your mature mind would with little labor master subjects that require pains to teach the young."'" She encouraged mothers to invite their children's classes to meet in their homes as a way of promoting this adult education. It was her conviction that the more thoroughly the women of the community were involved with the work of the common schools the better those schools would be. 48 The work of the women she organized, together with a very successful public examination of the pupils, fired the Kensington community with educational enthusiasm. The experiment was widely reported in the educational press, and Willard was soon much in demand for pedagogical lectures. Everywhere she went, she organized women's associations similar to the one in Kensington, and gradually she came to believe that women should take full charge of the educational activities in every community. Her conception of proper behavior did not permit her to lecture in public to mixed groups. Often she wrote out her lecture so that it could be read for her by a male friend, but upon occasion she solved the problem more directly, either by inviting people to meet with her in a private home, where she could cast her lecture in the form of conversation or, even more simply, by sitting instead of standing in a public place, again, so that the " l e c t u r e " became merely "conversation. ' ' She was also diplomatic as she actively encouraged women to take on new public responsibilities. Her methods of work and the way she bowed " Letter from Willard to Mrs. Hotchkiss, Secretary of the Kensington Female Association in Aid of the Common School, April 2 0 , 1841, Henry Barnard Papers, Library of New York University (New York). *· The Parent-Teacher Association of modern times is usually believed to have had its origin in the late 1890s with the foundation of a national Congress of Mothers. No reference to Willard's associations of mothers has been located, but she founded a great many of them in the two decades after 1840.

EDUCATION to cultural restrictions without being really limited by them are illustrated by two draft resolutions she suggested whenever she went into a community to work with teachers, superintendents, and parents. The first resolution was to be passed by the men only: "Resolved: That we will forward the cause of the common schools by inviting the ladies of the districts to which we severally belong—as we may have opportunity—to take such action in the common schools of each district, as may seem to us, that they are peculiarly fitted to perform; and such as we regard as properly belong to their own sphere in the social system." For the women she drafted the following: "Resolved: that if the men, whom we recognize, as by the laws of God and man, our directors, and to whose superior wisdom we naturally look for guidance, shall invite us into the field of active labor in the cause of common schools—that we will obey the call with alacrity, and to the best of our abilities fulfill such tasks as they may be judged to be suitable for us to undertake." 4 9 Having thus taken care of the social mores, she urged the women to take responsibility for everything having to do with the schools. There was talk of appointing her head of a proposed normal school, and she toyed with the idea of buying an orphan asylum that was on the market in Hartford, thinking she would form the orphans into a demonstration school for teacher training. She also consulted with friends about founding an educational journal. In the end, however, the pull of Troy proved to be too strong. Her son urged her to return, and in 1844 she moved into a house on the school grounds. Lucretia Willard remained the principal and operating head of the seminary, but Madame Willard, as she was now called to distinguish her from her daughter-inlaw, was a powerful presence. She was fully informed of every detail of life at the school, entertained selected pupils at tea, recruited new students from her vast range of acquaintances, tutored some specially favored daughters of old pupils for their exams (while firmly informing their mothers that, of course, nothing could be done to excuse them from those same trials by fire), and presided over the public examination when Lucretia Willard was incommoded by one of her frequent pregnancies. She was also available to lend a hand at the obstetrical event. The former principal continued to write and revise textbooks, composed two scientific treatises, traveled at home and abroad, corresponded frequently and at length with her network of teachers, as well as with Barnard and a large group of other educational reformers. As always, she wrote long letters of advice to political figures. The events leading up to the Civil War inspired her to one last burst " Willard to Barnard, Nov. 1 8 , 1 8 4 5 , Barnard Papers.

67

68

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

of organizing activity. This time she initiated an association of women to petition Congress for a compromise solution to the slavery conflict; the group gathered 40,000 signatures. The content of the petition did not mark Emma Willard's finest hour, for while she would have been glad enough to see slavery end, she was also willing to make concessions to the South in order to avoid war, which she considered an evil greater than slavery. Neither the petition nor her Via Media, another proposal for compromise, published in 1862, deserve high marks for moral sensitivity. They do represent evidence of her continued vitality and her incorrigible urge to take charge of the world and straighten it out when it was off track. When the war came she applied for a federal contract to produce clothing for the army, planning to provide employment for the poor women of Troy, especially for wives of soldiers. She did not get the contract, but if she had, it is certain that one part of the clothing for Lincoln's armies would not have been made of shoddy. She had to content herself—at the age of seventy-four—with being president of the General Relief Association of Troy women. When she died in 1870 the New York Times published a somewhat garbled story of her life and called her the most famous teacher in America. She was indeed a fine teacher, organizer, and leader in the evolving movement to offer higher education to women. In order to be all these things, however, she had to find a way to work within the framework of social expectations about women's proper behavior without allowing that framework to hamper seriously her very large plans or to limit her ambition. The skill with which she did this is attested by the fact that while she achieved a public career stretching over fifty years, she was seldom criticized for stepping out of her place. Living in an age when American men were busy associating themselves in institutions and organizations to achieve a wide variety of goals, she saw the possibilities in such association for promoting her own central goals. But obstacles stood in the way of an ambitious woman. If a man, for example, wanted to organize a business, all he needed in order to borrow money was a good name for credit, something for collateral, and a friend or two who had money to lend. A woman with similar ambition found herself at once embroiled in legal complexities, especially if she were married. Similarly, a man who wanted legislative support for some enterprise, business or eleemosynary, could go to the legislature, make his wishes known, trade favors perhaps, wine and dine if necessary. Women's methods in such a situation had to be more roundabout. Men

EDUCATION wishing to build public support for any idea could take to the platform and the newspapers in order to persuade the public of the wisdom of their plans. Such avenues were virtually closed to women. A close study of Emma Willard's projects and methods shows how a determined woman dedicated to bringing about change could overcome these complexities and obstacles, without alienating the men who controlled the money and power she needed, and how she could build a highly successful career by using for her own ends social stereotypes about woman's place. Her Plan was the first public call for the state to support the higher education of women. In the pursuit of this goal, she developed ways of dealing with male politicians, whether in the legislature or in the Corporation of Troy. Getting the political support she wanted took a long time (Troy Female Seminary was not incorporated and made eligible to receive money from the Literary Fund until 1837), but in the meantime she created and staffed her school and began to use her growing network of teachers trained at Troy to spread her ideas from one end of the country to another. The result was a significant change in the patterns of women's education. Along with her younger contemporaries Catherine Beecher and Mary Lyon, she initiated a movement that, by the end of the century, would see 5 0 , 0 0 0 women enrolled in some institution of higher education each year. She also played a significant—and almost unremarked—part in the common-school crusade and in the movement for normal schools in Connecticut and New York. Combining her experience in teacher training with her firm belief in women's voluntary associations, she went about giving lectures to teachers and superintendents, and at each persuaded the men to " i n v i t e " the women in their communities to take a larger role in running the common schools. This allowed her to teach women the possibilities inherent in voluntary associations. In all her activities, she provided her pupils and the women whom she brought together in these associations a striking example of a woman who had no hesitation about undertaking large projects and administering large enterprises; watching her, they could learn something of the techniques for effective functioning in a male-dominated society. Few lessons could have been more useful to an ambitious nineteenth-century woman.

69

70

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

The Ever Widening Circle: The Diffusion of Feminist Values from the Troy Female Seminary

ANNE FIROR

SCOTT

"SHOULD WOMEN LEARN THE ALPHABET?" asked a nineteenth century feminist, intending irony, and suggesting what we all know, that education can lead to unforeseen and unintended consequences, social and personal. If schools accomplished only their announced purposes, if pupils learned only what they came to leirn, the work of the historian of education would be easier than it is. The Troy Female Seminary, officially opened in 1821 but tracing its roots to 1814, was the first permanent institution offering American women a curriculum similar to that of the contemporary men's colleges. The founder stated her purposes clearly: to educate women for responsible motherhood and train some of them to be teachers. It is only in retrospect that the school can be seen to have been an important source of feminism and the incubator of a new style of female personality. The development and spread of nineteenth century feminism represented a major value shift in American culture, the consequences of which reached into almost every aspect of personal and social life. The underlying reasons for this shift, and the mechanism by which new ideas about women's role spread, continue to puzzle and intrigue cultural historians. One reason —there were many others—was a dramatic increase in the number of well educated women. In order to examine the mechanism involved it is necessary first to suggest a way of looking at the distribution of traditional and feminist values in the population. (1) Historians usually divide nineteenth century women into three groups: a tiny handfull of feminists, known to their contemporaries as "strongminded women," another small group of anti-feminists who were articProf. Scott is a member of the History Department at Duke University.

71

EDUCATION

ulate about what they saw as the threat to family life inherent in feminist values, and a large undifferentiated mass of women untouched by feminism at all. Such a classification is too crude to be useful. Not only does it fail to account for a great many particular cases, it is also static, except insofar as it assumes that members of one group occasionally go over to another. A different kind of description comprehends a much larger amount of the evidence, provides a more accurate way of describing change, and is helpful in explaining some apparent paradoxes. Let us imagine a continuum that looks like this: Feminist values 100 90 80 0 10 20

70 30

60 40

50 50

40 60

30 70

20 10 0 80 90 100 Traditional Values

Such a continuum has a place for everybody. At one end were the handful of radical feminists, who began early in their lives to question the whole conception of "woman's sphere," and the old definition of woman as a creature of emotion rather than reason, inherently self-abnegating, bom to serve others, and defined by her sex. At the other end were the women who believed all these things, and who, comfortable in their assigned role, felt no need to question its underlying value structure. What is more, important, this continuum has a place for the very large number of women who were not at either end, but somewhere in between, often holding some pan of each set of values simultaneously. It also accomodates those who were in motion, moving toward the feminist end of the spectrum. Large numbers in the middle or in motion should not surprise us, since changes in the key values of a society or a social group rarely occur as sharp and sudden breaks with the past. When the wind has been blowing from the West for a while the waves of the sea roll consistently from that direction. If the wind shifts to the south the ocean waves will continue to roll from the west for a time, but soon, cutting across them, will be waves coming from the south, criss-crossing, and slowly, the older wave system will diminish to be replaced by the new. So it is with broad social attitudes, the old and new often exist not only side by side, but cutting across each other. We know from observation that people have an astonishing capacity to hold ideas which reason and logic would call contradictory. In retrospect, the thought and behavior of women who were still attached to the older values while they were experimenting with the new has sometimes seemed paradoxical, but they were simply exhibiting the ambivalence which is common when values are in the process of change. Indeed the most effective purveyors of new values were often those who

72

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

had some attachment to the old, and therefore were not so frightening. There were also many active feminists who used the old values as a shield against criticism. In so doing they inadvertently misled historians who are only beginning to realise that while radical feminists were few, women who were to some degree affected by the "woman movement" were numerous. (2) If the changing state of women's self-percept ions and value structures was not simply a matter of a few radicals, but rather one of the major phenomena shaping nineteenth century social history, it is important to examine the various ways the new values spread. (3) A good deal of attention has justly been paid to reform movements and voluntary associations as seed beds of feminism, but the early seminaries and pre-Civil War "colleges," insofar as they have been attended to at all, have been seen as bulwarks of tradition. A close look at the history of Troy Female Seminary and its alumnae in the framework I have just sketched, will suggest a different conclusion. Like many individuals, Troy as an institution combined an allegiance to certain well-defined ideas about what was proper for women, with a subversive attention to women's intellectual development. Its founder and head, Emma Willard, provided a powerful example of a "new women" whose achievements were made possible because of her ability to integrate new values with the prevailing ones. Her life work, she always said, was to further "the progress of my sex," yet she adhered to the ideology of woman's domestic role (though with a very broad definition of "domestic") and to the idea of separate spheres and spoke highly of the patriarchal family. By carefully selecting from her own words it would be possible to paint her as a prime exemplar of "true womanhood," or as a thoroughgoing feminist. In fact, she was both, and in this fact lay much of her effectiveness. Between 1821 and 1871 more than 12,000 women spent some time at Troy, and thanks to the efforts made by a group of alumnae in the 1890's, biographical data for more than 3500 of these women was gathered and preserved. From these and related materials it is possible to piece together the process by which Emma Willard made her very proper female seminary into an early source for and disseminator of certain feminist ideas. (4) Her stated goals show how, almost from the beginning, she deftly combined an appeal to the prevailing view of woman with a revolutionary emphasis upon women's intellectual capacities and with an innovative proposal for broadening "woman's sphere" to include professional work. The educational program and the atmosphere of Troy were quite different from those of most female seminaries, and the process by which Willard spread her message and the ingenious ways in which she institutionalized this process of dissemination, are all part of a complex pattern.

EDUCATION

73

The biographies of women who went there show how the Troy experience affected at least some indivduals who attended the school. Emma Willard's Views and Methods Emma Hart was born in 1787 in Berlin, Connecticut, next to the last of seventeen children. She was a precocious child who had good luck in her early teachers, and by the age of 17 was herself teaching in a village school. Her reputation spread, and at 20 she took charge of a female academy in Middlebury, Vermont, where the presence of a new college exacerbated her frustration at being denied higher education. While steadily developing her own affinity for the intellectual life, she began to feel a divine call to improve women's educational opportunities. (5) In 1809 she married a much older man (who encouraged her ambitions), had a child and began to concoct a comprehensive plan for the improvement of women's education, which, when it was finished and polished, she presented to the Governor of New York asking him to submit it to the legislature. She proposed that the state provide money for a group of firstrate female seminaries, better than any then existing. Her argument ingeniously combined tradition and innovation; it ran like this: 1. It is the duty of government to provide for the present and future prosperity of the nation. 2. This prosperity depends upon the character of the citizens. 3. Character is formed by mothers. 4. Only thoroughly educated mothers are equipped to form characters of the quality necessary to insure the future of the republic. After describing the structure and curriculum necessary for such superior schools, Willard went on to argue that the educated citizenry essential to the success of republicanism could only be created by universal primary education. T o provide that, women would have to be trained to be teachers since there were not enough men available to staff common schools for all the children. Earlier republican experiments had failed, she said, because of "inadequate attention to the formation of the female character," and only educated women could prevent the inevitable "destruction of public virtue" when the country—as it was bound to do-—grew large and rich. By adopting her plan, she said, the legislature could bring into being a population of moral, hardworking women, whose taste for intellectual pleasures would prevent them from loving "show and frivolity." Such women, taught to seek "intrinsic merit," would be prepared, whether as mothers or as teachers, to raise children of good character. Further, able women who "yearned for preeminence" could achieve it as administrators of these publicly supported schools for their own sex. T h e first nation to give women "by education that rank in the scale of

74

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

being to which our importance entitles us," she wrote, would add to its national glory, "Who knows how great and good a race of men may yet arise from the forming hands of mothers, enlightened by the bounty of that beloved country,—to defend her liberties, to plan her future improvements and to raise her to unparalleled glory?" (6) The argument that the preservation of the republic depended upon educated women had been around for decades, but she added three innovations: 1) that the state should spend public money to provide what amounted to colleges for women, something which did not at that time exist anywhere in the world; 2) that women were capable of intellectual excellence in any field; and 3) that women should be specifically trained for a profession. Willard's plans thus went far beyond anything previously proposed. The idea of teacher training itself was relatively new. From the beginning the men's colleges had recognized a mission to prepare their graduates for the learned professions, the ministry, law, medicine or college teaching. Many young men taught school for a while before or after college, but usually as a stepping stone to another career. What Willard was proposing was to treat school teaching as a serious profession and to open it to women, who had hitherto gotten much the shorter end of the educational stick. (7) Troy Takes Shape Members of the New York legislature spoke in praise of the Plan, but did not appropriate any money. It remained for Emma Willard to create from private sources, and with the help of the city of Troy, a school where she could endeavor to approximate her ideal. For tactical reasons she had distinguished between colleges (which were for men) and a seminary planned especially for women. In fact, however, Troy bore a remarkable resemblance to the contemporary men's colleges. Mrs. Willard, like her male counterparts, the presidents of Brown, Amherst, Williams, Dartmouth and Union, used a domestic metaphor, speaking of her pupils as "daughters" as they did of "sons." Like them she emphasized the building of character as the chief aim of education, dwelt upon the importance of the Christian religion, and gave weekly lectures aimed at instilling moral values. Like them she taught the senior course in Mental and Moral Philosophy, using Lord Kames, Paley, and later Wayland as her texts. She was, says her first biographer, "one of the first modem educators to dwell on bringing out the latent powers of the mind . . . and this was the great revolution she made in female education." (8) The curriculum included mathematics, science, modern languages, Latin, history, philosophy, geography, and literature. An early enthusiast for the teaching of science, Willard had the good fortune to become a

EDUCATION

75

friend of Amos Eaton (a key figure in the founding of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, also in Troy) who welcomed young women to his classes and helped develop a science program for the Seminary. He took Almira Lincoln, Emma Willard's sister and proteg6, as a sort of graduate assistant, and together they set pupils to doing their own experiments, perhaps the first teachers in the country to do so. All three were interested in the psychology of learning and were stimulated by the ideas of Pestalozzi. (9) Although it was difficult for young women to find schools to prepare them for an advanced curriculum, the difference between the Troy students and their male counterparts either in preparation or in the quality of their educational accomplishment was not very great. (10) Indeed it might be argued that in some ways Troy was leading where the colleges would later follow, in its reliance upon a pedagogy which demanded that pupils think for themselves, in its science program and in the teaching of modern languages. There can be no doubt of its innovative spirit with respect to women; nowhere else in the country in the 1820's were young women told that they could learn any academic subject, including those hitherto reserved to men, that they should prepare themselves for self-support and not seek marriage as an end in itself. To underline this last point, Willard provided "instruction on credit" for any woman who would agree to become a teacher, the debt to be repaid from her later earnings. Mrs. Willard could, of course, find her a job. The school was hardly under way before she was running a flourishing teacher placement agency, and the demand soon outran the supply. Someone commented that Emma Willard's signature on a letter of recommendation was the first form of teacher certification in this country. In addition to the shaping force of an intellectually demanding curriculum and high expectations, there was the imposing personality of Mrs. Willard herself. (11) Where else in the 1820's and 30's could young women daily see one of their own sex, married and a mother, yet founder and administrator of what they all knew to be the best known school for women in the country, author of best-selling textbooks, advisor to politicians, formulator of scientific theories, a woman unafraid of any challenge, who had, as Elizabeth Cady Stanton remembered when she looked back to her school days at Troy, "profound self-respect (a rare quality in woman) which gave her a dignity truly regal . . ." (12) In certain settings Emma Willard was forthright about her feminism. "Justice will yet be done. Women will have her rights. I see it in the course of events," she wrote five years before Sarah Grimk£'s Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and fifteen years before Seneca Falls. (13) Yet this same woman often presented herself as a model of female

76

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

respectability who gave voice to traditional values. She wrote Catharine Beecher: In reflecting on political subjects my thoughts are apt to take this direction: the only natural government on earth is that of the family —the only natural sovereign the husband and father. (14)

The early rules of the Seminary included the following: Above all preserve feminine delicacy. Let no consideration induce any young lady to depart from this primary and indespensable virtue . . . Each pupil must be strictly careful to avoid the least indelicacy of language or behavior such as too m u c h exposure of the person in dress . . . (15)

In her the "true woman" and the feminist co-existed, and however much ambivalence this may have caused her from time to time, it was one source of her influence. The Uses of a Network Pupils who began to leave the Seminary as early as 1822 to marry or teach, or both, were agents of cultural diffusion, spreading Willard's ideas about women's capacities and about the need for women's education, and often setting an example by their interest in study and learning. George Combe, the phrenologist and friend of Horace Mann, observed what was going on at Troy and labeled Emma Willard "the most powerful individual at present acting upon the condition of the American people in the next generation." She herself hoped that "educated women who are rising up" would prove capable of "investigating our rights and proving our claims . . . it is to the future lives of my pupils, taken as a body, that we must look, as the test of our success." (16) A poem she wrote for a pupil about to take charge of a Female Academy summed up her philosophy: " . . . Go, in the name of God/Prosper, and prove a pillar in the cause/ of Woman. Lend thy aid to waken her/ from the long trance of ages. Make her feel/ She too hath God's own image. . . " By regular correspondence and visits she bound the alumnae to her, and provided support and reinforcement for what, in many parts of the country, were seen as advanced or dangerous views about women's education. Bit by bit she created a network of former pupils spreading to the northwest, the southeast and then to the southwest, a network held together by a common belief in women's capabilities and by personal relationships. By 1837 when she made p a n of this network formal by organizing the Willard Association for the Mutual Improvement of Teachers, it had been in the making for sixteen years. In a pamphlet written for members of this group she spoke of guiding them in the execution of their

EDUCATION

77

"important duties, that not only yourselves may obtain benefit, but the thousands of the rising generation who are under your instruction . . ." (17) Several examples show how the network developed. Julia Pierpont, a Willard pupil in Middlebury, had been sent by her mentor to Sparta, Georgia in 1819. There she opened a school, married and had a child. Both husband and child soon died, and in 1824 Julia Warne, as she then was, came to Troy for further study. Afterward she returned South, and married Elias Marks, author of a proposal to the South Carolina legislature along the lines of Willard's Plan. Together they took charge of the South Carolina Collegiate Institute at Barhamville and endeavored to build a southern version of Troy. They remained part of Willard's closest inner circle. (18) In the 1930s a South Carolina scholar, intrigued by the pervasive influence of Troy in his state, identified more than a hundred South Carolina women who had had some connection with the Seminary and concluded that directly, and through the agency of Barhamville, Troy's influence had been a major factor in the shaping of southern culture in the years it was spreading to the southwest. (19) Before Julia Warne left Sparta a replacement arrived in the shape of Elizabeth Sherrill. Sherrill, whose mother had been Emma Willard's Middlebury housekeeper, had served an apprenticeship as an assistant teacher at Troy. In Georgia she married an army officer whom she induced to resign from the Army and join in her educational career. The two went on to take charge of an academy in Augusta and continued pan of the network for many years. Urania Sheldon finished Troy in 1824, taught first as a governess, then set up her own school in Washington County, New York and was invited to move it to Schenectady. After seven years there her reputation was such that the trustees of Utica Female Academy built a house to induce her to take charge of their school. This she did and administered it until 1842 when she became the third wife of Eliphalet Nott, the almost legendary president of Union College. Example after example might be described. Caroline Livy, who studied at Troy from 1837 to 1841, married a minister and set out for Alabama. En route, they were persuaded to settle in Rome, Georgia. Her husband found a church which suited him, and she became principal of the local Female Academy. Rome was then a small frontier community which had been part of Cherokee Georgia until Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal opened it to white settlement. More than 5000 girls were said to have studied under Mis. Livy's direction (and that of her husband, who later joined her in the enterprise.) She had five children along the way. It was her son's perhaps somewhat biased judgment that "her influence in moulding the after-life of her pupils and thus refining and elevating the community cannot be over-estimated." Other outposts of Troy appeared in many parts of the country. Almira

78

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Lincoln Phelps, younger sister and protege of Emma Willard, became head of the Patapsco Female Institute in Maryland and largely modelled her program upon that at Troy. Sarah Foster, described as having "conceived the greatest admiration for Mrs. Willard and yielded herself implicitly to her care and direction . . . headed schools first in Ohio and then in Pennsylvania. Admiring pupils thought she "infused new life and vigor into the school which was felt throughout the surrounding country." Jane Ingersoll established a seminary in Cortland, N.Y. "on the Troy plan" and braved community opinion to follow Mrs. Willard's example by offering a course in physiology. (20) By the mid-thirties across the country Troy graduates, reinforced by pupils and proteges of Catharine Beecher and Mary Lyon, were busy creating a profession which, from its inception, was open to women. Of course, the professionalization of school teaching was going on in many places in both western Europe and North America in the early nineteenth century. By the late 1830's Horace Mann, Henry Barnard and a group of like-minded men were working for the establishment of teacher training institutions of various kinds, first in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and then elsewhere. It is not surprising to find many Troy graduates taking an active part in the common school movement when it began to burgeon in the 1830's. (21) Henry Barnard persuaded Emma Willard herself to run for the office of supervisor of schools in Kensington, Connecticut; the male voters elected her. With the help of one former pupil she developed a demonstration school for training teachers, and with another she organized a Woman's Association for the Common Schools, the purpose of which was to bring the mothers of the community into active responsibility for the school system. It was up to the mothers, she said, to improve working conditions and pay so that the "best women" would be willing to become teachers. She also suggested that they make sure that all the children in the district had proper clothing and books, and that classes be invited to meet in homes so that the women themselves could examine the children. "Such a plan would keep the mothers along with the improvements of the time . . . it would set you to review old studies, or look over new ones. And if you would but try it, you would find your mature minds would with a little labor master subjects that require pains to teach the young . . . " (22) In a letter to Henry Barnard written at the same time she said that the more she reflected on "the condition of our country" the more need she felt for the influence of women to set things right. The Kensington experiment and the work of the association of mothers were reported in the educational press, and Emma Willard was soon being invited all over New York state to conduct teacher institutes, to

EDUCATION

79

lecture on pedagogy, and to organize mothers as she had done in Kensington. A former pupil who worked with her recorded that when asked to speak she insisted upon sitting down, since she did not believe it proper for women to speak in public. By remaining in her chair she could consider her speech to be merely conversation, and therefore appropriately feminine. (23) In 1846 she extended her efforts through the rest of the country, travelling 8,000 miles "by stage coach, packet boat and private carriage" into every state south and west of New York except Florida and Texas, visiting former pupils, lecturing on women's education, conducting teacher institutes and organizing associations. By all these means, and by the work of her former pupils, which she continually watched over and encouraged, the "Troy idea" spread through the country. In time there were said to be 200 schools modelled upon the original, each one disseminating by precept and example Willard's view of women's capacities and their appropriate responsibilities. By the time the census takers came round in 1870 they counted 200,515 teachers of public elementary and secondary schools, more than half of them women. Thirty years of normal school work had had a great deal to do with this change in the composition of the teaching profession as had the fact that women persisted in being willing to work for lower wages than men. But for the sources of the changing social attitudes which contributed to the professionalization of school teaching, and for the willingness of women to enter that profession, we must begin with Troy. (24) A New Personality f From a slightly different angle of vision, what did the Troy experience mean to individual women? How did it contribute to changing their selfperceptions and the way they ultimately lived their lives? Such questions present difficult methodological problems and, given the nature of the data, invite speculation rather than solid assertion. Yet this question is both intriguing and important. In these first generations of educated women it is possible to discern the emergence of a new type of personality and some new patterns of adult life. T h e personality was one which, precisely as Emma Willard had forecast in 1819, included an intellectual component, a certain kind of seriousness of purpose beyond the domestic and religious spheres, and a degree of personal aspiration which precluded that tendency to "show and frivolity" the proponents of women's higher education always deplored. The ideal was described in a memorial address given by Emma Willard's daughter-in-law and successor as principal at Troy when she said that her predecessor had shown "that young ladies are capable of learning those intellectual subjects which discipline their minds, train

80

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

their reasoning powers, strengthen and elevate their characters, and make them more permanently attractive than when educated by light and trivial studies." (25) A handful of Troy pupils left some record of what they thought the long term influence of the institution and its founder upon them had been. A number who replied to the questionnaires sent out in the 1890's responded with long letters, and others, even in brief answers, threw some light on how they recalled the experience. Still others, simply by describing their lives, inadvertently bore witness to the kind of strength of character which Troy reinforced. What stands out in most of these records is the great importance of Willard's own personality in providing her pupils with a new image of what woman could be. One, for example, had travelled with her on a steamboat in 1842 and described the experience: Willard had inquired "what object in life I had in mind. . . " "She inspired me with a self-respect and dignity new tome." (26) The editor of Mrs. Emma Willard, and Her Pupils was surprised at the outpouring of information about events which had occurred so many years before. " . . . Mrs. Emma Willard's influence is immortal. I am surprised to note even in my sequestered life that I am continually coming upon new clues that lead out to a scholar of the old Seminary . . . " (27) The same woman remarked that she had been "mentally reinvigorated in this daily intercourse with teachers and girls who were once such important factors in my life." (28) Teachers described their schools which had been modelled on Troy and indicated that they had tried to follow Emma Willard's example as closely as possible. The nephew of a long-dead woman wrote that his aunt had frequently spoken of the "influence exerted on her life and the lives of other pupils by the training they had received under Mrs. Willard's supervision." (29) Several correspondents spoke of being rejuvenated by the call to write about their school days, others referred to the deep impression made upon them by the Saturday morning talks which had been given by Mrs. Willard, Mrs. Lincoln, and later by Lucretia Hudson Willard, who succeeded her mother-in-law as principal of Troy. "My whole after life (to a certain extent) has been influenced by them," wrote one octogenarian; and another wrote: "indeed she was the grandest woman America ever produced." (30) One of the longest letters came from a woman who had spoken at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 on "Emma Willard and the Troy Female Seminary." She wrote not only of the influence of the school upon herself but of her perception of its far reaching social consequences: first, spreading the idea of intelligent study of geography; second, because of its emphasis upon "the importance of women in their own right;" third because of the pioneering teacher training and systematic study of

EDUCATION

81

pedagogy available there; fourth because of the great influence of Willard and her pupils on the development of the common school movement and finally because she felt that Willard's textbook, The Republic of America, did much "toward uniting people into a nation." (31) The daughter of another pupil from the 1820's reported that the Willard name had been a "household word" in her family. Another recalled a picture hanging in her home of "that much loved and honored teacher." (32) A pupil who had been in the first class, writing in a clear firm hand, noted that "Mrs. Willard was my ideal of perfection, she was the embodiment of everything that was lovely in both mind and body." "She taught with the enthusiasm of an originator, thus enkindling the enthusiasm of her pupils," said her daughter-in-law. The alumnae of Troy who survived into middle age and beyond include many examples of what the late nineteenth century called "new women." There was Carolyn Stickney, who, hearing that her brother was on trial for murder in Colorado Territory, came from England and "by personal intervention gained his acquital" and took him back to England for safekeeping. Mary Newbury Adams founded a society for the study of the arts and sciences in Iowa with the aim of educating the whole midwest, women and children in particular. Lucretia Willard Treat founded normal schools in Michigan, while Rebecca Stoneman cultivated her own orange grove in California. Adeline Morse Osborne, self-made geologist, gave her papers to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Jane Andrus Jones, widow, ran a large farm "in a very successful way." Miranda Aldis, trained in the law by her father, was her husband's legal assistant; Elizabeth Marshall managed a factory, Cornelia Whipple, wife of the Bishop of Minnesota, gave all her time to the cause of the Indians. Elizabeth Mather Hughes helped her husband run the Minnesota Chronicle, and Jane Bancroft Robinson took a Ph.D. in Zurich. Clare Cornelia Harrison wrote a well known history of French painting, Lucy Marsh dealt in real estate, Dr. Elizabeth Bates delivered 2400 babies without losing one mother "at the time of delivery," but she added, in the interest of accuracy, she had "lost some cases from diseases incidental to the lying-in-period." Charlotte Henry worked to improve conditions for the freed slaves; Harriet Maria Pettit House translated books into the Siamese language; Sara Seward, seventeen years out of school, undertook medical training so she could become a medical missionary; Sophie L. Hobson taught English to Spanish speaking youngsters in California. The testimony runs on and on, often in the copperplate handwriting Emma Willard had insisted they leam in the interest of effective communication. Each one in her turn was an example to the young. The fact that the biographical committee, working twenty years after the most recent boarding pupil had left the school and seeking to find others whose school days were anywhere from seventy to thirty years

82

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

behind them, was able to secure more than 3500 responses was itself some evidence of the strength of the Troy tie. So was the fact that so many children and grandchildren, filling our questionnaires for longdead alumnae, remembered the significance mothers and grandmothers had attached to their schooling. Many of these descendant« spoke of the women's intellectual interests. "She [a deceased mother] was a woman of scholarly tastes who read Greek and Hebrew," or, another, "My mother was possessed of greater general information than anyone I almost ever knew." "She keeps herself in touch with the questions of the day and is fond of intellectual pursuits," wrote another. (33) A pupil of the 1850's was said to have read Caesar for recreation, and to have kept up her studies in art and modern languages till the last week of her life; another was recorded as "an authority on questions of history, geography and politics." Perhaps one of the most significant comments came from the daughter of an 1829 graduate: " . . . her pupils and their daughters scattered over the wide world revere her name . . . " (34) It may be that one of the delayed effects of the Troy experiment, if we could measure it, would be found in the educational expectations among the daughters of the early pupils. Of course such evidence must be interpreted with care. Obviously, a woman who felt very much attracted to Troy would be likely to write a detailed response to the questionnaire; children who remembered such attachment would be likely to take the trouble to reply. There was certainly a process of self-selection on the part of the women who chose to go to Troy. These fragments do bear witness, however, to the beginning of a new personality type, the educated woman who was not ashamed of learning and who would inevitably have a wider notion of what the world had to offer than her sisters who had not been encouraged to read widely or to think for themselves. (35) Another way of examining the effects of the Troy experience is through some statistical analysis of the biographical material collected in the 1890's. This analysis is still in a preliminary stage but the early findings are suggestive. (36) Figure I represents a rough systematization of some of the data into what I have called a Life Cycle Table. Several rather striking things emerge from this table: the rather high proportion of the women who remained single, particularly among those who were at school after 1840. For comparison we may look at the figures for all American women born between 1835 and 1855, of whom between 6% and 8% never married. (37) When this fact is added to the rather small families of Troy women, compared to those of the average of all U.S. women, a startling contrast emerges. Among Troy women who left school between 1852 and 1863, 21.2% had only one child, compared to 10.6% of New York women bom between 1836 and 1840, and 7.8% of all U.S. women.

83

EDUCATION

a? CO 2 ο

S o S n n a ' i i ο U) - ID CO r) ^ Η pi CO η π

«r». Ν aß SP in 1 Ifi Μ r Γ-» CO

8

Φ

C βk2 £ υ Ό ο

ο ο •s s «-

σ> Ε ο α

ae C O (Ν

R (3Ο

8 (Ν

aR as CO φ CN co οο — co *~' in S CO

äß CN CO CM aR m — co —' CN rO) CO co CN · -

aR «κ 9 r(0 Ν tf) in u)

g CO

ο

ίC

α> .8 £ Ε ο ϊ ί •= •ο ·5

§

c ?

? ο ο 5 ° δ •S 8. φ ·— a· r ΐ 1 — Ε 8 € 5 'S ® it w « β * α ^ (Αα Κ « « I s η t 5 ΐ ·. a Ε 1s 1ο ° c ε IS IΞI ο. ο «- I f 8> - ® £ε —ΐ 2c> »-οt c β Ό 8 δ | ψ3 : € 2 3 il > ο •α> ει- 8 Μ S c β ° ο α ο. έ 2 * " "2 Κ c a -π · Ο .s « c rt ® c $Ζ* s2 ! ι Ό "ft κ. Ε 0 8 I § ο Φ Ό Ό Ό φ C I.Οίt -ο2.-ο? •ο - -ο «ο .c c » 2 « * JR 5.$ ζ ε Ι Ε I* u.3 Π Λ ü i i
elieved that Indians were indeed inferior. Students were treated as substandard and as outcasts. Promises made to students that once educated and trained they would obtain employment and status in American society proved patently misleading. Few rewarding j o l s were available in white society, and status was an impossibility.

253

EDUCATION

Guest Editorial

The Impact of Black Women in Education: An Historical Overview Bettye Collier-Thomas W e salute the Journal of Negro Education for its a p p o i n t m e n t of Dr.

Faustine C. Jones as its first female editor and for its decision to devote the 1982 Summer Yearbook to the subject of black women. Focusing upon the topic, "The Impact of Black Women in Education," this issue includes articles and essays that discuss the historic and contemporary involvement and contributions of black women in the A m e r i c a n e d u c a t i o n a l s y s t e m . The Journal of Negro

Education

has a long and distinguished history of disseminating, through its publication of articles and research, a vast amount of knowledge which delineates ideas, issues and developments of importance to the understanding of black education. This yearbook continues that tradition. Education has persisted as one of the most consistent themes in the life, thought, struggle and protest of black Americans. It has been viewed as a major avenue for acquiring first class citizenship. There is a large body of research that takes into account the educational experiences of Afro-Americans. Most of this research is negative and tends to focus upon black people as victims, emphasizing their deficiencies and differences in comparison to whites. There is no major scholarly work that comprehensively traces and evaluates the history of black education in America from the Colonial period to the present. There is no published general history of black women in America which would provide a context for analyzing and understanding the overall experiences and accomplishments of black women in the black and white society. Apart from the biographical sketches of a few major black female educators and several monographs that survey black female graduates, there are few scholarly articles and essays, and there is no book that documents the history of black women in American education. Black female educators such as Mary McLeod Bethune, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Lucy Laney, Fanny Jackson Coppin and Nannie Helen Burroughs are mentioned in some Afro-American history sources Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 51, No. 3 (1982) Copyright ® 1982, Howard University.

254

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

a n d in s o m e i n s t a n c e are receiving attention in theses a n d dissertations. W h a t h a s b e e n " t h e impact of black w o m e n in e d u c a t i o n ? " To w h a t extent w e r e blaci: females e d u c a t e d prior to a n d after the Civil W a r ? W h a t vocational choices h a v e b e e n available to black w o m e n at d i f f e r e n t p o i n t s in history? If they chose e d u c a t i o n , w e r e they well r e p r e s e n t e d at all levels of teaching a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i o n ? To w h a t extent h a v e racism a n d sexism limited their e m p l o y m e n t and a d v a n c e m e n t in e d u c a t i o n ? Are there d o c u m e n t a b l e differences in the historical experiences of black w o m e n as s t u d e n t s a n d educators as c o m p a r e d to black m e n a n d white w o m e n ? W h a t black w o m e n d i s t i n g u i s h e d t h e m s e l v e s as f o u n d e r s , educators, a n d administrators? Is there a n y e v i d e n c e that black female e d u c a t o r s d e v e l o p e d a p h i l o s o p h y of e d u c a t i o n w h i c h w a s distinctive from that of black males, w h i t e f e m a l e s a n d w h i t e males? H a v e black female educators b e e n c o n c e n t r a t e d in u r b a n or rural areas, public or private instit u t i o n s ? H o w did their p h i l o s o p h i e s impact u p o n their goals, aspirations a n d a c h i e v e m e n t s ? This list of q u e s t i o n s is by no m e a n s exhaustive; h o w e v e r , it s u g g e s t s s o m e of t h e q u e s t i o n s w h i c h must be a d d r e s s e d prior to t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of a c o m p r e h e n s i v e scholarly w o r k o n this topic. It is h o p e d that this yearbook will stimulate m o r e research o n this subject. While this publication d o c u m e n t s " t h e historical significance of black female e d u c a t o r s in t w e n t i e t h c e n t u r y America, b e y o n d the role of t e a c h e r , " it is i m p o r t a n t that w e establish to s o m e extent an historical context for u n d e r s t a n d i n g t h e very basic struggle in which black w o m e n h a v e b e e n e n g a g e d to acquire an e d u c a t i o n a n d to utilize that e d u c a t i o n as a professional. Like m a n y o t h e r areas of A m e r i c a n life, e d u c a t i o n h a s not b e e n free f r o m racism a n d sexism. Historically, black w o m e n h a v e s h a r e d with black m e n the discrimination a n d d e p r i v a t i o n that characterizes their s o j o u r n f r o m slavery to f r e e d o m . T h e y h a v e s h a r e d with white w o m e n s o m e legal proscriptions w h i c h h a v e limited their access to public institutions. H o w e v e r , d e s p i t e t h e c o m m o n problems, their historical experie n c e s in every area of A m e r i c a n life h a v e been in very specific ways d i f f e r e n t f r o m that of black males a n d white females. This " O v e r v i e w " will explore s o m e a s p e c t s of the history of black w o m e n in e d u c a t i o n a n d p r o v i d e an historical b a c k d r o p for t h e m o r e detailed a n d incisive essays that a p p e a r in this issue. The history of black e d u c a t i o n in America begins with the struggle of a n t e b e l l u m slaves, w h o w e r e willing to risk their lives to learn how to read a n d write. As slaves w e r e m a n u m i t t e d a n d frequently moved f r o m rural to u r b a n areas, they w e r e a f f o r d e d m o r e opportunities to acquire a n e d u c a t i o n . S o u t h e r n states s e l d o m m a d e provisions

EDUCATION for the education of free blacks. In some northern states, free blacks were s lowed to attend integrated sabbath and public schools, and were enrolled in Latin grammar academies. In some communities, free blacks established secular and non-secular institutions which offered courses similar to those taught in white institutions. Some families hired private tutors to teach their children or sent them to one of several private academies available to members of their class. A large number of free blacks, as apprentices, were taught reading, writing, and arithmetic. Antebellum free blacks, like whites, held the traditional views concerning the proper roles and functions for women in the society. The prevailing thought, at least until the late nineteenth century, was that a good education for a woman of any color or rank in life consisted of teaching her to read and write. The major role of a woman was that of wife and mother. The prescriptive period literature reinforced this view. Even though, historically, proportionately more black women than white women have had to work outside the home, possession of academic degrees was not a necessary criterion for employment in the majority of occupations available to them. Unlike white women, black women had no real status in the teaching profession until the late nineteenth century. With so few opportunities available to black men, the areas of teaching and preaching came to be dominated by black males. Some black females operated private schools and a few taught in coeducational institutions; however, the majority of black schools were kept by males. It was only in the last decade of the nineteenth century that black women became a major force in the segregated educational system of the South. After 1900 the ranks of black female teachers swelled as more black women were educated and as more jobs became available, particularly in the rural areas. In 1890 the United States Census identified 15,100 black teachers and professors in colleges. Of that number 7,864 were female and 7,236 were male. It was at that date that the number of black women in education began to exceed that of black men, a trend that has not been reversed. In 1900, out of a total of 21,267 black teachers, there were 13,524 black women and 7,734 black men. And, by 1910, there were 29,772 black teachers, over two-thirds (22,547) of w h o m were women. After 1890 fewer black men chose teaching as a career choice because of expanded employment opportunities. More black males were pursuing professional careers in religion, medicine, journalism, law, government service and the theatre. 1 'U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Negro Population in the United States 17901915 (1918), pp. 508 and 526.

255

256

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES From 1865 to 1900, educated blacks interested in careers in Education, had several options. They could seek a position in urban public institutions which were mainly elementary and grammar; teach in the developing black normal schools, colleges, institutes and industrial training schools; set up their own schools; or teach in the rural South. As diverse as these options appear, racism and sexism were factors in the determination of where black males, and4 especially black females, could work. Until the mid to late 1880s black teachers found it extremely difficult to acquire teaching positions in black public schools, since a large number of these institutions employed white teachers only. When the white teachers were removed, it was customary to replace them with male instructors. As late as 1920 some states legally restricted married women from teaching in public schools. Many black institutions of higher learning had white presidents, a high proportion of white male and female faculty members, some black male professors and a few black women. If black women were fortunate enough to acquire teaching positions, they were usually found teaching in rural schools and were paid less than white teachers (male or female) and black males. 2 T e a c h i n g s t a n d a r d s and credentialing p r o c e d u r e s varied throughout the country. In some well established northeastern cities, where the first black high schools were established, college degrees were required for teaching the higher grades. Until the late 1930s, and in some cases as late as 1950, it was possible to teach in elementary schools with a high school diploma or in high scho'ols with a normal school certificate. This was particularly true in the rural South. Since most black public high schools were established after 1910, many black colleges maintained high school departments that offered equivalent training. 3 In fact, as late as'1910 the majority of black graduates from colleges and universities received certificates from the normal schools, which trained secondary school graduates to become teachers. There were some black women who obtained a high level of education prior to 1900. In the antebellum period, parents who could afford it sent their daughters to institutions such as the Baltimore-based St. Frances Academy, Oberlin College in Ohio; the 2The Southern Workman, May, 1886, p. 59. There are numerous sources that document the pay scale discrimination which was so prevalent in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Public school directories, the annual reports of the U.S. Commissioner of Education and state educational reports all attest to this discrimination. T h e r e were few black high schools established prior to 1910. In 1910 the U S. Commissioner of Education cited only 141 in the United States. Also, see. W. Ε. B. DuBois, The Common School and the Negro American, Sixteenth Annual Conference of the Negro Problems held at Atlanta University, May 30, 1911 (Atlanta: Atlanta University Press, 1911).

EDUCATION Washington, D.C., Myrtilla Miner Academy for Girls; and th Philadelphia Institute for Colored Youth. Following the lead of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania (1854) and Wilberforce University in Ohio (1855) other black colleges, universities and industrial schools were established after 1865. The development of these institutions, and the integration of some white colleges, provided greater opportunities for black men and women. By 1920, there were over 100 black institutions of higher learning to which women were admitted. At least three of these were known as being exclusively for black women: Scotia Academy, Spelman, and Bennett. These schools were often compared with Wellesley, Vassar, Smith, and other white women's colleges; nevertheless, there was great concern among educated blacks about the type of training available at the black female institutions. Their curriculums contrasted sharply with that of white women's colleges in that the majority of courses in the black institutions were designed to meet the practical needs of the black community rather than provide a classical education. Black young ladies were trained as teachers and homemakers. During the last 90 years, black women have consistently moved into the teaching profession. Today, they predominate in black elementary and secondary schools as teachers. At the kindergarten and elementary level they hold most of the administrative positions. Beyond the junior high school level, they hold few policy making and managerial positions. The majority of high schools have male principals; the majority of school boards, state departments of education, superintendences and other secondary and administrative positions are held by males. At the college and university level, there is an even more significant decline in the numbers of black women in the tenure ranks as professors and in the administrative positions as departmental and divisional chairpersons. They are almost non-existent at the top levels of academic administration. Currently, there is one black female college president and at least three black female vice-presidents. This historical overview and the articles and essays in this yearbook point up the need for a more critical examination of the "Impact of Black W o m e n in Education." There is no dearth of primary and secondary sources available for examining the historical and contemporary röle of black women as students, as educators and as administrators in public and private schools, colleges and universities. School records, catalogues, and general publications; government surveys and reports; local and state school board reports; denominational records and histories; directories, yearbooks and encyclopedias; newspapers and periodicals; biographies, autobiographies and general and school histories; manuscript collections

257

258

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

of black and white educators; and the collected papers of black leaders are representative of the diverse materials available for research on the educational experiences of black w o m e n . Oral history interviews are useful for documenting the more recent history. T h e history of black women in education offers valuable insights into the larger role played by women and blacks in the struggle for racial and sexual equality. It illuminates the extent to which the black community was involved in the struggle to improve and "uplift" the masses. Among the many volumes describing aspects of the education of women and blacks, few have consistently emphasized and documented the extensive self-help engaged in by black Americans. We are aware of the efforts of white organizations and institutions such as the American Missionary Association, the Freedmen's Aid and American Baptist Home Mission Society, and the Slater, Rosenwald and Phelps-Stokes Funds, but little recognition has been given to the efforts of black religious denominations, fraternal organizations, and other social service agencies in the black community. Scholars are just beginning to explore the extensive contributions of black clubwomen to the development of community institutions. Many of the black women who distinguished themselves as educators worked with local and national women's organizations. In order to determine more fully the impact of black women in education, we must know more about who they were and what they did, as well as the issues and movements that characterized the different periods of time during which they lived. T h e list below is suggestive of just a few black women whose contributions need to be studied and fully documented. Some of these women are better known than others. A few have received some scholarly treatment; however, it is still extremely difficult to find scholarly book-length publications on either the women or the work they accomplished. Researchers can make a contribution to the professional literature by focusing ort the accomplishments of these black w o m e n in education, as well as on those of their younger counterparts. Women Baldwin, Maria L.

Area(s) of Note Outstanding educator and orator, served as principal of an integrated school in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Becraft, Maria

An antebellum school teacher in Washington, D . C . , w h o b e c a m e a n u n in the Baltimore-based Oblate Sisters of Providence and under the auspices of this order helped to found the St. Frances A c a d e m y , a noted seminary for black girls.

EDUCATION Women

Area(s) of Note

Bethune, Mary McLeod

Outstanding educator and organizer. In 1904 she founded the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School which evolved into a four-year college known as BethuneC o o k m a n College. Also f o u n d e d the National Council of Negro Women.

Booth, Mattie

In 1884 she opened a school for black women in Selma, Alabama.

Bowen, Cornelia

A graduate of Hampton Institute, in 1888 she became the first principal of Mt. Meigs Institute located near Montgomery, Alabama. This was a noted rural school for black children.

Bradshaw, Susannah

In 1841 she opened a school for black girls in Boston, Massachusetts.

Brown, Charlotte Hawkins

Outstanding educator and organizer. In 1902, she founded Palmer Memorial Institute, initially a rural grammar school which emphasized agricultural and manual training. By 1925 it was recognized as an outstanding preparatory school offering secondary and junior college courses.

Burroughs, Nannie Helen

Outstanding educator and organizer. In 1907 she founded the National Training School for Women and Girls. Located in Washington, D.C., this non-sectarian school offered diversified training at the secondary and teacher training levels.

Coppin, Fanny Jackson

Outstanding educator, lecturer and writer. In 1865 she became the first black woman graduate of Oberlin College. From 1869 to 1899 she served as principal of the Philadelphia Institute for Colored Youth.

Deane, Jennie

In 1893 founded Manassas Industrial School in Virginia.

Dicket, Sarah A.

In 1876 founded in Mississippi a female seminary for black girls.

Douglass, Sarah Mapp

Outstanding antebellum teacher, lecturer and writer. Beginning in 1853 she taught for over thirty years at the Philadelphia Institute for Colored Youth.

260

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES Women

Area(s) of Note

F e r g u s o n , Katy

In 1793 established a school in N e w York for poor children, black and white.

Kenriard, Lucretia

In 1914 appointed supervisor of Colored Schools in Caroline C o u n t y , Maryland.

Laney, Lucy C.

O u t s t a n d i n g educator, in 1886 she founded the Haines Normal and Industrial Institute in Augusta, Georgia. Beginning as a secondary school with a large elementary enrollment, by 1930 this institution was reorganized as a junior college.

M o t e n , Lucy E.

O u t s t a n d i n g educator, she served as principal of Miner Normal School of Washington, D . C .

Peake, Mary

Well-known for her educational work, in 1865 Mary Peake o p e n e d the first reading and writing school in H a m p t o n , Virginia.

Tuggle, Carrie A.

Outstanding educator and organizer. In 1903 she founded the Tuggle Institute in Eufaula, Alabama to educate black boys and girls.

W a s h i n g t o n , Georgia

A graduate of Hampton Institute, she founded the People's School in Alabama and worked with Mt. Meigs Institute.

Bettye Collier-Thomas*

*Dr. Collier-Thomas is director of the National Archives for Black Women's History and the Mary McLeod Bethune Memorial Museum, institutions of the National Council of Negro Women, Washington, D C.

261

EDUCATION

Young Women and the City: Adolescent Deviance and the Transformation of Educational Policy, 1870-1960 MICHAEL

W.

SEDLAK

The accustomed procession of fallen ones, with its familiar types, has halted at our doors. T h e waif, the drunkard's daughter, the pretty weak one, the child with inherited taint, the lover of fine dress and of ease,—all these, helpless and ignorant, worsted in the conflict with sin, trampled and crushed in its mire, often only the faint hope of a something better with us, they hardly know what, holding them back from suicide,—all these have come, and to these we have ministered as best we could, in body and soul. Superintendent of Chicago's Erring Woman's Refuge, 1880

JOHNNY CARSON RECENTLY OBSERVED that he could tell that the new academic year was about to commence because the maternity boutiques on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills were having their "Back to School" sales. This comment nicely captured a profound, if still theoretical, transformation in the way Americans have responded to pregnant and wayward adolescents, for it was not until the late 1960s that they were permitted to attend school at all. Even then they were ordinarily segregated in isolated facilities to diminish their contaminating effect on other adolescents. An examination of the evolution of the education of "girls with special needs," to employ a current euphemism, must consequently consider the organization of private-sector programs and voluntary agencies to provide rehabilitative services for a population most Americans considered to be too degraded or demoralized to enroll in regular classrooms. Unlike the history of interest in wayward young men, policies directed specifically toward young women have focused principally on the issue of sexual misconduct. Male deviance has been viewed as more "acceptable" than Mr. Sedlak is Assistant

Professor of History of Education

at Michigan

State

University.

262

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

female deviance. Misbehavior on the part of boys has ordinarily been seen as non-sexual, normative, a phase which virtually all males go through and eventually grow out of and which will have few permanent serious consequences, either to the child or to society. In contrast, female delinquency, because of its sexual nature, has been treated as behavior that is dangerous, potentially contaminating, with enormous long-term consequences.1 Observers of rehabilitation programs for young men and women perceptively identified the impact of the public's understanding (or lack of understanding) of the experience of the two groups. As the Chicago public schools' Committee on Corrective Institutions commented. Boys "sow their wild oats" until they are sick of them and then they are forgiven by society, including the churches, and become laudable citizens. But along their paths may be the wrecks of girls whom society, including the churches, never forgives, lives hopelessly blasted, never even permitted in respectable homes, much less [thought] capable of making them.'

An analyst of the causes and nature of female delinquency argued that "a boy may be grossly immoral and his immorality does not always find him out and follow him; it is not so easy for the girl who has been immoral to be helped back to a normal place in society." 1 Within the deviant female population itself, a further historical distinction has been made between "redeemable" young women—courageous but unlucky girls guilty of perhaps a single mistake or possibly the victims of predatory men (the "fallen woman" concept)—and "unredeemable" women—hardened recidivists, older adolescents, or even prostitutes. This distinction, which has been expressed in different ways at different times, has had a significant impact on the organization of social and educational services for the group as a whole. A word of definition is in order. Although it is obvious that pregnant and delinquent adolescents comprise two distinct populations, each with its own character and needs, this study will suppress distinctions between the two groups because until recently most individuals and institutions devoted to serving the two groups treated them similarly. Agencies established to care for wayward girls, for example, often accepted pregnant women as well, and institutions founded to provide maternity services often evolved programs for delinquent, non-pregnant youth. This lack of discrimination resulted from the commonly shared assumption that female delinquency was sexual delinquency. Leaders in the movement to organize programs for wayward and pregnant young women further failed to distinguish between delinquent and dependent adolescents, a failure that is far more disturbing because it caused them to treat in the same manner children guilty of crimes and children who were themselves abused, neglected, and victimized. Juvenile and family courts routinely placed both groups in the same institutions. On those occasions when they suggested that delinquents and dependents be treated differently, they were usually unable to persuade the receiving institutions to carry out

263

EDUCATION

their requests. Because the courts depended upon the willingness of private agencies to accept and subsidize public wards, few judges or other civic authorities attempted to intervene in the treatment provided in those institutions, for they acknowledged that whatever services were offered were uniformly superior to those provided by the state reformatories and industrial schools. They did not wish, therefore, to jeopardize the care that private institutions were willing to offer court-placed youth. The following analysis of the history of the education of wayward and pregnant young women is based upon an examination of the evolution of a broad range of social and educational services established to serve youth in various circumstances since the late nineteenth century. Although the focus is on institutions serving wayward females, it should be emphasized that the social, organizational, and economic forces that shaped these particular programs affected the development of perhaps 75 percent of all urban youthserving agencies, including the scouts, neighborhood clubs, settlement houses, and counseling centers for emotionally disturbed children. The history of the institutional response to pregnant and delinquent young women can be conveniently divided into three principal periods, each with its own distinctive mode of funding, conceptualization of the problems of illegitimacy and deviancy, definition of prospective clientele, and strategies for prevention and remediation. The first period extends from the early nineteenth century through the 1920s; it was characterized by the establishment of evangelical residential homes and intermediate care facilities in the nation's largest urban centers. The second phase begins after World War I and ends during the early 1960s; it was characterized by the dramatic transformation of the evangelical agencies into highly professionalized clinical programs, a process governed by the leaders of the federated charities movement. The intellectual, ideological transformation (1920-1940) largely preceded the implementation phase (1930-1960). The final stage begins in the early 1960s with the entrance of the federal government into the provision of services for the young women, the eclipse of the residential maternity homes by the community-based comprehensive care centers and the eventual largely ineffectual efforts to integrate unwed mothers into regular classrooms during the early 1970s. Evangelism and the Maternal Bond,

1870-1930

Reformers associated with the city mission movement established refuges and shelters for fallen women and prostitutes in the nation's largest urban communities, initially during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the East and during the 1860s and 1870s in the Midwest. This essay's periodization reflects the timing of trends characteristic of organizations maintained in the larger midwestern cities. Purity crusaders and organized women's groups ordinarily founded these institutions to serve

264

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

women who were attempting to reform themselves voluntarily or who were disowned by their families or abused by their husbands for alleged sexual misconduct. 4 These private-sector, voluntary agencies were usually established in the vicinity of bustling commercial, business, and vice districts in marked contrast to the rural placements of public reformatories, state industrial schools, and asylums for adolescents during the nineteenth century. The private institutions had to be easily accessible to their prospective voluntary clients: weary prostitutes, young European girls seduced with promises of marriage and then abandoned, women turned out by their parents for sexual indiscretions, and an assorted collection of unmarried mothers from "feebleminded" domestics and factory hands to unfortunate college students. They all showed up on the refuges' doorsteps seeking lodging, medical care, friendship, anonymity, and the opportunity to recapture their self-esteem and respectability. Although from different backgrounds and circumstances, the vast majority shared a common trait: for various reasons their marketability as respectable wives had been diminished. They wanted the time and opportunity to plan for themselves and their children, if they had any. Almost without exception they hoped to avoid the fate that most people believed would inevitably befall women in their condition: a life of degradation and prostitution, interspersed with efforts to hold work in factories, laundries, or private homes. Coupled with the advantages of proximity to potential clients, virtually all of whom entered the institutions voluntarily, the urban placement of the refuges and shelters served several other functions. Their financial condition was closely tied to the cities. Since they were private ventures, the organizations depended heavily upon access to the machinery of urban charity fund raising that evolved over the nineteenth century. They could not have survived without being easily accessible to their trustees and volunteers. Municipal governments often contributed to the boarding costs of those few women temporarily placed in the refuges by local police departments, providing in many respects "city funding" for a "city service." Although unwed motherhood was certainly not an "urban" phenomenon exclusively, young pregnant unmarried women (and their shamed families) demanded anonymity, an advantage that the cloistered residential homes could provide. Hundreds of frightened and confused unwed mothers escaped their small towns and rural communities on trains bound for Chicago, New York, or some other large city, where matrons from organizations like the Y.W.C.A. directed them to nearby maternity homes and shelters, a process which is eloquently documented in the records of local travelers' aid societies. A loose organization of reformers associated with urban missions, "White Cross" clubs, purity societies, and the slightly cabalistic anti-vice "Committees of Fourteen" established in many cities, developed and enforced the definitions of deviance which came to shape the intake policies of the refuges and shelters. As Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, David J. Pivar, Mark T . Connelly,

EDUCATION

265

and others have demonstrated, the activities sponsored by these campaigns were often intensely anti-male. The reformers blamed the tradition of male aggression toward innocent and vulnerable women, whether they were on the job, in their rooming houses, looking for a "fella," or rebelling against their parents for denying them the modest independence they believed was their right as young adults. T h e crusaders brought their most vitriolic criticism against the dreaded white slavers, who swept through every city, village, and hamlet in their relentless search for prospective prostitutes. At least this is the impression left by the crusade's imposing literature, including lurid documentary exposes and titillating fiction, such as Reginald Wright Kauffman's House of Bondage (New York, 1910).5 Beyond the inchoate criticism of male aggression, the reformers identified a relatively precise list of problems they believed contributed directly to the degradation of young women in America. Reflecting prevailing nineteenthcentury social criticism, the crusaders' posture was distinctly anti-urban. A number of historians, including Carl F. Kaestle, Maris A. Vinovskis, and Eric H. Monkkonen, have recently relied upon quantitative evidence to suggest that urban and rural deviance occurred at surprisingly comparable rates. T h e crusaders and missionaries, however, acted on misinformed perceptions of the consequences of urbanization. Regardless of whether an urban social "crisis" actually existed during the nineteenth century according to any retrospectively applied objective index, the reformers universally attributed expressions of immorality, discord, and disorder to the deleterious effects of life in the cities.® Conditions in the densely overcrowded cities, the crusaders claimed, undermined established standards of public decency and led inevitably to an unprecedented increase in sexual misconduct. Even though historians have suggested that illegitimacy rates declined throughout most of the nineteenth century, Victorian social policies directed toward sexual conduct and attitudes were unremittingly vigilant and punitive. "Vicious amusements" alarmed the missionaries, who objected to the expansion of public theaters, nickel shows, parks, saloons, and especially dance halls, where many girls, observed more than one scathing indictment, went "whirling down the road to ruin in two-step time." Such haunts could be found in every neighborhood, tempting youth to debase themselves in countless ways.7 They probed and often deplored the nature of intimate relationships between young men and women free from the close supervision of cohesive, smaller communities, and the destructive effect of sexual competition, which caused many girls to become preoccupied with the importance of material possessions and personal appearance in the quest for companionship. T h e nation's first female juvenile court judge, Mary Bartelme of Chicago, perceptively commented that other women were needed to hear the cases of girls processed by the juvenile justice system because only they could understand "the taking of some face powder or articles of dress or finery" that a girl deemed "so necessary during the years when she feels fine plumage and

266

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNTIED STATES

good grooming are essential to her success in the 'game' of securing the attentions of the other sex."® Young "Angeline," who grew to adolescence in one of Chicago's thriving immigrant neighborhoods, early recognized that girls with "swell clo'es had fellas," and that it would be necessary to obtain the accoutrements of finery in order to "hang on to a fella." Angeline's inability to afford these things caused her to fall into a "panic of apprehension and distress." 9 Many young women in Angeline's situation were forced to find employment, because their alcoholic fathers squandered their meagre earnings from factory work in saloons; or because their homes were broken by death, divorce, or desertion; or because of grinding urban poverty; or even because they acknowledged that more money for "nickel shows and swell clo'es" meant companionship and relief from the drudgery of their working-class lives.10 T h e workplace contributed to the downfall of many young women. Unwanted pregnancies were, of course, the principal occupational hazard of both urban and rural domestic service. Intake records from virtually all of the shelters for fallen women listed some variety of household service following the names of 50 percent of the women they admitted and four-fifths of those whose occupations could be determined. These figures, mirrored in cities on both sides of the Atlantic, reflected not only the pattern of labor force participation by women but also the peculiar nature of the work itself and the aspirations of the women attracted to "the service," as John R. Gillis has so cogently demonstrated." Barbara Brenzel's analysis of the residents of Massachusetts' Lancaster School for Girls confirms the role of domestic service in the creation of wayward young women. 12 Like Angeline, many other adolescents found employment in factories, although ordinarily not at very good jobs, argued a journalist in the early twentieth century, because their "intermittant schooling . . . produced only a fifth-grade mentality," which under most circumstances could not "command high wages." Work in restaurants as waitresses or dishwashers was no better.13 Taken together, employment opportunities for young women provided few chances for consistent economic independence. Furthermore, the organization of work for many women made it extremely difficult for them to establish and maintain wholesome contacts with marriageable men. Many young women in these circumstances were driven by poverty and the desire for excitement and nice things into the degradation of soliciting for their livelihoods. The letters of Maimie Pinzer, the reformed prostitute from Philadelphia, to her friend and benefactor, Mrs. Fannie Quincy Howe, remain an eloquent testimony to the forces and aspirations that eased many women into and out of prostitution during the nineteenth century. This essay shall not attempt to reconstruct those forces in greater detail. Suffice it to say that the inability of young women, particularly but not exclusively immigrants, to satisfy their needs, whether basic or unrealistically extravagant, with the wages that their unskilled labor brought them, often started them on a route that led to an erring women's refuge or a Florence Crittenton Anchorage. 14

EDUCATION

267

Compounding the problems associated with poverty, corrupt amusements, and inadequate or unwholesome working conditions was the scarcity of decent housing for the many young women who arrived in the city each year from abroad or from the countryside. Reformers were concerned thatthegirls' lack of familiarity with the often rough relationships common to the city, combined with the potentially tragic consequences of unsupervised, autonomous living arrangements in rooming houses for young unmarried women, exacerbated the difficulties in which many young women found themselves. Urban missionaries attempted to undermine the debilitating consequences of these forces through a number of different campaigns. Tocombat the woeful ignorance of vulnerable young women often at the mercy of male predators, reformers distributed "advice literature" in many communities and attempted to organize public lecture series on personal hygiene and sex education. Reformers pressed private agencies to construct and manage decent residential facilities for unattached young women, to which organizations like the Y. W.C.A. responded enthusiastically. They also joined together to assure the passage of protective legislation restricting the employment conditions, and opportunities of women and children.15 They devoted a substantial portion of their effort, however, to establishing and expanding female guardian and rehabilitation institutions to serve those young women who already had been victimized. At least through the end of the nineteenth century, the residents were ordinarily young, white women in their twenties, approximately one-half of whom were pregnant, except in the purest maternity homes which served almost exclusively prospective, unmarried mothers. Although it is virtually impossible to determine the residents' social class because of the secretive nature of these institutions, intakerecords suggest that over the nineteenth century an increasing proportion were either immigrants or were the children of foreigners. Institutions rarely accepted black women; those that did customarily limited their number to fewer than ten percent. The majority of the third who were not employed were usually students.1* Placements in the homes and refuges were lengthy, because the process of reclamation was slow. During the nineteenth century the average commitment approached two years. Disposition records indicate that four or five year terms were not uncommon. The rules and regulations in the institutions were predicated upon the assumption that young women who violated society's moral codes governing sexual behavior were not to be trusted and required close scrutiny over every facet of their lives. Matrons read each girl's mail. When they were allowed at all, telephone calls were carefully monitored. Guests were usually not permitted during the initial year of residence; after that they were screened. Residents could not ordinarily leave the grounds unaccompanied by a staff member. The institutions' atmosphere derived from their function as shelters for weary and frightened young women wishing to preserve their anonymity and keep their condition a secret. Only first names and nicknames were used. Staff members rarely talked with the residents and

268

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

never amongst themselves about the girls' problems. Despite every effort to provide a cheery, homelike experience for the women, described in reports to benefactors each year, institutions were uniformly grim, severely restricted, and depressingly routinized. 17 Superintendents and trustees of the.institutions developed a comprehensive rehabilitation program that was based on the expectation that the young women upon release would either return to their families or be placed in honest, respectable positions, ordinarily in domestic service, especially if they were unwed mothers. They developed programs that would best fit the residents for domestic service, either in their own homes or with middle-class families. Rehabilitation was to take place on several fronts. Residents were exposed constantly to fiery exhortations and biblical tracts. Matrons required the young women to participate actively in intense evangelical religious services and expected them to brood about the consequences of their misdeeds. One observer commented that the homes were gloomy places, "where a girl's sin is kept ever before her, and where the girls alternate between low talk recounting their experiences, and being called together to listen to emotional religious appeals."1® Training for motherhood and domestic service complemented the pietistic services. Most residents assumed full responsibility for performing the basic maintenance operations of their institutions. Only women in the last stages of pregnancy or in poor health were excused from work detail: seven to ten hours daily in the kitchen, laundry, nursery, or cleaning the home. Residents of public reformatories engaged in similar occupational training routines, since it was expected that the young women would eventually be placed in domestic positions. Trustees or volunteers attempted to increase the residences' efficiency by holding evening classes in fine sewing, washing and mangling, dietetics and nutrition, table serving, and child handling. When the young women produced something in these sessions, the matron ordinarily sold the items locally in order to defray operating expenses. Occasionally, institutions would contract to take in laundry commercially or to provide sewing services to neighbors. 19 Most institutions introduced formal educational programs as the average resident's age fell over the nineteenth century from twenty-two to fifteen, largely the result of increased police vigilance in arresting younger girls "before the necessity [arose] for their conviction of actual sin." 20 Prior to their introduction in public schools, comprehensive domestic science curricula were organized in the refuges to develop marketable skills in inexperienced residents. One exasperated superintendent commented in 1876 that with few exceptions, "those who come to us have no industrial habits." 21 Many residents, others complained, were unfamiliar even with the common sewing needle, while the mechanical sewing machine was "as great a marvel to them as the locomotive to the Indian; their first attempt with it about as successful as his endeavor to lasso the iron monster as it swiftly rushes by."22

EDUCATION

269

Academic classes were added to fill what little time remained in each resident's crowded schedule. For the older women, instruction in culture, art, music, and gourmet cooking was designed to prepare them for service in the finest households. As the proportion of adolescents increased, the institutions were forced to introduce classes in the elementary subjects, primarily reading, but also in arithmetic and geography. Because many residents were of foreign birth or parentage and though often facile in their native languages were usually inept in propter English, grammar and spelling were stressed. Maimie Pinzer recalled of her term in Philadelphia's Magdelen Home that she assisted in the teaching of "girls of seventeen and eighteen their alphabets and simple sums." 25 As the institutions grew larger, pressure built to grade the educational programs by separating the older residents from the younger adolescents. Female doctors in the vicinity offered special lectures in "The Care of the Body" and other issues related to physiology and hygiene to the older girls, again before such features were incorporated in the public schools. Most trustees and matrons agreed with the superintendent of one refuge who stated that it was crucial to keep the older girls occupied after dinner with engaging instruction because "those who know what feverish pleasures once came to our inmates with the evening hours appreciate the necessity of filling them with an occupation which will erase the memory of the theatre and the dance hall." Academic classes for the youngest residents were expanded to an average of four hours daily. The response to the educational activities was heartening. The staff at one institution had found that, although the "impulse to mental labor is generally lacking" in the residents, after several months in their school the girls' progress was "remarkable." 24 The institutions changed gradually as the clientele became younger and more innocent. The superintendent of Chicago's Erring Woman's Refuge, which purity crusaders had established in 1863 to "assist and befriend a class of women by the world the most scorned, loathed and despised of all the children of God," observed by the end of the century that their shelter for reclaiming prostitutes and fallen women had become transformed into an industrial school for delinquent girls, a change symbolized by the increasingly large number of dolls she had to provide each Christmas." In response to the declining age of the residents, as well as to the intensifying child welfare and education movements during the Progressive era, the homes were increasingly knit into larger reform efforts. Public educational authorities began to accept responsibility for serving children with special problems. They were pleased that private agencies willingly cared for troubled and pregnant adolescents, since it would have been unthinkable to have brought these young women into the public schools. Yet boards of education were committed to help. In the largest cities they began to administer and staff many of the schools functioning within the institutions serving wayward and pregnant young women. In 1910, for example, the Chicago public schools provided three teachers, specifically trained to serve

270

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

the emotional and intellectual needs of the inmates of the Chicago Home for Girls and helped the matron refurbish the institution's languishing domestic science and practical arts programs, which suffered from a lack of modern equipment. To complement the existing courses in cooking, laundry, child care, and sewing, the Board's cooperation made it possible for the Home to maintain a relatively comprehensive business education curriculum similar to that available in the public schools, conducting classes in various office practices, stenography, bookkeeping, and typewriting. The Home's academic instruction was further strengthened, when it was made a branch of a neighboring elementary school, and the regular public system's curriculum was fully introduced. 16 The Board's representatives challenged the Home's traditional policy of forcing the older girls to work through the day and attend classes during the evening. They contended that the residents were too tired to pay proper attention to their studies and persuaded the matron to reorganize the school into day sessions, one division operated in the morning for the younger girls (ungraded) and one in the afternoon for the older adolescents (seventh and eighth grades). In addition, the most advanced students were permitted to graduate from the eighth grade, complete with diplomas and a ceremony. Recalling that character building was the primary objective of the institution, the trustees invited the Daughters of the American Revolution to organize a comprehensive "Americanization" program for the Chicago Home for Girls immediately after World War I. Most of the residents actively participated in the monthly programs consisting of patriotic speeches, essay contests, and plays, all of which were designed to "change the girls from lawbreakers into law-makers, through a better understanding of American history and a greater love for country."27 The Board of Education was pleased with the program. The Chicago superintendent announced that "while the progress in academic work has been great, far greater have been the lessons learned in self-control and obedience." By the early 1920s, the matron was beginning to report that the Home was endeavoring to hold the school's pupils "up to the same standards" as students in the nearby public schools. In 1926 the institution was made a branch of the Lucy Flower Technical High School, the city's manual training school established a decade earlier exclusively for girls. Graduates of the Home's program were apparently able to succeed outside of the institution. Symbolic of the gradually changing opportunities for the residents, the matron commented that one former inmate had obtained a position as a stenographer, another as a typist, and two had been able to transfer to one of the city's regular high schools, where they were doing admirably.21 The educational activities that the Chicago Home for Girls instituted during the Progressive era represented only the entering wedge of change. The Board of Education left virtually all of the city's other institutions to develop and implement their own educational programs, at least through World War !. As a result, most agencies operated more modest programs; their teachers

EDUCATION

271

were less professional and their facilities were older and occasionally outdated. Because the homes were not exclusively, nor even principally, "academic" institutions, their evolution did not correspond precisely to that of the public schools. They were shaped by economic forces and personal aspirations that rarely had any impact on public educational enterprises, at least through the first half of the twentieth century. Shifts in institutional policy more often reflected trends in the history of urban social welfare agencies than developments in educational practice. In addition to industrial departments, heavy work schedules, and domestic education, all designed to prepare the young residents for the responsibilities of motherhood, those institutions that admitted pregnant adolescents also relied upon motherhood itself as one of their most potent rehabilitation strategies. By 1870, virtually all of the homes enforced strict policies against permitting young women to place their babies up for adoption. Supervisors in the evangelistic institutions were convinced that nurturing the maternal bond was one of the most effective methods of guaranteeing that the residents would conduct themselves responsibly and avoid relapses once released from the homes. One superintendent commented astutely that "the appeal to which a girl is most ready to respond is the appeal of her coming motherhood." The slogan "You want to be your best for the sake of your baby," seldom fell "on deaf ears." The responsibilities and obligations of raising a child, particularly if the woman remained single, customarily demanded such devotion and dedication that few women had the energy, opportunity, or inclination to repeat their earlier mistakes.29 The trustees of the Erring Woman's Refuge had initially encouraged their residents to turn their babies over to local orphan asylums or foundling homes. By the 1870s, however, they vigilantly reversed this approach, claiming that "the practice of separating mother and child . . . is most pernicious to both. The unnatural perversion of maternal feelings caused by such separation, hardens and makes desperate an otherwise reclaimable woman." 50 After instituting strict anti-adoption policies, the trustees began to claim striking—yet highly suspicious—success rates in excess of 90 percent. The staff attributed the stability that their women achieved in their lives to "the sacredness of maternity . . . the sense of obligation to helpless infancy . . . the clinging arms around the mother's neck, the lisping of the sweetest name to childhood—mama," all of which developed the best qualities in the woman's nature. In a widely publicized letter to her former supervisor, one woman stated that her baby had given her "a purpose in life and keeps me good."' 1 Few of the leaders of the evangelistic movement, however, acknowledged the detrimental effect that the universal strategy of enforced baby retention might have had on the opportunities of the young women, particularly those who were placed in domestic service, whose access to respectable contacts and useful training was completely circumscribed by the organization of work in that field.

272

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

The continued commitment of the trustees and administrators to enforced motherhood as the fundamental solution to waywardness through the first third of the twentieth century was reflected in several confrontations between maternity home representatives on the one hand and obstetricians and delivery hospitals on the other. During the 1920s, for example, officials of Chicago's Florence Crittenton Anchorage, traditionally noted for their adamant opposition to adoption, were outraged when they learned that several physicians associated with a local hospital took advantage of "Josephine X.," a confused and frightened Anchorage resident, by pressuring her to give up her baby before the home could regain custody of the young woman and her child. The Crittenton authorities accused the hospital's staff of conspiring to steal their girls' children and turn them over to clients who regularly approached physicians about the possibility of adopting illegitimate infants. The Anchorage's trustees had good reason to be disturbed. A widespread black market in babies flourished throughout the twentieth century as doctors and lawyers commonly assisted young unmarried mothers by arranging for the adoption of their children by families willing to pay handsomely for the opportunity to acquire a healthy infant. These incidents also indicate that the homes' anti-adoption policies were never universally shared. Through the early 1930s, nevertheless, respectable and influential opinion makers and shapers agreed that both the mothers and their infants were better off, if the women could be persuaded to keep their children. 52 Not only was the process of reclamation long, it was expensive. Throughout the nineteenth century, private-sector institutions depended heavily upon individual contributions for the income to meet daily operating expenses. Donations of money and products by wealthy members of the boards of trustees ordinarily comprised three-fourths of an agency's annual income. The remainder was collected on "tag days" or was earned from the sale of services provided or items produced by the residents. During the 1870s and 1880s it became common for representatives of the urban mission movement to argue that "those who make them what they are" should help finance the shelters and refuges and successfully claimed portions of the fines that many cities collected from prostitution raids. After 1900, in Illinois and elsewhere, counties were required to contribute per diem expenses for each young woman committed by the juvenile or family court, an amount that encouraged the homes vigorously to enter the market in delinquent and dependent adolescent females, where pregnancy was not the obvious symptom. Such public funds soon came to comprise from 30 to 50 percent of the institutions' revenues. Partial public funding, however, had virtually no direct effect on the homes, except to the extent that such arrangements accelerated the admission of younger girls. 11 This, then, was the state of the social service and educational industry for wayward and pregnant young women outside of the public reformatories by World War I. Except for the declining age of the residents, and the introduction of modest educational programs, very little had changed over the 50 to 80 years since the institutions had been established.

EDUCATION

273

Professionalization, the Federated Charities Movement, and the Transformation of the Urban Missions, 1930-1960 The second critical phase in the history of the treatment of pregnant and wayward young women began during the 1920s and 1930s with the professionalization of social welfare and educational services. This process was accelerated and shaped by the emergence of the centralized federated charities organizations—the predecessors of the United Way—in most cities after World War I. Largely completed by the late 1940s, the transfer of power from the religiously evangelistic, voluntaristic trustees and staff to the professional welfare administrators resulted in the complete reorientation of many urban institutions, including agencies serving young women. The process of professionalization occurred latest and with least intensity in the residential maternity homes, principally because they served a relatively small and isolated clientele interested in anonymity, allowing many administrators to resist pressure to bring their institutions into conformity with accepted professional practices until the late 1940s. The transfer of power occurred because of a major shift after 1920 in the way private welfare services were funded. There had existed substantial interest in coordinating private-sector social welfare institutions in the late nineteenth century. This strategy led to the formation of local charity organization societies and even generated a movement to establish national associations. However, not until the second decade of the twentieth century, with the organization of the consolidated, centralized financial campaigns sponsored by local community chests, trusts, and funds, did a vehicle emerge for coordinating and planning welfare activities on the local level. Businessmen founded the centralized organizations to control both the management of solicitation campaigns, which always seemed to disrupt their firms' operations, and the process of allocating funds to agencies they considered most worthy of their benevolence.34 The federated charities movement, as this effort has come to be called, took two principal forms. Most cities established community "chests," which contributed 100 percent of the budgets of participating agencies, which in turn relinquished both their lists of contributors and the right to raise funds independently of the annual chest campaign. In several of the largest cities, including New York and Chicago, however, the movement evolved somewhat differently. Because of strong local traditions of influential and independent social service institutions, such as the settlements, it was impossible for the federated leaders to gain complete control of the participating private-sector agencies. They were forced, instead, to establish various "deficit funding" programs which provided only the difference between an agency's expenditures and the revenue it could generate on its own under the restrictive guidelines imposed by the fund-raising organization. The federated leaders, consequently, were not able to intervene or interfere in the affairs of participating agencies to the extent that was common in the chest com-

274

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

munities. Evidence drawn from the experience of " f u n d " cities, like Chicago, will therefore slightly understate the impact of the federated movement in most communities, since the monolithic chest structure permitted less latitude on the part of participating local agencies. In addition to organizing fund-raising campaigns to control solicitations, the federated leaders maintained planning and research arms to investigate social problems, evaluate agency performance, and determine annual allocation strategies. Called "councils of social agencies," or "welfare councils," these organizations rapidly became the most highly professionalized segment of the social service delivery system. Within the conservative constraints imposed by the volunteer businessmen and their wives, who managed the solicitation campaigns, professional social workers came to exercise substantial leverage and control over the processes of identifying local problems, developing and testing solutions, establishing and enforcing service priorities, and allocating funds to agencies whose practices they believed conformed to accepted professional standards. Without going into greater detail regarding the evolution and structure of the federated charities movement, suffice it to say that the radical shift in the pattern of funding social service institutions at the local level had an enormous impact on the missions, organizational procedures, staffing policies, programmatic strategies, and client admission criteria of the vast majority of the urban welfare agencies. This impact was particularly visible during the Depression of the 1930s, when many programs were threatened with financial collapse. In their effort to transform the evangelical institutions for wayward and pregnant young women into modern, clinical agencies, the leaders of the federated movement recognized that initially they would have to replace the matrons and volunteer staffs with professionally-trained social workers who had experience in psychiatry and the specific problems of emotionally disturbed adolescents. They understood that renovating the homes' social service and educational programs would be easier and more efficient after the installation of agency administrators who shared their understanding of professional issues and priorities, who would more agreeably accept pressure to employ psychologists, case workers, recreation specialists, special teachers and counselors. Or, in those cases where continued financial constraints prohibited the addition of many specialized staff, they expected to encourage the new superintendents to enter into purchase-of-service contracts with private consultants or other agencies. T h e federated leaders were remarkably successful in replacing the anachronistic matrons with professional case workers, whose commitment to their psychiatric, clinical model was just as fervent and evangelical as was that of the older matrons to their classical religious approach. This transfer of power was ordinarily achieved within five years of each agency's first application for federated funding. T h e case of Chicago's Florence Crittenton Anchorage is both representative

EDUCATION

275

and instructive. Reflecting a mounting concern over the treatment of unmarried mothers in the city, Chicago's Council of Social Agencies undertook a comprehensive evaluation of residential institutions in the area during the late 1930s. The Crittenton Anchorage was found deficient in virtually every aspect of its program and facility, and the Council began to refer young women elsewhere. A series of confidential reviewing committee sessions focused first upon the qualifications of the presiding superintendent, who the Council's investigators claimed had an extremely "hazy and undeveloped" understanding of the role that social casework services might play in the rehabilitation of unmarried mothers. When questioned regarding the fitness of this matron to remain at the Anchorage, the president of the board of trustees remarked simply that the woman was a widow with two grown sons and was not "man crazy." Complementing these attributes, the matron had eleven years of service as a public health nurse. It is clear from the transcriptions of the meeting that these revelations exasperated the Council members present, who later commented among themselves that the president "seemed to think that because [the superintendent] had worked as a public health nurse and had visited in family homes she was qualified to offer service to the girls in the Florence Crittenton Anchorage." Although the matron's nursing experience was valuable, the president was grossly mistaken, if she sincerely believed that the superintendent's modest medical background qualified her "as a caseworker." They complained that after "playing along with the home for six years," they "had gotten nowhere," and prepared a long list of serious deficiencies which they presented to the matron and trustees. A later report of subsequent meetings, however, indicated that the president was apparently unable to comprehend the criticism, since "in spite of this frank and clear statement," she "later asked again what seemed tobe the matter with the home." A financial crisis occasioned by World War II, coupled with some difficulty in leasing suitable quarters, forced the Anchorage's closing and delayed its renovation and reopening until the late 1940s. During this hiatus, the objectionable matron was replaced.35 The process of professionalization initiated and shaped by the federated charities organizations can be examined further in an episode involving the Park Ridge School for Girls, established in 1876 in Evanston as the Illinois Industrial School for Girls. A financial crisis precipitated by the Depression of the 1930s forced the School's trustees to apply to the Community Fund for assistance in 1936. Transcriptions of a meeting of the Fund's Reviewing Committee on Child Care Agency Budgets indicate that the professionals associated with the Council of Social Agencies demanded that the School employ at least one trained social worker before they could seriously consider the application for access to the Fund's resources. The Committee commented candidly that "in view of the inadequate social work program of this agency . . . no allocation be made . . . in 1937," and recommended that the Council's staff should provide the School with an analysis of its weaknesses and offer to assist the trustees in the process of improving the program,

276

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

"looking toward possible participation in the Community Fund in 1938." At a later conference with the trustees, the Council discussed the problems bearing on the inadequacy of case work services offered by the School. T h e Council's staff further argued strongly for the appointment of a professionally-trained case worker who understood their effort to rationalize welfare and educational services in the area and would cooperate in making the agency as efficient and effective as possible. Although the Park Ridge representative agreed to add salaries for two case workers to their amended budget application to the Fund, it is clear that they did so reluctantly. , s Shortly after the conference, the director of the Fund began to receive correspondence and telephone calls from interested influential citizens concerned with the Council's attempt to dictate personnel and intake policies to the School's trustees. Reflecting the opinion of most writers and callers, the president of a local engineering and utility corporation (and husband of one of the trustees), challenged the Council's representatives who apparently had informed the Park Ridge trustees that "unless the school employed a case worker, it would not receive any assistance from [the] Fund." He stated emphatically that "this ultimatum is an unwise one." Employing a social worker would radically distort the existing pay scales for the teaching staff and disrupt the principal educational responsibilities of the School. Hoping that the Reviewing Committee would allot the School "the comparatively modest sum" it requested, he concluded by adding that he had personally raised in excess of $75,000 for the Community Fund, and that his interest would be "materially affected by the manner in which the Park Ridge School for Girls is treated." Several days later, the Fund's director received a letter from the School's finance chairman, who claimed that hiring a case worker would completely transform the institution. She appealed to the director's sense of fair play by mentioning that "as we have lost many contributors through the demands on them from the Chicago Community Fund we will not know which way to turn if we are not to participate in the Fund." 5 ' Implicit in the allegations was the criticism that the federated organizations were simply using their leverage to create employment for their friends and colleagues by insisting that agencies hire professionally-educated case workers. The Fund's director responded to these letters by stating forcefully that "the Community Fund is not interested in providing jobs for social workers. We are not interested in providing jobs for anybody." They were simply interested in the "economic and social problems involved fn the proper care of homeless children." The federated leaders contended that they only aspired to bring effective services to the appropriate client populations. 38 The protest failed. Within a short time, after it was accepted by the Community Fund, the school expanded its staff to include professionallytrained social workers. By the early 1950s the school had added other personnel in psychology and recreation.' 9 Once acceptable administrators and staff members were recruited, the federated leaders moved swiftly and with little resistance to transform

EDUCATION

τη

virtually every other characteristic of the institutions. Relatively minor objectionable practices, such as having staff members read and censor all of the mail received or written by the residents, were easily modified. Excessive religious services were discontinued. Formal intake policies were written and enforced. Federated referral agencies, which surfaced to reduce duplication of services and to monitor client access to agencies which promised to be most effective in each individual situation, encouraged differentiation and specialization. Because few professional social workers believed that all girls suffered from identical problems or character defects, the intake committees had to prepare a comprehensive workup on each young woman to determine whether their institutions could best meet her specific needs. Committees relied upon extensive tests and evaluations conducted by local child study and welfare organizations, such as Chicago's Institute for Juvenile Research, before making their final decisions. The professional case workers next confronted the comprehensive rehabilitation programs characteristic of the evangelical homes and found them undesirable in virtually every respect. Traditional homes blamed both their inmates for being unable to handle temptation in a Christian fashion and men for seducing and deserting the young unfortunate victims. In their effort to protect the young women from heartache and melancholia stirred unnecessarily by forcing them to reconstruct the events leading to their downfall, the matrons avoided inquiring into the specific circumstances surrounding each resident's inability to deal conventionally with family stress and disorganization. T h e y encouraged women to forget their pasts and to approach the future with the confidence that both faith and motherhood would bring. A l l of the residents were in the same situation, with identical needs and similar futures. Trustees and matrons suppressed idiosyncratic problems in order to equalize their charges and to standardize solutions by stripping the residents of their individual experiences. In marked contrast, the modern, professional approach to adolescent pregnancy and waywardness stressed a case by case examination of each woman's particular experiences, the structure and character of her family, her economic circumstances, her psychological profile and intelligence level, and the specific problems that led to her placement in the institution. Armed with this data, the staff, in consultation with local experts in psychiatry and mental health, attempted to devise a unique therapy for each individual. T h e professionals substituted a medical model for the traditional moral approach. "Maternity homes are not prisons for culprits," argued one social worker dedicated to the care of young women, "but shelters and schools for the crippled." Girls were not to be admitted "because of their sin, but because of their need." Rehabilitation was to be a life-long process, undertaken with the expectation that social work and psychological counseling would be required by each resident on a regular basis after her release.40 The professionals' direct onslaught began with a campaign to reverse traditional practices of training for motherhood and domestic service and of

278

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

baby retention as the principal solution to adolescent pregnancy and social maladjustment. The social workers were especially disturbed by the policy of enforced motherhood, which they were convinced undermined whatever opportunities the residents might ever have for further education or economic independence. They maintained that it was necessary for the young women to be unencumbered and able to relocate, which were impossible if they continued to care for their babies. It was vital to avoid placing young women in domestic service after their release from the institutions. Social workers were opposed to continued domestic and family placements. They recognized that it was often the particular nature of "the service" that caused many cases of adolescent motherhood to begin with, a belief that was eloquently reflected in most institutions' intake records. Furthermore, domestic service severely diminished the opportunity of a young woman to become successfully integrated into mainstream society. One professional social worker explicitly articulated this argument, perceptively observing that domestic service was "not a solution" to the problem of unwed motherhood; indeed such work was often the problem itself. Although there were, of course, examples of successful placements with honest families, there were far too many cases as the one in which a girl "became pregnant for the second time, the father of her child being ft nineteen year old son of the family." In addition, since the 1920s, employment opportunities in domestic service had declined substantially. 41 Based on these assumptions, the social workers approached the trustees with their criticism of anti-adoption policies. Representatives of Chicago's federated organizations challenged the national Crittenton practice of forcing young mothers to keep their babies and remain with their children in the homes for months or years after delivery. T h e president of Chicago's Anchorage stated candidly that the Crittenton organization believed that, "if the girls do not stay in the home and take responsibility for their babies, they would be apt to return 'to their old haunts and habits' and it would be too easy for them to have another baby." The social worker employed by the federated organization disagreed, countering that it was the experience of the social agencies that forcing the mother to keep her baby did not make "her refrain from having other children." 42 T h e anti-adoption policies were reversed within a few years, an effort facilitated by the presence of social workers and psychologists in the residential homes. The new director of the Crittenton Anchorage recognized the flaws in traditional practices and reiterated the fundamental reconceptualization of the question of baby retention in a policy statement of 1951, in which she argued that "the baby must be given in for adoption for [the] protection of himself and [the] mother." Her predecessors had mistakenly assumed that "the parental tie must not be broken as every life is according to the Divine plan. Also, that the child's influence would be a deterrent to the mother's behavior in the future." Each individual situation had to be evaluated and the young mother "helped to make her decision on the basis of her potentiality for her own future development and the security she might be

EDUCATION

279

able to offer the child in his adjustment to life." The new policies, she stressed, represented the case workers' point of view.45 The reversal's impact can be seen statistically in the pattern of relinquishment. In contrast to the years immediately before World War II, when 80 percent of the young mothers had kept their children, the vast majority of the Anchorage's residents released their babies for adoption by the early 1950s. Of the 110 or so babies born each year, 75-85 were placed for adoption. Virtually all of these were taken from their mother at birth, before she had left the hospital. The Anchorage even experimented with closing its nursery entirely because of the mounting expense associated with staffing a facility that was underused.44 In many of the progressive institutions, technological and policy changes combined to reduce the time each young woman spent on domestic tasks from seven or more to three hours daily. The staff made valiant efforts to fill the residents' free time with therapeutic and constructive informal educational activities. Individual psychiatric and group therapists conducted counseling sessions which consumed a half-dozen hours of each girl's time each wtek. Recreational supervisors were hired to organize classes in crafts, including ceramics, knitting, sewing, leather work, and cooking, as well as entertainment and physical education programs. Volunteer teachers were often invited to offer additional courses in art, music, and "charm." T o prevent further problems with unwanted pregnancies, local agencies committed to encouraging hygiene and sex education, such as Chicago's Association for Family Living, provided lecture series at many institutions. Executive directors appealed regularly to their trustees and supporting federated campaign organizations for funds to augment their social-recreational programs. They worried that without additional trained staff, there would be "too much time for being at loose ends, for gossiping and exchanging fears and misinformation; too much aimless card playing; and too much going to the movies out of sheer boredom," because "many of the residents have no self motivation and their interest is short spanned."45 For the increasing proportion of residents in these institutions who were not pregnant but were judged emotionally and socially maladjusted and placed by the juvenile court, families, or other private agencies, the homes attempted to improve formal training and academic opportunities. Curricula comparable to that provided in the public schools were expanded and offered by teachers paid for by boards of education. Some institutions entered into agreements with correspondence and special vocational schools, such as the American School of Beauty Culture, to provide further opportunities for their residents. The professionals were convinced that occupational placements for the young women upon release should be made in business establishments rather than in domestic service, which by the 1930s attracted a rapidly decreasing proportion of the inmates and contributed far less seriously to the residents' condition. From the offices, factories, and restaurants they came, and to the offices, factories and restaurants they were increasingly returned.

280

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

On the advice of the federated professionals, the traditionally "closed" residential institutions experimented with less stringent and inflexible rules and regulations governing their girls' opportunities outside of the facility unchaperoned. In 1944, the Chicago Home for Girls, for example, compromised its traditional closed policy, instituted because most of its residents had a highly developed "runaway habit." Several of its most accomplished, trustworthy girls were permitted to attend a local high school. These young women were carefully selected. None had very serious emotional problems; the local schools would never have allowed difficult girls to attend their classes.46 The experiment failed. Although they were carefully screened, several of the girls, not surprisingly, ran away as soon as they were allowed out of the institution. Far more disturbing, however, was the response of the public school authorities. They refused to permit the young women to participate in any extracurricular activities, to be walked home from school, or to develop social contacts with boys. Interestingly, these specific proscriptions did not trouble the girls seriously, because they were never enthusiastic about revealing their address to their classmates for fear of losing their respectability by broadcasting their status in the community. More serious than these circumscriptions was the attitude of the teachers and principals, who did not handle the experiment gracefully or sensitively. Several girls were harassed by administrators and subsequently escaped to Tennessee and secured jobs in a hospital, writing to the director that "it seemed like we weren't good enough for them." Teachers often used their knowledge of the girls' circumstances as a threat, "not hesitating to do so in the presence of the class. "As a result of these experiences, the young women were withdrawn from the local schools and returned to the special programs operated within their own institution. 47 T o complement their formal academic and informal educational programs, most federation-funded institutions introduced elaborate casework and psychological counseling services. The professional staff's primary objective was to have the range of therapeutic alternatives tailored to the specific adjustment problems of each resident. "Every delinquent child is an emotionally disturbed child," wrote the Chicago Home for Girls' psychiatric consultant in 1944, and therefore was "entitled to be helped individually." By the 1940s many trustees aspiring to become associated with the federated campaigns had begun to stress the extent that their programs served the "individual" needs of each client, and the experience of their staff members in providing "individualized treatment." 48 This process of "medicalizing" the residential homes' rehabilitative approach by recruiting professionally-trained social workers and psychologists after the war paralleled a similar trend visible in the public schools during the 1940s. Various educational and auxiliary social service programs and institutions adopted sophisticated diagnostic machinery with which scientifically to screen potentially troubled children and efficiently to develop effective individual therapeutic strategies.

EDUCATION

281

The final stage in the process of transforming the evangelistic institutions, ithat of modifying selective admissions policies that historically had excluded Iboth minority and seriously disturbed women, was delayed until the federated leaders' efforts to establish and enforce professional standards and practices had been achieved. With the substantial migration of blacks to northern cities, and the increasingly apparent problem of illegitimacy rates among blacks eight times those of whites, pressure had been building since World War I for ihe expansion of services to accommodate this group. The professional social work community by and large avoided pressing local agencies to accept blacks, however, because in all likelihood the pietistic trustees and matrons would simply have closed their institutions, and the process of professionalization would have been brought to an abrupt halt. As the Chicago Council of Social Agencies' Committee on Illegitimacy (established in 1916) found during the 1920s, virtually all black unmarried mothers remained in the care of their families or friends and received whatever minimal obstetric and prenatal care they could from either local hospitals or midwives. Nationwide estimates agreed that probably fewer than five percent had access to social service or educational programs, whereas one-half of their white counterparts were admitted to relatively high quality residential institutions. There existed no adoption market for black infants, so almost without exception, black unmarried mothers kept their babies, to raise themselves or to be raised by relatives. 49 This situation disturbed social workers concerned with the disparity between services available to black and white youth. They were also discouraged by the embryonic cycle of poverty they felt was beginning to be transmitted from one generation of unmarried black mothers to another. The issue was regularly and sternly raised during the 1920s and 1930s, but with very little success. Matrons and trustees sincerely believed that black girls would not respond successfully in an integrated setting since both staff members and the white residents were "aggressive" toward members of other races. T o compound this inevitable clash, restrictive housing and land use covenants prevented many urban institutions from serving blacks. The explosive increase in the problem of unwed parenthood among Chicago's black population during the 1920s did generate some interest on the part of the professional welfare and educational communities in providing some form of schooling for the unfortunate young women. The public school social work staff and Chicago's force of truant officers (groups daily confronted with reminders of the debilitating impact of pregnancy on the opportunities of adolescents) approached the Chicago Urban League with a proposal to organize a special educational and child-care program for young pregnant black girls. The Urban League agreed to cooperate, and by early 1929 the Board of Education had established a separate day school at the League's "Model Apartment." During that first experimental year, eight pregnant adolescents or recent mothers received training in the morning in household duties, personal hygiene, and child-care. In the afternoon the girls

282

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

enrolled in more traditional academic classes. But, since the students were far behind in their studies, virtually all instruction was offered at the elementary level." Over the ensuing decade the program gradually expanded. The Board of Education introduced several specific classes in domestic science in which each student was required to make simple clothes for her baby. By the late 1930s, the Urban League project had been made a branch of the Moseley School, which was a special institution established a few years earlier for truant and wayward boys. The two dozen young women enrolled in the program also had access to special counseling and psychological services. Out of the 222 black students who participated in the League's project during its first eight years, fewer than 40 graduated from high school. Although no systematic follow-up studies were conducted, there is some indication that almost without exception every participant kept her child (or children since adolescents with multiple illegitimate births were accepted) and returned to her immediate family or close relatives. This modest but significant venture could not even have been undertaken without the cooperation of representatives of the schools, the black community, and the organized charity movement.41 The opportunities of young black women remained relatively constant until the 1940s, when the federated leaders began to press the residential institutions to integrate their programs. In Chicago, after failing to overcome a restrictive land use covenant enforced by an aggressive neighborhood property owner's association, the Welfare Council and Community Fund helped the local Crittenton Anchorage find new facilities in one of the few sections of the city left uncontrolled by restrictive leases. The Anchorage then reversed its traditional exclusionary admissions policy and developed a successful biracial program. The Council's success with the Anchorage was not representative of developments in other maternity homes, many of which simply closed their doors rather than admit black adolescents.** By the early 1960s, after several decades of intensive effort on the part of the federated organizations to shape the opportunities for pregnant and wayward youth, the entire residential industry had been radically transformed. Service had become highly professionalized. The institutions had also become prohibitively expensive. Increased public toleration of unwed parenthood among whites, and a concommitant inclination on the part of adolescents to keep their babies, spurred a movement away from maternity homes, which by the 1960s had become heavily committed to adoption. Increased access to effective birth control also helped to depress the markets upon which the homes had traditionally depended. A decline in the willingness of young unwed parents to marry during the 1960s, when coupled with discouragingly high adolescent pregnancy rates, increasingly alarmed the public. In some respects, however, pregnancy among young women had become less of a problem, or at least one that no longer required intensive isolated rehabilitative treatment out of the public's view. Adolescent emotional maladjust-

EDUCATION

283

ment became identified as a more serious social and health problem. Many residential facilities, rather than close their doors, reoriented their services toward other populations, especially emotionally disturbed adolescents who brought with them federal mental health and anti-poverty funding. Furthermore, professional social workers and psychologists began to stress the possible damage inflicted on the young women who were isolated in the residential homes simply because they were pregnant. Traditional support and demand for the institutions had eroded seriously. When the federal government began to explore various options for the care and education of delinquent and pregnant adolescents during the early 1960s, therefore, policy analysts recommended alternatives to the cloistered, costly, segregated residential institutions. Federal policies and financial assistance encouraged instead the effort to establish non-residential, community-based, comprehensive care centers, which provided a broad range of health, counseling, and educational services in an institution—particularly a public school—that could be conveniently located in inner-city neighborhoods, where demand was increasing. After more than a century of reluctance, the public schools became responsible for providing educational and social services to pregnant and wayward young women. As had happened on so many other occasions, the schools agreed to accept responsibility for the organization of these auxiliary programs principally because funds were provided by outside agencies.51 The external funding, however, virtually guaranteed that the young women would remain isolated in their separate "family living centers," or "schools for girls with special needs," depending upon the preferred local euphemism. Indeed, as was the case with many other "special" students, the girls became in effect more valuable to local districts if they were differentiated and separated from "normal" children in the regular classrooms. Since educators could isolate deviant children, including pregnant adolescents, in their own facilities funded by state, federal, and private-sector revenue, local tax income could be used to support fewer students in regular classrooms. The special facilities, therefore, could be established relatively painlessly. Administrators often had a direct economic interest in endorsing the efforts of educational and social service professionals who had built their occupational identities around the process of evaluating children and assigning them to special programs according to prevailing definitions of deviance. Advantages that accompanied the scientific diagnostic and differentiation processes, such as personalized attention and the opportunity to avoid the torment of children in regular classrooms, were achieved at an enormous cost. Social policy and juvenile justice analysts during the 1960s called attention to the way in which educational programs for deviant youth actually exacerbated the problems of adolescent alienation, frustration over lost opportunities, and delinquency. Many young women and their parents recognized that policies instituted to extend educational advantages to a group of children historically excluded from the public schools were unlikely to insure their full economic and social

284

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

integration. They brought successful lawsuits at the state level which cumulatively promised access to regular classrooms and full participation in the educational and social activities from which they had been barred, gains which were theoretically codified in Title IX of the 1972 Educational Amendments. Despite the judicial and legislative victories, however, school districts have continued to enforce exclusionary policies or at best to rely on counselors to divert the young women into the separate institutions. Special services that were introduced to alleviate the problems of these young women, and their male counterparts, have to a large extent ironically aggravated and perpetuated their condition. Despite the radical structural changes that accompanied the intervention of the federal government, it is possible that the actual treatment provided to these populations has not undergone a comparable transformation. A significant change occurred during the 1970s as public institutions came to serve a population for whom private organizations had been traditionally responsible. The consequences of this inversion in the pattern of care, however, remain largely unexplored. 54 NOTES I would like to express my gratitude to several friends and colleagues who provided assistance on this project: Alisa Birnbaum, Robert L. Church, Mary E. Janzen, Sue Levitt, Jeanne Peterson, Helen I. Reed, Dawn Russell, Karen Stainton, and Lynn Weiner. The National Institute of Education, through Contract No. 400-79-0017, supported portions oi the research upon which this paper is based. This interpretation does not necessarily reflect the opinions of either the N.I.E. or those individuals who may have contributed in any way to the production of this essay. 1. Although virtually all of the literature on the history of programs for wayward adolescents focuses on public-sector institutions. I have learned a great deal about the particular nature of female delinquency from the following: Steven L. Schlossman and Stephanie Wallach, "The Crime of Precocious Sexuality: Female Delinquency in the Progressive Era," Harvard Educational Review, 48 (February 1978): 65-94; Barbara Brenzel, "Lancaster Industrial School for Girls: A Social Portrait of a Nineteenth-Century Reform School for Girls," Feminist Studies, 3 (Fall 1975): 40-5S; Brenzel, "Domestication as Reform: A Study of the Socialization of Wayward Girls, 1856-1905," Harvard Educational Review, 50 (May 1980): 196-213; David J. Rothman, Conscience and Convenience: The Asylum and Its A Uernatives in Progressive America (Boston, 1980), pp. 261-89: Margaret Reeves. Training Schools for Delinquent Girls (New York, 1929); Marie Skodak, "Girls on Parole—And After," Journal of Juvenile Research, 22 (1938): 145-61; Patrick T. Murphy, Our Kindly Parent—The State (New York, 1974); Liz Harris. "Persons in Need of Supervision." New Yorker (August 14, 1978): 55-89; James C. Beane, "A Survey of Three Hundred Delinquent Girls," Journal of Juvenile Research, 15 (July 1931): 198-208; Estelle Β. Freed man. Their Sisters' Keepers (Ann Arbor, 1981). 2. Chicago Superintendent for Public Instruction, Annual Report for the Year Ending 19J4 (Chicago, 1914): 385, hereafter: Chicago Schools, Annual Report. 3. Martha P. Falconer, "Causes of Delinquency Among Girls," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 36 (July 1910): 77-79. 4. See Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Religion and the Rise of the City: The New York City Mission Movement (Ithaca, N.Y., 1971), pp. 97-124; Carl Degler, At Odds: Women and the Family in America from the Revolution to the Present (New York, 1980), pp. 279-97. 5. David J. Pivar, Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (Westport, Conn., 1973); Mark T . Connelly, The Response to Prostitution in the Progressive Era (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1981), pp. 3-47,91-135; Smith-Rosenberg, Religion and the Rise of the City; Frances Willard. "The White-Cross Movement in Education," National Education Association, Addresses and Proceedings (1890): 159-78; Paul Boyer, Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820-1920 (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), pp. 191-219; Vice Commission of Chicago, The Social Evil in Chicago (Chicago, 1911); Clifford W. Barnes, "The Story of the Committee of Fifteen in Chicago," Social Hygiene, 4 (1918): 145-56; Louis Ottenberg, "Fatherless Children of the National Capitol." Survey, 33 (January 30, 1915): 459-60; "Boston Conference on

EDUCATION

285

Illegitimacy," Survey, 30 (September 13. 1915): 707-708; Dorothy F. Puttee and Mary R. Colby, The Illegitimate Child in Illinois (Chicago, 1937), p. 86. 6. Carl F. Kaestle and Maris Vinovskis, Education and Social Change in Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts (Cambridge, England, 1980), pp. 112-115; Eric H. Monkkonen. The Dangerous Class: Crime and Poverty in Columbus, Ohio, 1860-1881 (Cambridge. Mass . 1975); Brendel, "Domestication as Reform:" 199-200; Ross W. Beales, Jr., "Child-Rearing in an 18th Century Minister's Household," and N. Ray Hiner, "Cotton Mather on Autoeroticism Among Puritan Youth," (Papers presented at the Annual Conference of the History of Education Society, Pittsburgh, Penna., October 2-4, 1981). 7. "Chicago as Seen by Herself," McClure's Magazine, 29 (May 1907): 67-73; on the corruptive influence of urban amusements, see Connelly, Response to Prostitution, pp. 28-67; Falconer, "Causes of Delinquency," 77-79; Edith Livingston Smith, "Unmarried Mothers," Harper's Weekly, 58 (September 6, 19)3): 22-23; Elias Tobenkin, "The Immigrant Girl in Chicago," Survey, 23 (November 6,1909): 189-95; George Kibbe Turner, "The City of Chicago: A Study of the Great Inequalities," McClure's Magazine, 28 (April 1907): 575-92; J.W. Dinsmore, "Vices of Childhood and Youth," National Education Association, Addresses and Proceedings (1899): 594-600; Edward C. Lindeman, "Youth and Leisure," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 194 (November 1937): 66; Katharine P. Hewins, "A Study of Illegitimacy," Survry, 46 (April 23, 1921): 115-16; "Newsletter," Church Mission of Help (Chicago) 1 (January 1936): 3, in "Church Mission of Help Files," Welfare Council Records, Chicago Historical Society, hereafter referred to as Welfare Council Records; Mrs. Joseph T. Bo wen. "The Policeman with a Wink: His Menace to Youth as Shown in the Present Chicago Administration," Survry, 43 (January 24. 1920): 458-59; "Florence Crittenton Anchorage." Undated brochure, c. 1890, p. 4. Florence Crittenton Anchorage Records, University of Illinois-Chicago Circle, Department of Special Collections, hereafter Florence Crittenton Anchorage Records. 8. Mary Bartelme, "The Opportunity for Women in Court Administration," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 52 (March 1914): 189. 9. Sara Cory Rippey. "The Case of Angeline," Outlook, 252 (January 31, 1914): 252-56; Emily Foote Runge, "Women in the Juvenille Court," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 56 (November 1914): 91. 10. Rippey, "The Case of Angeline." 252-56. 11. John R.Gillis, "Servants. Sexual Relations, and the Risks of Illegitimacy in London, 1801-1900," Feminist Studies, 5 (Spring 1979): 142-73. 12. Brenzel, "Lancaster Industrial School for Girls:" 49-50, and passim. 13. Rippey, "The Case of Angeline:" 252-56; "There has long existed the belief that to enter the ranks of those engaged in domestic service is to invite illicit love making, extra-marital intercourse, and subsequent unmarried motherhood," observed Dorothy Puttee and Mary Colby in their careful examination of The Illegitimate Child in Illinois, p. 98; other commentators confirmed this perception of the dangers inherent in domestic service: see Katharine F. Lenroot, "Social Responsibility for the Protection of Children Handicapped by Illegitimate Birth," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 98 (November 1921): 120-8; Ottenberg, "Fatherless Children:" 459; J. Prentice Murphy, "Mothers and— Mothers," Survey, 42 (May 3, 1919): 171-6; George L. Jones, "How Does Our Treatment of the Unmarried Mother with the Second or Third Child Differ from Our Treatment of the Unmarried Mother with Her First Child?" Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work (1919): 81-86; see also the Chicago Tribune (August 28, 1928), on "Home Girl Found Easiest Victim of Moral Traps;" Emma Goldman, "The Social Aspects of Birth Control," Mother Earth, 11 (April 1916): 472; and Theresa M. McBride, The Domestic Revolution: The Modernization of Household Service in England and France. 1820-1920 (New York, 1976), esp. pp. 99-106. 14. Ruth Rosen, ed., The Maimie Papers (Old Westbury, Ν. Y., 1977); Connelly. Response to Prostitution, see also the small collection of Florence Crittenton Anchorage records held by the Chicago Historical Society Library, which includes a fascinating volume entitled A Glimpse of Shadowed Lives in a Great City, especially the chapter, "Little Biographies," pp. 29-34. 15. On the early sex hygiene and education movements, consult Bryan Strong, "Ideas of the Early Sex Education Movement in America," History of Education Quarterly, 12 (Summer 1972): 129-61; Schlossman and Wallach, "The Crime of Precocious Sexuality;" Connelly, Response to Prostitution, pp. 4-6; Smith, "Unmarried Mothers." 23; J. Prentice Murphy, "What Can Be Accomplished Through Good Social Work in the Field of Illegitimacy?" Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 98 (November 1921): 132; developments in Chicago can be followed in the Chicago Schools, Annual Report (1910): 33-34, < 1911): 87. (1912): 2 4 « , ( 1914): 377-87; Chicago Board of Education. Minutes, hereafter Chicago Schools. Minutes, (May 1. 1912), (May 15, 1912). (May 24. 1912). (January 22. 1913), (June 25, 1913), (July 9,1913),(December 23,1913),(January 7.1914),(April II. l9l7).(November24.1915). (December 22, 1915), and (February 16.1916). On housing, see for example, Edith Abbott, The Tenements

286

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

of Chicago. 1908-1935 (Chicago, 1936); I am grateful to Lynn Weiner for sharing her familiarity with the housing issue as it pertained to young women. 16. My understanding ol the composition of the private-sector institutions is based on a comprehensive review and analysis of the intake and disposition records of a number of delinquent and maternity care facilities, including the revealing Annual Reports of Chicago's Erring Woman's Refuge, Florence Crittenton Anchorage, Mary Bartelme Clubs, Chicago Home for Girls, Church Mission of Help, and the Park Ridge School for Girls. Complementing these reports, the statistics collected by the Council of Social Agencies on the area's programs for unmarried mothers were useful; see the "Minutes of the Committee on Illegitimacy," Welfare Council Records, Box 207. 17. On the character of the evangelical homes, see generally. Smith, "Unmarried Mothers:" 22; Robert S. Barrett, The Care o/ the Unmarried Mother (Alexandria, Va.. 1929) p. 49; Kate Waller Barrett, " T h e Unmarried Mother and Her Child," National Conference of Charities and Corrections, 37 (1910): 98; Frances V. Emerson. "The Place of the Maternity Home," Survey, 42 (August 30. 1919): 773; Otto Wilson, Life oj Dr. Kate Waller Barrett and Kate Waller Barrett. Some Practical Suggestions on the Conduct o/ a Rescue Home, bound together and reprinted by Arno Press (New York. 1974); "Florence Crittenton Anchorage," brochure released in approximately 1951 reviewing the early Crittenton homes. Welfare Council Records, Box 318; Joan Younger, "The Unwed Mother," Ladies' Home Journal, 64 (June 1947): 102. 18. On the religious nature of the institutions' programs, see particularly Emerson, "Place of the Maternity Home." 773; Smith, "Unmarried Mothers:" 22; Florencr Crittenton Anchorage, Annual Report, hereafter F.C.A., Annual Report, (1916): 15; Erring Woman's Refuge, Annual Report hereafter E.W.R. Annual Report, (1871): 12, (1878): 10; Puttee and Colby. Illegitimate Child in lllmois, pp. 136-40; Reeves, Training Schools for Delinquent Girls, chapter 18. 19. See E. W.R., Annual Report (1878): 8-11, (1879):9. (1880): 9, (1881): 8, (1897): 15; Breniel, Domestication as Reform:" 202, 210; Margaret Hickey, "Unmarried Mothers . . . Salvation Army Care," Ladies Home Journal, 66 (June 1949): 23ff. 20. E.W.R., Annual Report (1892): 6-7. (1905): 16, (1878): II. 21. E.W.R.. Annual Report (1876): 7-8, (1892): 8, (1905): 10,16,25; see also Reeves. Training Schools for Delinquent Girls, chapter 15. 22. E.W.R., Annual Report (1876): 7. 23. Rosen, ed.. The Maimie Papers, p. 196. 24. E.W.R., Annual Report (1891): 8, (1883): 7.(1880): 10, (1887): 9; Breniel, "Domestication as Reform:" 202; Breniel, "Lancaster Industrial School for Cirls:" 48. 25. E.W.R., Annual Report (1876): 5. (1897): 18. (1892): 6-7, (1894): 8. 26. Chicago Refuge for Girls, Annual Report (1910): 8,18; Chicago Home for Girls. Annual Report (1917): 11, 14,20,(1920): 17-21,(1923): 16,(1924): 16,(1927): 19; Chicago Schools, Minutes (March 26.1926), (January 11. 1928); Chicago Schools. Annual Report (1916): 83. 27. Chicago Home for Girls, Annual Report (1920): 20. (1919): 22. 28. Chicago Schools, Annual Report (1916): 83. 29. Emerson. "Place of the Maternity Home:" 773; F.C.A., Annual Report (1925): 6-9, (1927): 5-7; Madorah Donahue, "The Case of an Unmarried Mother Who Has Cared for Her Child and Succeeded," Proceedings o/ the National Conference on Social Work, (1917): 282-87; Lilian Freeman Clarke, "The Story of an Invisible Institution," Outlook, 16 (December 15,1906): 935; Sara Boudin Edlin, "Jewish Unmarried Mothers," Survey, 44 (June 19, 1920): 408-9; "Bo*ton Conference on Illegitimacy," 707-8; Florence Crittenton Anchorage. Board of Managers. "Minutes,'' for (May 12,1921), (February 22,1922), (September 7,1922) (November 30, 1922), in the Florence Crittenton Records, Accession No. 73-35. Box 6. 30. E.W.R., Annual Report (1877): 9. 31. E.W.R., Annual Report (1881): 7, (1871): 12. (1874): 9, (1876): 8-9; Church Mission of Help. "Church Mission of Help." (n.d., p. 4), in "Church Mission of Help Files," Welfare Council Records; F.C.A., Annual Report (1925): 6-9; see generally the discussion in (Catherine G. Aiken, "The National Florence Crittenton Mission, 1883-1925; A Case Study in Progressive Reform," Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Washington State University, 1980. 32. The Crittenton incident is reported in the Anchorage's Board of Managers, "Minutes," for (November 30, 1922), (December 5.1923). and (January 3.1924). Florence Crittenton Records, Accession No. 73-35, Box 6; other interesting evidence regarding the black market in babies is contained in Murphy, "What Can Be Accomplished," p. 131; Alice Lake,, "Why Young Girls Sell Their Babies," Reader's Digest, 70 (March 1957): 117-20; Ora Pendleton, "New Aims in Adoptions," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 151 (September 1930): 156-60. 33. This phrase comes from the 1879 Annual Report of the Bethany Home in Minneapolis; I would like to thank Lynn Weiner for calling it to my attention. Revealing discussions between the Erring Woman's Refuge and the City of Chicago can be found in E.W.R., Annual Report (1876): 12, and(1878): 12. My impres-

EDUCATION

34.

35.

36.

37. 38. 39.

40.

41. 42. 43.

44. 45.

46. 47.

287

sion about the financial structure o( the institutions is based upon a thorough analysis o( the budgets of a half-dozen agencies. My understanding of the federated charities movement is based on both secondary sources, including Roy Lubove's The Professional Altruist: The Emergence of Social Work as a Career, 1880-1930 (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), pp. 157-219, Judith Ann Trolander, Settlement Houses and the Great Depression (Detroit, 1975), and Jon A. Peterson, "From Social Settlement to Social Agency: Settlement Work in Columbus, Ohio, 1898-1958," Social Service Review, 39 (June 1965): 191-208;andacomprehensiveexamina(ionof the rich federated organiiation collections in Chicago, the Welfare Council Records, and the Community Fund Records (located at the University of Illinois-Chicago Circle). Family Service Section Committee, Council of Social Agencies, "Minutes," (June 19, 1940), Welfare Council Records, Box 318; on the Criitenion review process, see more generally, the "Subscriptions Investigating Committee Report on the Crittenton Anchorage," (1936), Family Service Section Committee, "Minutes," for (November 3, 1936), the "Memos to File" prepared by Edwina Lewisof the Council, dated (November 1, 1940), (March 12. 1941). (March 18. 1941). (June 29. 1942). (July 1, 1942). (July 17. 1942), all located in Welfare Council Records, Box 318. Evidence suggests that the substitution process was completed by the early 1950s in most targeted agencies. In contrast with the significant rple played by the local federated organizations in modifying (he character and staffing of Chicago's Criuenton home, in other communities the chain's national organiiation exerted leverage over the lqcal operations. The vast majority of maternity homes, particularly those located in large urban areas, were not components of the chain structure and as independent agencies were more susceptible to the efforts of the federated organisations to shape the delivery system. Reviewing Committee on Child Care Agency Budgets, Council of Social Agencies, "Notes on Conference with Members of the Board of Park Ridge School for Girls," for (December 12,1936), in "Park Ridge School Files," Welfare Council Records. Charles Keller to Frank Loomis (January 18,1937), and Jennie M. Olmsted to Loomit (January 18,1937). "Park Ridge School Filet," Welfare Council Records. Loomis to Olmsted (January 19, 1937), "Park Ridge School Files," Welfare Council Records. See, for example, the Community Fund, Annual Report (1937). which first mentions the inclusion of the Park Ridge School for Cirls, and later evaluations prepared by the Welfare Council detailing the scope and nature of the professional staff employed by the School in the "Park Ridge School for Cirls Files" in (he Community Fund Records. Emerson, "Place of the Maternity Home," p. 772. On (he modernization of the institutions in general, consult Smith, "Unmarried Mothers," pp. 22-3; Committee on Problems Related to Unmarried Parenthood, Council of Social Agencies, Handbook Describing Maternity Home Care in Chicago (June 1940); Florence Crittenton Homes Association, "His(orical Development of Florence Criuen(on Service," a brochure prepared and dis(ributed in February, 1954, several copies of which are located in the Florence Crittenton Anchorage Records; Mary Louise Allen. "What Can We Do About America's Unwed Teenage Mothers?" McCall's Magazine, 91 (November 1963): 40ff.; "Backgroundof the Mary Bartelme Club," (1960), pamphlet in the Community Fund Records, Accession No. 72-17, Box 126; Margaret Hickey, "Better Maternity Homes," Ladies Home Journal, 66 (June 1949): 23; Hickey. " T h e Crittenton Program," ibid. 75 (August 1958): 23. Jones, "Our Treatment of the Unmarried Mother," p. 8S; Breniel, "Domestication as Reform." p. 210; David M. Kauman, Seven Days a Week (New York, 1978). Family Service Section Committee, "Minutes," for (June 19, 1940), Welfare Council Records, Box 318. "Florence Crittenton Anchorage," (February 1951); "Florence Crittenton Anchorage: Running Record," by Mary Young of the Welfare Council, for (March 3,1952); Mary Young's "Evaluation oi Program: Florence Crittenton Anchorage," for 1951, 1952, and 1953; all located in Welfare Council Records. Box 318. Annual Reports from (he institutions under consideration include a number of statistics regarding dispositions and placements which confirm this reversal in adoption policy during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Discussions of educa(ionaI programs maintained by (he institutions, included in most Annual Reports, suggest the efforts undertaken to upgrade the academic curricula; the quotation is from Genrote G e h n (executive director of the Anchorage) to Lucy Carner of the Welfare Council (March 10.1952), Welfare Council Records, Box 318. Chicago Home for Girls, Annual Report (1938). 12, (1939); 12. Chicago Home for Girls, Annual Report (1944): 11; "Report to the Board of Managers," for (January 18, 1945), by the executive director, included in the Mary Bartelme Records, still held by (he Mary Baitelmeorganizauon's historical records. See also, Chicago Home for Girls. Annual Report (1944): 15; "Minu(es of (he Annual Open Meeting," of (January 15, 1942), "Minutes of the Board of Managers," of (January 31. 1944), both located in the Mary Bartelme Records; Marion K. Craine. "Special Report on (he Chicago Home for Girls," (June 16. 1946). Welfare Council Records. Box 280.

288

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

48. Chicago Home for Girls, Annual Report (1944): 15. 49. The historical experience of young black women is exceptionally difficult to examine, both because of the common problems associated with the dearth of minoi ity-grnerated records and because the private-sector institutions preferred to serve whites almost exclusively, leaving blacks to be cared for by their families. The best local data that I have so far reviewed was collected by the Committee on Illegitimacy of the Council of Social Agencies in Chicago, and is included in their "Minutes." for the period 1919-1939, located in the Welfare Council Records, Boxes 207 and 208. 50. On the Urban League venture, see the Committee on Illegitimacy, "Minutes," for (May 8, 1929). Welfare Council Records, Box 207. 51. Ibid.; see also Chicago Schools. Annual Report (19S6): 263, (1938): 401-402. (1939): 304. (1940): 273. 52. My understanding of this fascinating episode is based upon an examination of confidential materials, including internal memoranda, correspondence, transcriptions of telephone conversations, and personal observations, located in the Florence Crittenton Anchorage Records, Accession No. 73-35, Box 6, and the Welfare Council Records, Box 318. It should be noted that my interpretation of these events differs sharply from that presented to the public in local newspapers; see, for example, the Chicago Tribune (June 1.1947), and (March 20, 1949), which stressed the importance of the dilapidated building, when in fact it was resistance from property owners that forced the Anchorage out of its dwelling when the move to integrate was announced. 53. I am currently preparing an analysis of the evolution of services for delinquent and pregant adolescents after the entry of the federal government into the market during the 1960s. I would like to thank Ms. Suzanne Hinds formerly of the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago for discussing trends in programs for unmarried mothers. The following axe particularly useful: "Aunt Martha's Decline." Newsweek (March 27. 1972): 100; Martha Liebrum. "On the Decline: Homes for Unwed Mothers." Houston Post (August 13, 1972), and dozens of similar clippings held in the Florence Crittenton Anchorage Records. On the comprehensive center movement, see Mary Holmes, et al.. "A New Approach to Educational Services for the Pregnant Student." Journal of School Health. 40(April 1970): 168-72; Susan Strom. "The Schools and the Pregnant Teenager," Saturday Review, 50 (September 16. 1967): 80ff; Marion Howard. "Teenage Parents." Today's Education, 62 (February 1973): 39ff; Howard. "Pregnant School-age Girls," Journal of School Health, 41 (September 1971): 361-64; Howard, "School Continues for Pregnant Teenagers," American Education, 5 (December 1968): 5-7; Jane E. Bedger, Teenage Pregnancy: Research Related to Clients and Services (Springfield, III., 1980); on developments in Chicago, see Chicago Schools. Minutes (July 16,1966). (November 9. 1966). (October 11. 1972), (August 27. 1975). 54. The following policy discussions are very useful: Glenn C. Atkyns. "Trends in the Retention of Married and Pregnant Students in American Public Schools," Sociology of Education, 41 (Winter 1968): 57-65; Atkyns, "The Administrator and His Problems Related to Sex." Clearing House, 42 (February 1968): 372-75; "School Policies Waver on Teen-Age Pregnancy: School Administrator's Opinion Poll," Nation's Schools, 83 (February 1969): 99; "Pregnant Schoolgirls and Pregnant Teachers," American School Board Journal, 160 (March 1973): 23-31; Donald R. Warren, "Pregnant Students/Public Schools," Phi Delta Kappan. 52 (October 1972): 111-14; Frank K. Furstenburg, Jr.. et al.. eds.. Teenage Sexuality, Pregnancy, and Childbearing (Philadelphia, 1981); Theodora Ooms, ed.. Teenage Pregnancy in a Family Context: Implications for Policy (Philadelphia. 1981); Gail L. Zellman, The Response of the Schools to Teenage Pregnancy and Parenthood (Santa Monica, California. 1981); Michael W. Sedlak and Robert L. Church. "A History of the Delivery of Social Services to Youth, 1880-1976." Final Report to the National Institute of Education, Contract No. 400-79-0017 (1982); Sedlak, "Schooling as a Response to Crime: Educational Policy and Juvenile Delinquency in Historical Perspective," in Dan A. Lewis, ed., Reactions to Crime: Individual and Institutional Responses (Beverly Hills, California, 1981), pp. 205-26; Kenneth Polk and Waller E. Schäfer, Schools and Delinquency (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972); and Richard E. Johnson, Juvenile Delinquency and its Origins: An Integrated Theoretical Approach (Cambridge, England, 1979), chapters 1-3.

289

EDUCATION

Doctorates for American Women, 1868-1907 MARGARET

W.

ROSSITER

ALTHOUGH T H E LOFTY rhetoric accompanying the founding of the major American graduate schools seemed to indicate that they would be open to both sexes, the first women applicants quickly learned that this access was often not available. Their eventual admission and first degrees, which came as early as the 1870s at Boston University and as late as the 1960s at Princeton University, was the result of a series of skirmishes at several European as well as American universities, at least two major strategies, a large cast of participants, and the active support (financial and otherwise) of a few women's groups, especially the young Association of Collegiate Alumnae (ACA). Although the story is a complex one that touches upon many other topics in the history of education, the movement for women doctorates went through three basic states—first, a long latent phase, 1868-1890, when women were admitted only as "special students" and not given degrees; second, a short period, 1890-1892, when they were officially admitted to at least six major graduate schools; and third, a final, highly embattled stage, 1893-1907, during which several diehard institutions were induced to accept their first women and award them doctorates. Although this last struggle called forth such vigorous efforts and created such a heady atmosphere that many academic feminists of the 1890s later considered it the high point of their lives, the movement is not even mentioned in either of the two standard accounts of the rise of the graduate school in America. (1) Nevertheless the experiences of the first women doctorates and of other female students who were not allowed degrees reveals much about how American and German universities operated in the 19th century and how excluded groups fought back to eventual acceptance. It is now hard to imagine why earning a doctorate (an M.D. or Ph.D.) should have been considered a particularly manly accomplishment and why giving this degree to women should have been so long and fiercely resisted by some major universities, but it was for several decades. In Germany this conservatism was related to a shortage of academic positions for men and a consequent unwillingness to let women hold even those at girls' schools. (2) In America such anti-feminism was tied to the move to upgrade the

iMs. Rossiter is a Guggenheim Fellow at the Office for History lUniversity of California, Berkeley, California.

of Science and

Technology,

290

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

professions by limiting entry to men. This restriction led to some exasperating moments for early women applicants. For example, Mary Roth Walsh has described how annoying it was for the first woman applicant to Harvard Medical School in 1847 (and again in 1850) to be rejected, not on the grounds that she was unqualified (she was highly qualified, with previous medical training) nor because the school was crowded or lacked adequate facilities, conditions that might improve over time. The standard reason given was the evasive and quasi-political one that it was "inexpedient" to admit women. There was no way the women could fight this rationale, except to try to launch a political campaign of their own to change public opinion (and so eventually university process) on this issue. (3) The early women applicants for the Ph.D. faced similarly evasive replies and procrastination. In their case the standard reply was that regardless of their qualifications, there was "no precedent" for admitting a woman. Nor were many schools willing to step forward and set one. Thus Ellen Swallow (later Richards), who applied to MIT for a graduate degree in chemistry in 1870, was turned down on the grounds (according to her husband, a professor there in another department) that they did not want their first graduate degree in chemistry to go to a woman. (4) Yet other women there and elsewhere found that even when they were not the first applicant for a degree, but the nth, the argument was still that there was "no precedent" for admitting them or giving them a degree. This logic would have closed the issue for all time; until one was admitted, there never would be such a precedent. Yet the situation was both more favorable and more complex than this straightforward rejection would imply, since most universities were willing to make "exceptions" in particular cases. Interestingly they then went to considerable trouble to hide this liberality and make sure that such action set no legal precedents. Thus MIT did not reject Ellen Swallow (as did all the other universities to which she applied) but admitted her as a candidate for a second bachelor's degree (she already had one from Vassar) and as "special student" who did not have to pay tuition. They had thus taken the liberal step of admitting her, their first woman but had so camouflaged their action that they could deny that she was officially enrolled, if anyone complained. (She thought that the tuition had been waived because she was poor and later insisted that, had she known the real reason, she would have protested. (5) Similarly Johns Hopkins University admitted the brilliant "Qhristine] Ladd" in 1878 as a "special student," whose name would not appear in the catalog and whose case would not set any precedents for future action, as numerous other applicants to Hopkins were later informed. (6) This action was only the first stage of a long process, however, and these two women, Ellen Swallow Richards and especially Ladd-Franklin, both former students of Maria Mitchell at Vassar College in the 1860s, would be the leaders of the movement to get doctorates for women in the 1890s. What these early women learned from their "special student" status in the 1870s was that the process of earning a degree was actually a two-tiered one.

EDUCATION

291

The first step of gaining admission was relatively easy, informal and decentralized; permission could be granted by almost any friendly professor. But the second step of being awarded the doctorate was much more "political" and involved far more than just meeting the stated requirements. It was a formal, almost legal, proceeding, that involved not only the professors and the department but also the president and board of trustees, many of whom long refused to award higher degrees to women or even to acknowledge their presence on campus. To gain doctorates from resistant universities the women needed some way to create pressure on particular schools. Individually they were powerless and had to await others' decisions; yet collectively, and with a strategy, they might be more effective. When all the attempts by women to gain higher degrees at universities in the U.S. and Germany over three decades (1870-1900) are viewed together, they can be seen as a process of quiet infiltration, a kind of educational "guerilla warfare" or slow "war of attrition" against the universities. Under this almost military strategy, individual women sought to test the repressive system on as many fronts (departments and universities) as possible. They probed for weak points, using what friends they had to help them evade the rules informally. When enough "exceptional" women had been admitted in this way and had surpassed their fellow students without the imagined disruption, they pushed for a change in policy, which could now be seen as harmless, "only fair," long overdue, and quietly enacted. Thus, over several decades, a series of women eventually accomplished their objective but at great human cost. Like other graduate students, women applicants were usually attracted to a university by the presence of a particular professor in their chosen field, and they (or a patron) consulted directly with him about their attending his lectures. Some of these early professors were quite helpful to the early women graduate students, as was Benjamin Peirce of Harvard University when astronomer Maria Mitchell of Vassar College asked to attend his lectures on quaternions in 1868. When she then suggested in 1869 that he let her former student, Mary Whitney, attend them also, he again obliged, invited the rather shy Miss Whitney and chivalrously met her at the college gate to escort her to a seat at the back of his classroom. Similarly in 1876 Henry Durant, the founder of Wellesley College, made arrangements for Professor Sarah Whiting to attend the physics classes of MIT's Edward C. Pickering, a liberal supporter of women in science and pioneer of the new laboratory method of physics instruction. Also in 1876 Frederick A. Genth of the Towne Scientific School at the University of Pennsylvania admitted two women to his chemical laboratory. (7) Dealing directly with friendly professors was generally more effective than seeking permission from less cooperative administrators, as can be seen in two cases that occurred at the newly opened Johns Hopkins University in 1878 and 1879. In 1878 President Daniel Coit Gilmap, whom Hugh Hawkins has termed a "social conservative" and who thought that women did not belong in graduate school with men, refused to let M. Carey Thomas attend Basil

292

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Gildersleeve's lectures on the classics. (She could study with him privately, however.) Yet one year later Professor J. J. Sylvester not only allowed Christine Ladd to attend his lectures on mathematics but had his department award her a $500 fellowship, an unheard of honor for even brilliant women in the 1870s. Yet he could not get her a degree when she submitted her dissertation in 1882.(8) Although such informal procedures continued into the 1880s, and even 1890s at some schools, both the women students and their professors were growing increasingly dissatisfied with these arrangements, which were full of uncertainties and did not lead to a degree. Before long many women turned instead to other, less highly regarded institutions that would give them degrees. Starting in 1877 and increasingly through the 1880s, several institutions began to award doctorates to women. Walter Crosby Eells has searched university catalogs and found that by 1889, ten colleges and universities had granted twenty-five such degrees to women. (9) Syracuse University led the way with seven, and Boston University and the then University of Wooster followed with four each. (10) Smith College, (11) the University of Michigan, and Cornell University each awarded two in these years, and four other institutions gave one apiece. Seventeen of the twenty-five degrees were in the humanities, of which German was the largest field with four. Only two degrees were in what would later be called the "social sciences" (sociology and law) and six in the sciences (zoology, botany and mathematics), of which three were from Syracuse. Some of these early women doctorates already held or would later hold influential positions in women'scollegesand coeducational universities: Julia Gulliver became president of Rockford College; Martha Foote (later Crow) the "lady principal" at what is now Grinnell College and later the dean of women at Northwestern University; and Henrietta Hooker and Cornelia Clapp were both professors at Mount Holyoke College. Some other women married influential academics and scientists, as Helen Magill, the first woman doctorate, (Boston University, 1877) married Andrew D. White, president of Cornell University and later an ambassador to Russia; May Preston, an early Cornell doctorate, married £. E. Slosson, founder and longtime president of the Science Service; and Alice Carter married Ο. E. Cook, a fellow student at Syracuse, who spent many years in Africa first as an agent for the New York Colonization Society and later as a plant explorer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. (12) Some of the pioneers, like Syracuse doctorates, Jane Bancroft (later Robinson) and Martha Foote Crow, were active in contemporary battles to open more universities to women and to find suitable employment for them. (IS) Very little is known about the circumstances and debates surrounding the awarding of these early degrees to women. Apparently the innovation raised far less controversy at such modest "universities" as Boston, Syracuse or Wooster in the 1870s and 1880s than it would at some more status-conscious institutions later. Graduate programs at such schools in the 1870s and 1880s tended to be the personal enthusiasm of an ambitious chancellor (as Alex-

EDUCATION

293

ander Winchell at Syracuse) or president (Archibald A. E. Taylor at Wooster) who, especially if anxious for students, could welcome women candidates eagerly. Graduate work was also still small and informal in these years and standards flexible. (Wooster, for example, had no residency requirement for its doctoral degree, an attraction for many employed ministers and professors. (14) Although later attempts to raise standards and accredit graduate schools were designed to upgrade such loose postgraduate programs or drive them out of existence altogether, their innovations may have served to liberalize later doctoral programs at other more prestigious institutions, which as late as 1889 were still at the stage of "special students" and avoiding precedents. Of particular interest in this group of early graduate schools was that for women only established at Bryn Mawr College in 1885. Like the other graduate schools of the 1880s, it was the pride of the college's dean and later president, M. Carey Thomas, who by dint of great effort was able over the years to develop small doctoral programs of excellence in several fields—English, history, zoology, mathematics, geology, and classics, including classical archeology. (15) T h e obstacles to such a separate women's graduate school were so immense that aside from the legal fiction of the Radcliffe Graduate School (see below), no other woman's college was able to maintain a fullfledged doctoral program. A major factor was money. Since women made u p only a small percentage of the persons in each field, however, the cost of duplicating the expensive graduate facilities for these relative few was very high, especially in the sciences. Yet even if the money and faculty had been available, it is debatable whether such institutions as women's graduate schools would have become widespread, since few persons, not even all the women professors themselves, favored such a segregated experience at the graduate level. Although M. Carey Thomas thought that every woman's college should exert itself to have a full-fledged (and coeducational) graduate school, Wellesley philosopher Mary Whiton Calkins disagreed. She thought they ought to have some graduate work but just enough to keep the faculty on its mettle. Vassar psychologist, Margaret Washburn, would not go even that far. She argued that the heart of a graduate education was communication, interaction, and criticism from the authorities and fellow students in one's field. Since these were predominantly men already at the major graduate schools, she was glad to note in 1914 that, though Vassar had formerly had a fellowship for a graduate student, it now gave it to an alumna to use elsewhere. (16) Meanwhile, public interest in women's admission to male-dominated graduate schools increased greatly in the years after 1889, as articles and books began to appear surveying the situation at home and abroad. Events were moving so rapidly that one journal, The Nation, in fact, became a regular clearinghouse in the years 1889-97 of information on how the women were faring at the various universities. T h e appearance in 1890 of German feminist Helene Lange's Frauenbildung (translated as The Higher Education of

294

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Women in Europe), which surveyed the current situation in several countries, may have been the catalyst that crystallized many isolated cases into an international movement. Despite a hostile review in the Popular Science Monthly, Lange's book became basic reading for the academic feminists of the 1890s, who were beginning to formulate an organized program to secure women's admission to European as well as American universities. (17) In the midst of all this heightened interest and discussion, six major American graduate schools decided in rapid-fire order in 1890-92 to admit women on an equal basis with men and to award them doctors of philosophy degrees when their work merited it. The decision was closely entwined with the far more controversial issue of undergraduate coeducation. Two universities (Yale and Pennsylvania) linked their admission of women to graduate work with a continued refusal to allow them into the undergraduate college; two others (Columbia and Brown) tied their decision to admit them to the graduate school to the more-cautious formation of a coordinate college for women undergraduates; and two new institutions out west (Stanford and the University of Chicago) were the most liberal of all and announced in 1891-2 that they were for full coeducation at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. (18) Since the Yale decision was seen at the time as the major turning point for women seeking higher degrees in this country, the little that is known about it may be of some interest. Both President Timothy Dwight and Arthur Hadley, dean of the graduate school, defended the decision on the grounds that though it might seem radical "on the surface," it really was not. Since Yale had for years been offering a series of special provisions to women, whose work had always been good, Hadley wrote "it seemed only fair to give such students official recognition as members of the university; to encourage them instead of barely tolerating them; to award them the degree of Doctor of Philosophy if their work was such to deserve it." Dwight also reasoned that since the degree was increasingly necessary for an academic career and that many of these women would be teaching at the women's colleges, it was Yale's duty to make its unrivalled facilities available to them, or as he put it chivalrously in his annual report for 1891, The privilege of coming under the instruction of the best and ablest professors in a large university, of using its libraries, and of enjoying the many facilities for study under the highest advantages which it furnishes, must be a privilege of inestimable value. T h e University becomes by the offering of this privilege, not a rival or opponent of the colleges for women, but an ally and helper to them. It offers its graduate courses and its degree of Doctor of Philosophy to their graduates, and thus presents its gift to these graduates, an addition to the gift which they have already received from their own institutions. (19)

On these grounds and on the strict stipulation that the undergraduate college would remain unchanged, the Yale faculty had approved the move in a vote that was, as Hadly reported, "all but unanimous." Beyond this official explanation, both Dwight and Hadley had, like officials at Syracuse and

EDUCATION

295

Wooster earlier, a personal interest in the matter. Dwight came from a long Ifamily of supporters of women's education. His mother had been highly iintelligent and convinced him that women deserved a full education, and his (grandfather (of the same name and also a president of Yale) had been so sure of ;it that he had shocked his contemporaries in the 1790s when he taught girls as well as boys at his Connecticut academy. Hadley's wife Helen Harrison, was ;also so interested in the women at Yale that years later a graduate dormitory Ifor women was named for her. (20) Interested women and men exulted and spread the news joyfully: "How Igood is the news from Yalel" Marion Talbot wrote Millicent Shinn in California, who would be Berkeley's first woman doctorate in 1898. In April 1893 Professor William Cardener Hall of the University of Chicago addressed ithe Chicago branch of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae on "The Significance of the Recent Opening of Graduate Courses of Study to Women at Yale University, The University of Pennsylvania, and Brown University." After decades of evasion and procastination the pace of change had become almost dizzying. Before long, Talbot predicted, graduate education would be as freely available to women as undergraduate instruction already was. "Indeed," Talbot added, "it is this tremendous onrush of the movement that makes me tremble." (21) In 1893 twenty-three women enrolled at Yale, and among the first class of graduate students at the new University of Chicago, the largest contingent from any one school was 14 from Wellesley College (encouraged no doubt by their beloved president Alice Freeman Palmer, who was also going to Chicago as an undergraduate dean). (22) Off to such a vigorous start, Yale and Chicago rapidly overcame their predecessors and quickly became the largest "producers" of women doctorates in the nation. This influx of women into these newly-opened institutions confirmed Timothy Dwight's prediction earlier that they desired a more rigorous training than had been available to them before 1892. One Syracuse doctorate of the 1880s (Cornelia Clapp, Ph.D. '89) even felt it necessary to take a threeyear leave of absence from her job at Mount Holyoke College to earn a second doctorate at Chicago in 1896. (23) Eells' data also shows how greatly the total number of doctorates awarded to women increased in the 1890s. Compared to the 25 granted before 1890, 204 were awarded through 1900—an eight-fold increase. (The number of doctorates awarded to men also increased sharply, though not as dramatically as for the women, in the 1890s—tripling from 731 in the 1880s to 2,372 in the 1890s.) (24) As earlier, a few institutions dominated. Over half of the doctorates awarded to women in 1877-1900 were given by just four universities—Yale (36), Chicago (29), Cornell (28), and New York University (20). When this data is broken down further by field or department, as shown in Table 1, one can see that, despite the admission of women to entire universities by the 1890s, they still tended to be clustered in certain departments at certain universities. This distribution may indicate that women were receiving a friendly welcome in what were probably major

296

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

programs in the field. If, as is also done in Table 1, those departments accounting for more than 25% of the women doctorates in a field are italicized, one can see the influence of a few relatively strong and liberal departments. T h u s Yale was already by 1900 quite dominant in English, history, mathematics and chemistry (even before its famed department of physiological chemistry had begun to train numerous women biochemists and home economists). T h e University of Chicago was very influential in eight fields before 1900: French, sociology, political science, zoology, physics, physiology, religion, and comparative philology (later linguistics), where it stood alone. Cornell was still strong in botany, physics, philosophy (which had given two women doctorates in the 1880s), and psychology, where it would soon to be eclipsed by Columbia University. (25) New York University's importance rested on just one department, that of education or pedagogy, which was not only the nation's first graduate program in that field (established in 1890) but also, according to Eells' data, almost the only one to give women a doctorate in the highly feminized field of education. It is more difficult to interpret the smaller numbers in Table 1 (as it is negative evidence generally). They may mean either that there was no doctoral program in that field at that university, or that there was a program, even a large one, which did not receive women. A similar caution would also apply to the many universities not listed in Table 1 at all. T h u s one generally needs more information, as from festschrits or memorial volumes to major professors in these departments, to determine which were, like many of the Yale and Chicago programs, friendly and encouraging to women and which were not. (27) Despite these important steps forward in 1890-92, at least two other major American graduate schools of the 1890s—Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University and possibly Clark University (28)—as well as all the German universities still excluded women. Their continuing refusal, even to admitting women as "special students" in some German institutions, was now, after so many successes elsewhere, increasingly intolerable to the women applicants and their supporters. At the same time the victories, especially that at Yale, gave the women a new eagerness and momentum in their struggle to win over the remaining diehard institutions. Partial success also meant that they could modify their strategy to focus more intensively on the few remaining targets and by playing one institution off against another, prod them into opening their doors also. T h e movement thus swung in the early 1890s into a higher gear as the women banded together, raised funds, and worked to force the issue at the remaining universities at home and abroad. Their strategy, still basically that of infiltration, now had a new militancy or determination that bordered on confrontation in a few instances. A key part of the struggle to open American graduate schools to women changes took place at the German universities, which still contained some of the world's best professors, laboratories, and research training, especially in the sciences. These universities had been admitting and granting degrees to

297

EDUCATION

ν 3 C/5 »Η 12 . Η Q. — «*! COΟ C w c^f w C Ζ η -ι Η 2 Ι Ο c ?ι 3* sr5L «Ο η =. 3 Ο > Η s 3 2 -3 Γ 3 < Ο κ < ?! 3 « « 3 < r» w •· -Ξ 3 3 C 3» V) 3 vi (Λ © — 2. C - S 3 Χ' κι =• e = C -5 I aO? 3 O C I I I I I K> •Λ. —

ίkΕ

^ c: •ή co c 3' 4t hS s •2 •o Ό σ> •«k

3

2

σ" w I C -t 3· m 3„. X ®S ~ δ ~ 3 ι ι in 3 ? = I s-' ο I To 3" 3l/l ρ χ ε ο 3 Ό Ο £ Q. vi "?0 — ν] Oi

I I N> I Vai

I I

Total Greek/Latin English German French Comp. Phil. Art Philosophy Religion History Education Economics Sociology Pol. Sei. Law Psychology Botany

I I

I V*

Zoology

I — I n> I

I *

Physiology

I -

I

u

Chemistry

I I I I

Physics

I I I . «

Mathematics

I I I I

I I

Geology

I I I I I I I I

Astronomy

I I

No field given

298

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

large numbers of American men since the 1850s and were only slowly o p e n i n g to women. In the late 1870s there were stories in the Atlantic Monthly about a few American women who had been allowed to enter certain language classes at Leipzig, where M. Carey T h o m a s had also gone after her unsatisfactory stay at Johns Hopkins. But even the relatively receptive Leipzig would not grant degrees to women. For these precious documents the women had to go to Zurich across the border in more liberal Switzerland. In the 1880s several other American women visited and studied at the German universities, but if Helen Abbott Michael's account of her grand tour of 1887 is any guide, they met only discouragement when they asked to attend classes at any German university. Occasionally a friendly professor would show her his collections or let her watch an experiment in progress, but as she put it, for degrees "all women are shoved to Zurich." Even the relatively liberal August Kekule, a chemist known for his discovery of the benzene ring, told Michael that he refused to take any more women students—he had had two Russian women already, but neither had been very impressive. One had spent all her time reading novels, and the other had committed suicide. He thus felt justified in excluding all other women forever. (29) T h e continuing refusal of the German universities to admit women bothered Christine Ladd-Franklin and Ellen Richards, who, as recounted above, had themselves been denied graduate degrees earlier. Now employed in subordinate positions at all- or largely-male institutions (Ladd-Franklin as a temporary lecturer in psychology first at Johns Hopkins and later at Columbia, and Richards as an instructor in sanitary chemistry at MIT) they were aware of the large differences in post-graduate opportunities open to men and women. They were anxious to take steps to correct this inequity but were unsure how to proceed Until 1888, when Ladd-Franklin had the idea of establishing a graduate fellowship for a woman who wished to study abroad. When she suggested the idea to the governing board of the fledgling Association of Collegiate Alumnae (ACA), its members took u p the project eagerly. They raised the money ($500), formed the selection committee, and awarded the first fellowship in 1890. (30) T h e Association of Collegiate Alumnae had been formed in Boston in 1882 by eighteen young college graduates (Ellen Richards at 40 was the oldest) who sought to defend "college women" from the hostility and suspicions that greeted them in many quarters in the 1880s. T h e ACA was thus an early "pressure g r o u p " on behalf of educated women. Its typical projects were the collection of statistics to show that college graduates were as healthy as other women (though they married less often) and that some were holding jobs other than schoolteaching. T h u s a fellowship to send a woman abroad for advanced study was a suitable and important project for the ACA. It was feasible and laden with political overtones: if its Fellows were successful in opening foreign universities to women, this could be an important "entering wedge" (one of their favorite phrases) in broadening opportunities for women

EDUCATION

299

everywhere. Within just a few years, and largely through Christine LaddFranklin's efforts, the ACA's European Fellowship would prove to be a resounding success indeed. (31) Shortly after Ladd-Franklin had called the ACA members' attention to the need for a European graduate fellowship, public interest began to shift from England, which had led the way in graduate education for women in the 1880s, to Germany, whose universities did not yet admit women in any capacity. The American women's victory at Yale may have had some role in this change. Officials at English universities had been proud as late as 1891 that they had been giving women students larger and larger graduate opportunities (though not yet degrees) and thus were offended at righteous American insinuations that they were lagging. One such official responded to an American's inquiry as to why women could attend certain lectures but not enter the laboratories or museums with the testy retort, "You must not reproach us till you have converted Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Yale. Have any of these done as much for women as Oxford or Cambridge?" (32) Though the Yale victory a year later might have seemed to entitle the Americans to prod the British universities to greater efforts, by then the German universities seemed a greater challenge, or as Bessie Bradwell Helmer, chairman of the ACA Fellowship Committee wrote Phoebe Apperson Hearst in 1894, "The battle in our own land has been almost won." The ACA is now doing "some missionary work" in the "prejudiced land" of Germany. In particular it had "sent brilliant young women to storm the coveted citadels of learning" and open those "sacred precincts" to the feminine gender. (33) The first ACA Fellows to go to Germany in 1891-3 were no more successful than their predecessors in the 1880s had been. Prussian authorities allowed Ruth Gentry, Michigan '90 and later associate professor of mathematics at Vassar College, to be the first woman to attend lectures at Berlin, but would not let her enroll for a degree. Julia Snow, a graduate of Cornell and later a professor of botany at Smith College, settled for a doctorate at Zurich in 1893, and Alice Walton, who already held a doctorate from Cornell in classics, used her ACA fellowship to spend a postdoctoral year at Leipzig. (34) Meanwhile Ladd-Franklin herself may have helped turn the tide at Göttingen at least when she spent the year 1891-92 in Berlin and Göttingen with her husband, Fabian Franklin, a professor of mathematics at Johns Hopkins, and later a newspaperman in New York City. (He too championed liberal causes, including that of advanced degrees for women.) She did experimental work on her new color theory in the laboratory of vision expert G. E. Muller and tried to earn the doctorate that Johns Hopkins University had withheld from her in 1882. At first she was optimistic (and wrote William James so, see below), but in the end she was only partially successful. Muller and mathematician Felix Klein of Göttingen were more than sympathetic, but the courts ruled that Klein could do no more than admit her to his lectures as an auditor ("Gastzuhörerinnen"). Klein assured her that, though this would

300

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

not please her, it was only the beginning ("nur als Anfang") for women at Göltingen. (35) In this he was correct; just three years later Göttingen would be the fiist German university to award women doctorates. By 1893 several more ACA Fellows were determined to go to Germany to fight for the cause. Three of them would be successful in earning the coveted degree in 1895-6, two of which were at Göttingen. Margaret Maltby, an instructor at Wellesley College, studied physics with Waldemar Voigt and was allowed to take her degree at Göttingen in July 1895. She was the first American woman to do so. (The English mathematician Grace Chisholm (later Young) had gotten her degree there from Felix Klein a few weeks earlier.) Living at the same pension with Maltby and Chisholm while they worked with their Göttingen professors was another American, Mary Winston (later Newson), recently a graduate student at the University of Chicago. She had met the friendly Professor Klein at the World's Fair in that city in 1893 and had received some modest encouragement (though no guarantees) from him. When Christine Ladd-Franklin heard about this meeting, she sent Winston $500 of her own money to speed her on her way to Göttingen. Winston later became an ACA Fellow and was in 1896 the third foreign woman (second American) to earn the coveted Göttingen doctorate. (36) Meanwhile physiologist Ida Hyde, another ACA Fellow, struggled on alone with her professors first at Strassburg, and then, when its officials proved unwilling to give her a degree, at Heidelberg. She was apparently unaware of events at Göttingen and assumed the whole time that she would be, if successful, the first woman with a German doctorate. Although she regretted for the rest of her life that she had not been the first (and did not get her degree until 1896), the belief that she was a pioneer sustained her through many trying circumstances. The problems she encountered (and later described in a humorous account "Before Women Were Human Beings. . .") illustrate well the frustrations facing such a pioneer in Germany in 1893-96. (37) She recounted her many visits to individual professors, her numerous requests for official permissions of various sorts, and her frequent appeals to local university and government officials (including at one point the Grand Duke of Baden and even—incorrectly—the Reichstag's Ministry of Education in Berlin). Working as hard as she could on her own, borrowing the assistant's lecture notes, and capitalizing on all the occasional courtesies and off-hand remarks of the more well-disposed professors, the determined Hyde astounded her professors by piecing together the studies and doing the work necessary for the official examinations without her ever attending any classes. A crisis arose when the many delays required that she spend an extra year in Germany in order to get the degree. Yet the ACA Fellowship Committee proved equal to the emergency. Its chairman wrote two frantic letters to Phoebe Apperson Hearst in California, pointing out to her the importance to the cause of Hyde's being able to continue. Hearst, who was already supporting women students at the University of California, responded with the needed $400. (38) With

EDUCATION

301

help of this kind, Hyde persevered and eventually outlasted the Germans' delaying tactics. She long remembered how physiologist Willy Kuhne, who had originally laughed at her desire for a degree, had required six faculty meetings before he would agree to serve on the committee, repeatedly postponed her examination, then prolonged it an extra hour, and finally refused to grant her the degree summa cum laude. (She had to settle for a magna cum laude, which Winston also got at Göttingen that year.) Yet, one suspects, that all these difficulties made Hyde and her supporters savor her eventual triumph all the more. An easy victory would not have been so heroic or required such an indomitable personality. T h e authorities had done their best (short of total refusal) to thwart her and she had met every demand. It would be unfair to claim, however, that the ACA Fellows alone opened German universities to women in the mid-1890s, since there were already a great many other women knocking on them already. What the fellowships did accomplish in a very few years was to recruit and support for the duration those very strong and venturesome personalities that were best able to withstand the repealed frustrations and refusals involved in earning German degrees at the time. These were the very women, whom Christine LaddFranklin and Ellen Richards, now middle-aged, wished to reach and encourage. ACA Fellows knew that the hopes and future prospects of many other women depended on their efforts. They must not fail; they must j u m p whatever hurdles German officialdom could devise and· emerge victorious whatever the cost. Against such uncompromising determination, at least one German university's resistance slowly withered and eventually collapsed. Yet one has to suspect that for these victories to have occurred in 1895-6, the Germans' will to resist must have already begun to falter. Felix Klein had apparently been busy convincing his colleagues at Göttingen that there was no harm in giving degrees to foreign women, and the officials at Heidelberg, who could have refused Hyde as firmly as did those at Strassburg, unsuspectingly underestimated her determination and relied only on stiff procedural barriers: a woman could have a degree, laughed Willy Kuhne, if she could meet his standards. But then having agreed to set the terms (however hypothetically), he was obliged to award the degree to a woman, when she did meet them. Upon their return to the United States, some of these first American women with German doctorates took steps to smooth the way for their followers. Feeling that the ACA's official sponsorship would help reassure the friendlier German professors and encourage them to take other American women seriously, the ACA started in 1896 a Council for Foreign University Work with Ida Hyde, Ph.D. and Margaret Maltby, Ph.D. as members. Its purpose was to "consider and pass upon the qualifications of women to pursue advanced work in European universities." But the need for such a Council never materialized. Relatively few women availed themselves of its services, and soon the German government moved to ease applications through its own consular offices. (39) Meanwhile Isabel Maddison, a "wrangler" from

302

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Cambridge University, England, who had come to Bryn Mawr College for a doctorate in mathematics, greatly eased foreign study with her Handbook of British, Continental and Canadian Universities with Special Mention of the Courses Open to Women (1896). She issued a supplement in 1897 and a second edition in 1899, (40) by which time, however, the appeal of foreign doctorates had begun to wane for Americans of both sexes. It is somewhat ironic and anticlimatic that so soon after being opened to women at such great emotional cost, the German universities began to lose their competitive edge over American ones and never did play the important role in the careers of American women scholars that Ladd-Franklin and her cohorts must have expected. In fact, the chief beneficiaries of this heroic "entering wedge" at the German universities seem to have been the German women, who were not directly involved in the struggles of the 1890s but who ten years later reaped its consequences. It was they whom the German professors were most adamantly opposed to admitting in the 1890s. Foreign women were far less a threat, since they would return home and not expect to teach in Germany. Nevertheless, the acceptance of foreign women (like the "infiltration" earlier at the American graduate schools) helped set a precedent upon which German feminists capitalized later. Starting as early as 1902 at some institutions and as late as 1908 at others, the German universities admitted their own countrywomen and awarded them degrees. After about 1904 one begins to hear of such great German women scientists as Lise Meitner in physics and Emmy Noether in mathematics. Some of the first German graduates were faculty daughters who had been watching the American women in the 1890s and waiting enviously for their own chance to attend the universities and earn degrees there too. (41) Yet Ladd-Franklin had never intended to stop her campaign with the opening of the German universities to American women. All along she had planned to use the publicity about the women's success abroad to create additional pressure on lagging institutions back home, or as she wrote Marion Talbot in 1896, "I had in mind much less the aid and comfort of the individual women than the making it well-known that some women were engaged in studying in foreign universities, and with some attendant distinction." (42) As early as 1892, Ladd-Franklin had alerted William James, professor of psychology at Harvard, that Göttingen would soon be admitting women students. He understood the implied comparison and responded, "Of course we are going to have women in Harvard soon. Göttingen mustn't be allowed to get ahead of us." (43) By 1892 several professors in Harvard's philosophy (later divided into psychology and philosophy) department, including James, H u g o Münsterberg, Josiah Royce, and George Herbert Palmer (husband of Alice Freeman Palmer, former president of Wellesley College) had been welcoming women graduate students. By the 1890s they had not only admitted them to their lectures but even to their laboratories, a privilege hitherto withheld from them. Before long the evident brilliance of some of the early women and the

EDUCATION

303

unfairness of university policy toward them spurred the thus relatively liberal department to risk a faculty fight to get the women Harvard degrees. T h e first test case was Mary Whiton Calkins, who passed all her examinations brilliantly in 1895 but was denied a degree. (44) Then in 1898 Ethel Puffer (later Howes) also passed all her examinations with such distinction that she was deemed by a committee of eight full professors to be "unusually well qualified" for a Harvard Ph.D., but the Corporation again refused to grant it. (45) An unidentified clipping in her papers at Smith College reveal that the department retaliated by appointing her an "assistant" on the faculty, undoubtedly a "first," but not one of which the university was proud. T h e authorities did not record her appointment in the official log so that once again the administration could deny that a woman was holding such a position: "WOMAN IN HARVARD FACULTY Miss Ethel Puffer, assistant in psychology at Harvard, is a recognized member of the University faculty, but her name is not printed in the catalog for fear that it would "create a dangerous precedent." Miss Puffer was the youngest member of her class a< Smith College a n d after a few years of teaching in her alma mater, went abroad and studied psychology under Professor Munsterberg, now at the head of the department of Psychology at Harvard but then lecturer at Freiburg, Germany. He is reported as saying that Miss Puffer is his most brilliant a n d most thorough disciple." (46)

A few years later in 1902, when the Harvard Corporation had resolved the issue by forming the Radcliffe Graduate School to grant the university's degree to women, both Puffer and Calkins were offered Radcliffe doctorates. Puffer accepted, but Calkins refused, despite the strong urging of H u g o Münsterberg. She insisted on a Harvard degree or none at all. Since a later appeal by her friends was unsuccessful (see below), and she died long before the policy waschanged in 1963, Calkins never did get a doctorate. Apparently the loss did not hurt her career, however, because she became a full professor at Wellesley College and was not only the first woman elected president of both the American Psychological Association (1905) and the American Philosophical Association (1918), but was (with William James and J o h n Dewe,y)oneof just three persons to hold both positions. (47) T h e chief obstacle to the admission of women to the new Johns H o p k i n s University, proclaimed as the first full-scale graduate school in America when it opened in 1876, was apparently the attitude of its trustees and president Daniel C. Oilman. He was not sympathetic to the women and felt he had enough problems already without taking on the thorny issue of coeducation. In 1877 he offered instead to let the women buy their way into the new institution by forming their own coordinate college nearby, but he refused to let them take classes with the men, as M. Carey T h o m a s learned and as a thick file of rejection letters at Hopkins reveals. Despite this official policy of exclusion, a few women were, as explained above, admitted as "special students" in the late 1870s and 1880s, but none were awarded doctorates, however brilliant their work, as Ladd-Franklin discovered in 1882. (48)

304

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

By the early 1890s, however, changes elsewhere and at its own medical school (see below), brought some softening at Hopkins. In 1893 the University awarded its first doctorate to a woman, not retrospectively to Ladd-Franklin, however, but to the less controversial Florence Bascom in geology. Admitted in 1891 as a "special student," Bascom performed so well and proved so helpful to her professor, who used her fieldwork in his reports to the Maryland Geological Survey, that in 1892 he recommended her admission to candidacy. Apparently her case was greatly aided not only by her having all the "ability, energy and enthusiasm that could be expected of any man," as her professor put it, but also by the support of another, older professor, who had been a college classmate of her father. (John Bascom, then professor of political science at Williams College and the former president of the University of Wisconsin, may also have known Gilman personally.) Besides citing these strong personal assets, Bascom's supporters could also inform the trustees that she would probably be hired in a year or two by Bryn Mawr College, whose dean M. Carey T h o m a s was at the time involved in a major fund-raising campaign for the new Johns Hopkins Medical School. T h u s if the Hopkins trustees were ever to make an exception to their prohibition on degrees for women, Bascom was as good and as safe a candidate as they were likely to get. T h i s argument worked and the trustees emphasized that her case was a special one that did not set any precedents for others. T h i s proviso, however did not deter many Baltimore, New York and other journalists from confidently predicting that Hopkins would soon be admitting women to all its postgraduate programs. (49) Yet the anticipated change did not come for fourteen more years. In 1896 Ladd-Franklin, who was by then a lecturer in psychology at Hopkins, was still jubilantly expecting an official change in policy to be announed soon. Her elation was premature, however, since a strong backlash against a new policy developed a m o n g the rest of the faculty, including especially physicist Henry A. Rowland, who wrote an angry letter to the editor of The Nation denouncing women applicants and defending Gilman's decision to postpone their admission. It was not until 1907, thirty-one years after the university had opened, that Gilman's successor, President (and later suffragist) Ira Remsen could finally admit the women officially. Remsen defended the new policy, as Hadley had at Yale fifteen years earlier, as "a simple act of justice" that merely recognized what was fast becoming standard university practice. He also softened the blow for coeducation's diehard opponents by reserving the right to refuse women students if they wished. Women were admitted to all classes provided there was " n o objection on the part of the instructor concerned." Even so, old practices seem to have lingered on in some departments, since in 1913 philosopher Arthur O. Lovejoy was pointing out to the administration the inconsistencies and potential embarrassment to the university if it were discovered that it was still not putting women in the catalog. Finally, in 1926 at its fiftieth anniversary celebration, J o h n s Hopkins University awarded a long overdue doctorate to one of its most talented graduates, Christine Ladd-

EDUCATION

305

Franklin, who, now a sprightly 79-year old, made it a point to attend the ceremonies and collect her degree forty-four years late. (50) (A year later, a petition signed by thirteen Harvard degree-holders to President Abbott Lawrence Lowell requested that the Harvard Corporation follow suit and award Mary Calkins her long-overdue doctorate. T h i s request received the curt reply that the Corporation felt that there was no adequate reason for granting her such a [Harvard] degree.) (51) It should be noted that the official acceptance of women graduate students by the Johns Hopkins Graduate School in 1907 was almost fifteen years after the same university had grudgingly admitted them to its medical school in 1893. The fact that the women gained entry to the Hopkins medical school so much earlier than to its graduate school points u p the relative weakness of the strategy of slow "infiltration" and the comparative strength of a second approach, that of "coercive philanthropy"—the offering of large gifts with key strings attached (although, even this approach had its weaknesses too.) In 1890 the Hopkins trustees launched a $500,000 fund drive for a medical school designed, in the tradition of their graduate school, to be the best in the nation. In due course the trustees approached Mary Garrett, heiress to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad fortune and close friend of M. Carey Thomas, dean and soon to be president of Bryn Mawr College, for a contribution. She offered $60,000 on the conditions that (1) baccalaureate degrees be required for admission, a novelty at the time, and most importantly here (2) that women be admitted and given the "same" (not just an "equal" education) at the new medical school. At first the trustees were unwilling to accept these conditions but when their fund drive faltered and Garrett increased her offer to $307,000, President Gilman, Dr. William Welch, dean of the as yet unborn medical school, and the trustees anxious to complete the drive, finally relented and decided to accept the women's conditions in 1893. T h e school quickly became known for its long line of distinguished women graduates in medicine and medical research with the greatly honored Florence Sabin, M.D., '00, one of its first. (52) Yet lest one think that money always "talks" in this effective way, he or she should be reminded of two other cases where benefactors' attempts to buy women's way into major universities in these years were unsuccessful. In 1898 the University of Michigan learned that a Dr. Elizabeth Bates of New York had left them the bulk of her estate ($133,000) for a professorship of gynecology and pediatrics provided that they would expand their offerings, especially in clinical instruction, to women medical students (whom they had been admitting since 1871) to make their education fully equal to that of its men students. T h e University gladly accepted the gift but never used it for this purpose. Instead it was deflected into underwriting the expenses of the obstetrics department and adding a children's wing to the University hospital. Apparently Dr. Bates' executors were unwilling or unable to enforce the conditions of her gift, thus demonstrating the problems of trying to enforce one's will through a bequest. (53)

306

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Another such gift that was not only deliberately misallocated but actually almost backfired on the women's attempts to enter the graduate schools occurred at the University of Pennsylvania in 1887-1892. The University had, before many others, quietly become coeducational at the graduate level in the mid-1880s when two of its first four graduate students in 1885 were women. Then in 1887 Joseph Bennett, a Philadelphia businessman, started a series of gifts to the University, eventually valued at over J400,000, to be used for a presumably undergraduate "College for Women." The trustees accepted the properties and money, but since the president, like Dwight at Yale, opposed the introduction of coeducation into the undergraduate college, he used the buildings to house a separate "Graduate School for Women" established in 1892. Rather than restricting graduate women at Pennsylvania, however, this "school," apparently just regularized their status, for the women at Pennsylvania continued to attend coed graduate classes, and a steady stream earned doctorates after 1894. (54) T h u s in these two cases donors of both sexes who wished to advance the higher education of women in previously all-male universities found that philanthropy directed to that end could be unsatisfactory. Administrators would accept the gift but often would neglect its conditions and deliberately deflect it to other uses more in line with their own wishes. Only a very shrewd and vigilant donor (like Mary Garrett) could enforce unpopular conditions to a gift. "Coercive philanthropy" could be a highly successful strategy for changing institutional policies, but it could also fail miserably. T h u s by 1907 academic feminists could rejoice that their efforts had brought about major changes in the American and German graduate schools and opened their highest degrees to women. Some of this progress had occurred quite readily anyway, but converting the remaining institutions had been a long and difficult struggle that had required the best energies of many persons of vision, determination, and wealth. As reforms movements go, however, this one had been clearcut—the obstacles were identifiable and visible and susceptible to a variety of strategies and pressure tactics. Yet ironically the women's reform did not lead to the full academic careers for women that they had expected. On the contrary, it was during these very years when major universities were agreeing that it was "only fair" to award women the same degrees as to men that they were also rapidly institutionalizing a separate and decidedly unequal kind of employment ("women's work") for them. (55) The academic feminists were learning that as some educational barriers fell, other more rigid ones were rising in employment. They now had to face a basic inconsistency—that those very institutions that would educate them and award them doctorates would not hire them for their faculties. Until the women could find a way around that dichotomy, their position in academia would remain marginal, despite their hard-won doctorates. FOOTNOTES 'Office for ihe History of Science and Technology, University of California, Berkeley CA. 94720. This article is part of a larger project supported by the National Science Foundation grants SOC

EDUCATION

307

777-22159 and SOC 79-07562. Sally Gregory Kohlsiedt and Gayle Gullen Escobar have had many hielpful criticisms of earlier drafts. 1. Frederick Rudolph, The American College and University, A History (New York, 1962) and Laurence R. Veysey, The Emergence of the American University (Chicago, 1965). Thomas Woody, History of Women's Education in the United States (New York, 1929), II, pp. SS3-40 discusses it as does Hugh Hawkins' Pioneer: A History of the Johns Hopkins University, 1874-1889 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1960) in an excellent chapter on " T h e Uninvited." ;2. Helene Lange, The Higher Education of Women in Europe, trans, by L. R. Klemm (New York, 1890), pp. xxiii and chapter 8; "Address by M. Carey Thomas," in Addresses Delivered at the Opening of the Graduate Department of Women [at the University of Pennsylvania] on Wednesday, May 4th, 1892 (Philadelphia. 1892), pp. 9-10. :S. Mary Roth Walsh, "Doctors Wanted, No Women Need Apply," Sexual Barriers in the Medical Profession, 1835-1975 (New Haven. 1977), pp. 28-32. 164-6. Despite its broad title, this book barely touches on the history of women's medical education. •4. "Richards" in Edward James, el al., eds., Notable American Women, 1607-1950 (3 vols.; Cambridge, 1971), (hereinafter abbreviated as ΝAW) and Robert Richards, Robert Hallowell Richards, His Mark (Boston, 1936), p. 153. 5. "Richards" in NA W and Caroline L. Hunt. The Life of Ellen H. Richards (Boston, 1912), p. 88. 16. Hawkins, Pioneer, chapter 14; "Ladd-Franklin" in NAW. See also n. 48 below. 7. "Item 27: Class notes for 1867 (January 12, 1868)," Maria Mitchell Memorabilia, microfilm, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia (I thank Sally Gregory Kohlsiedt for this reference); "Whitney" and "Whiting" in NAW; Sarah F. Whiting, "History of (he Physics Department at Wellesley College from 1878 to 1912," unpublished manuscript, 1912, in Wellesley College Archives. Edward Pickering was an early supporter of scientific education for women ([Edward Pickering], "Education," Atlantic Monthly, S3 [1874]: 760-4). He was also a hearty supporter of the young Association of College Alumnae (Edward Pickering to Marion Talbot, December 18, 1882, Marion Talbot Papers, Special Collections, Regenstein Library, University of Chicago); Genth: "Women in the University." Philadelphia Public Ledger and Daily Transcript, July 25, 1877, clipping in Rachel Bodley Scrapbook, p. 179, Rachel Bodley Papers, Archives and Special Collections, (Women's) Medical College of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 8. Hugh Hawkins, Pioneer, chapter 14; "Thomas" and "Ladd-Franklin" in NAW. Sylvester was familiar with some of Ladd's previous publications. For more on Johns Hopkins, see also n. 48-50 below. 9. Walter Crosby Eells, "Earned Doctorates for Women in the Nineteenth Century," American Association of University Professors Bulletin, 42 (1956): 647 and 651. 10. W. Freeman Galpin, Syracuse University, The Pioneer Days (Syracuse, N.Y., 1952), chapter 14; for mention of Winchell's later support of early women doctorates at the University of Michigan, see Lewis B. Kellum, "The Museum of Paleontology," in Walter A. Donnelly, et al., eds., The University of Michigan, An Encyclopedia Survey (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1942-58), IV, p. 1488; Wooster's graduate school was later seen as an "unfortunate" addition. (Lucy Lilian Notestein, Wooster of the Middle West [New Haven, 1937], I, pp. 89-90.) 11. See Margaret Farrand Thorp, Smith Grants Radcliffe's First Ph.D. [to Kate Morris (later Cone) in 1882] (Northampton. Mass., 1965). 12. Gulliver: Eells, "Earned Doctorates. . . ," p. 646; Crow: Galpin, Syracuse University, p. 217, and John S. Nollen, Grinnell College (Iowa City, Iowa, 1953), p. 87; Hooker: Eells, "Earned Doctorates," p. 651 and American Men of Science (3rd ed.; Garrison, N.Y., 1921). p. 328; "Clapp" and "White" in NAW; Slosson: Eells, "Earned Doctorates. . . ," p. 651 and American Men of Science (3rd ed.; Garrison, N.Y., 1921), p. 632; Cook: Eells, "Earned

308

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Doctorates. . . ," p. 651 and American Men of Science (5lh ed.; Garrison, New York, 1953). p. 225. IS. Jane M. Bancroft, Ph.D., "Occupations and Professions for College-bred Women," Education, 5(1885): 486-95; Martha Fooie Crow, "The Status of Foreign Collegiate Education for Women," Publications of the ACA, series 2. no. 37( 1891) and, from Zurich, "Women in European Universities." The Nation, 54(March 31, 1892): 247. 14. Notestein, Wooster, I, p. 90. 15. Cornelia Meigs, What Makes a CollegeΤ The History of Bryn Mawr (New York, 1956) mentions the graduate school only briefly. See also " T h e Academic Committee's Report on the Bryn Mawr School." Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin, 7(1927): 3-36 (I thank Gertrude Reed for sending me a copy); Eleanor Bliss, "Bryn Mawr Studies Its Ph.D.'s," AAUW Journal, 48 (1954): 14-16; Ann Miller, ed., A College in Dispersion, Women of Bryn Mawr, 1896-1975 (Boulder. Colorado, 1975), especially Tables 123 and 124. A full history of the Bryn Mawr Graduate School is a great desideratum now that the college's archives are open and the M. Carey Thomas Papers available. 16. M. Carey Thomas, "Present Tendencies in Women's College and University Education," Publications of the ACA, series 3, no. 17 (February. 1908): 58-62; Mary Calkins, "The Relation of College Teaching to Research," Journal of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, vol. 4 (1911): 78-80; "Washburn" in Ν AW and Margaret Washburn to Christine Ladd-Franklin, February 20, 1914, Christine Ladd-Franklin Papers, Special Collections, Butler Library, Columbia University. 17. The Nation, 49(1889): 426-7 and 446-7; 54(1892): 247; 57(1893): 483-4; 58(1894): 116-7, 137, 151-2, 154, 193, 212; 59(1894): 232-3. 247-8. 268; 64(1897): 223-4, 262. (One may also see Christine Ladd-Franklin's hand here, since both she and her husband were frequent contributors to the Nation). Helene Lange. Higher Education of Women in Europe, trans, by L. R. Klemm (New York. 1890); "A Profession for Women." Popular Science Monthly, 38(1890-1): 701-2. 18. Thomas Woody, History of Women's Education, II, pp. 333-40. There is some indication that the doctorate given by the University of Pennsylvania to a woman physician in 1880 may have been to avoid giving her a bachelors degree (and thus condoning undergraduate coeducation. Her degree was later reduced to a B.S.). (Martin Meyerson and Dilys Pegler Winegrad, Gladly Learn and Gladly Teach, Franklin and His Heirs at the University of Pennsylvania, 1740-1976 (Philadelphia. Pennsylvania, 1978), p. 122. See also the peculiarities surrounding Mary Pennington's doctorate at Pennsylvania in 1895 (Barbara Heggie, "Profiles, Ice Woman," New Yorker 17[September 6, 1941): 23-4.) The best discussion I have seen of the complex situation at Columbia and Barnard is in Rosalind Rosenberg, Beyond Separate Spheres: Intellectual Roots of Modem Feminism. (New Haven, 1982). chap. 4. 19. Arthur T. Hadley, " T h e Admission of Women as Graduate Students at Yale," Educational Review, 3(1892): 486-9; Timothy Dwight, "Education for Women at Yale," Forum, 13(1892): 451-63; Report of the President of Yale University for the Year Ending December 31, 1891, p. 25. See also Yale University Corporation Records, Book 1876-1900 (reel 6), March 3, 1892. p. 297 and "Women in Post Graduate Courses," Yale Alumni Weekly. 1(1891-2), no. 23 (March 22. 1892), p. [3], I thank Patricia Bodak Stark and Judith Schiff for assistance. 20. Both Dwights are in the Dictionary of American Biography; the Dwight Family Papers at the Yale University Archives have no material on this episode; Edna S. Furniss, The Graduate School of Yale, A Brief History (New Haven, 1965), pp. 72-3; and Morris Hadley, Arthur Twining Hadley (New Haven. 1948), pp. 68-70. 79. and 160-3. 21. Marion Talbot to Millicent Shinn, August 27, 1892, Millicent Shinn Papers, Bancroft

EDUCATION

309

Library, University of California, Berkeley. (She also reported that women had won three out of five Yale fellowships). Marion Talbot. History of the Chicago Association of Collegiate Alumnae, 1888-1917 (Chicago, 1920), p. 6. The Association of Collegiate Alumnae also put out a bulletin on the opening of Yale, "Notes on Graduate Instruction, Yale University," Publications of the ACA, scries 2. no. 37-2(1892). 22. Woody, History of Women's Education, II, p. 336; Richard J. Storr, Harper's University, The Beginning (Chicago, 1966), p. 109; "Palmer" in Ν AW. 23. Eells, "Earned Doctorates. . . ," p. 646 and "Clapp" in Ν AW. 24. Ibid., p. 648 25. Thus at the University of Chicago, Charles O. Whitman, professor of zoology, had six women among his 41 Ph.D.'s ("Biographical Sketch of Charles O. Whitman," Journal of Morphology, 22(1911): xlvi-xlvii); John Merle Coulter, professor of botany, had 25 women among his 82 doctorates (A Record of the Doctors in Botany of the University of Chicago 1897-1916, Presented to John Merle Coulter by the Doctors in Botany [Chicago, 1916];) and Leonard E. Dickson, professor of mathematics, had at least sixteen women among his Ph.D.'s (Raymond Clare Archibald, A Semicentennial History of the American Mathematical Society, 1888-1938 [New York, 1938], vol. 1. p. 185.) [Margaret T. Corwin, ed.] Alumnae, Graduate School, Yale University, 1891-1920 (New Haven. 1920) lists its 117 women doctorates to date. Introductory statements by department chairmen show how welcome they were in some departments. 26. Women schoolteachers flocked to New York University's School of Pedagogy, because, as graduates of normal colleges, they were prohibited from entering its Graduate School. Because the School of Pedagogy was so feminized, its administration organized a Woman's Advisory Council of wealthy New Yorkers who covered the School's annual deficits for many years. One member, Helen Gould, the daughter of financier Jay Gould, gave NYU more than {2 million in contributions. (Joshua L. Chamberlain, ed., Universities and Their Sons, New York University, Its History, Influence, Equipment and Characteristics (Boston, 1901 and 1903), I, pp. 240-2 and Theodore F. Jones, ed.. New York University, 1832-1932 (New York, 1933), ch. 14.) 27. For example, Columbia's Latin Department gave no degrees to women before 1900, perhaps because of the presence of Harry Thurston Peck, author of the highly anti-feminist, "For Maids and Mothers, T h e Overtaught Woman," Cosmopolitan, 26(1899): 329-36. He was involved in several sexual scandals and to judge from biographical accounts was not the intellectual giant his own article claimed all men were (DAB, vol. 14, pp. 377-9 and National Cyclopedia of American Biography 30 (1943), pp. 8-9). 28. G. Stanley Hall of Clark University later claimed that it had been open to women since its founding in 1887 ( L i f e and Confessions of a Psychologist [New York, 1924], p. 318), but M. Carey Thomas, who kept close watch over how women were faring at the various graduate schools, stated in 1900 that Clark was close to them. She thought this particularly blatant discrimination, since Clark's principal field was pedagogy, which would otherwise have attracted many women there. (M. Carey Thomas, Education of Women published as volume 7 of Nicholas Murray Butler, ed.. Monographs on Education in the United States, Department of Education for the United States Commission to the Paris Exposition of 1900 (1900), pp. 349-50 n. 3. Clark enrolled its first woman the next year (Louis N. Wilson, comp.. List of Degrees Granted at Clark University and Clark College, 1889-1920, published as Publications of the Clark University Library, vol. 6, no. 3 [December 1920], p. II.) 29. ("Women Students at Leipzig"], Atlantic Monthly, 44(1879): 788-91; for the endless refusals that awaited women applicants to German universities in the 1880s, see Nathan H. Dole, "Biographical Sketch" in Helen Abbott Michael, Studies in Plant and Organic Chemistry

310

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

and Literary Papers (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1907), 26-87. On Zurich, see Flora Bridges, "Coeducation in Swiss Universities," Popular Science Monthly, 38(1890-1): 524-530 and Die Universität Zurich, 1833-1933, und Ihre Verlaufer (Zurich, 1938), pt V, ch. 9. Helen D. Webster, "Our Debt to Zurich," in May Wright Sewall, ed., The World's Congress of Representative Women (Chicago, 1894), vol. 2, pp. 692-9 is superficial. Russian students, apparently including women, often went abroad for graduate training in these years (Alexander Vucinich, Science in Russian Culture, 1861-1917 (Stanford, 1970), and Jan M. Meijer, Knowledge and Revolution, The Russian Colony in Zurich, 1870-1873 (Assen, Netherlands, 1955). 30. Christine Ladd-Franklin, "Report of Committee on Endowment of Fellowship," Publications of the ACA, series 2, no. 7 (1888); "Fellowship Fund," ibid no. 11 (1889); "The European Fellowship," ibid. no. 24 (1890); Christine Ladd-Franklin, " T h e Usefulness of Fellowships," ibid. no. 31 (1890). Members of the committee were: Christine Ladd-Franklin, Ellen Richards, Alice Freeman Palmer, Anna Botsford Comstock, Kate Stephens, Mary Sheldon Barnes, and Heloise Edwina Hersey. There is some correspondence about the committee in 1889-90 from Christine Ladd-Franklin and Marion Talbot in the Kate Stephens Collection, University Archives, Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, Lawrence. Ladd-Franklin discussed the issue of whether Fellows could be engaged or married women in CLF to Kate Stephens, March 27, 1890. A list of Fellows appears in Margaret Maltby (comp.). History of the Fellowships Awarded by the American Association of University Women, 1888-1929, with the Vitas of the Fellows (Wash., D C. [1929].) They are also discussed in Marion Talbot and Lois M. Rosenberry, The History of the American Association of University Women, 1881-1931, (Boston, 1931), Chapter 10, and Marion Talbot, "Mrs. Richard's Relation to the Association of Collegiate Alumnae," Journal of the ACA, 5( 1912): 302-4. Bryn Mawr College started its own European fellowship in 1891 ("The Academic Committee's Report. . . ," (n. 15), pp. 7 and 8n, and the Women's Education Association of Boston another in 1892 (Katharine P. Loring, "A Review of Fifty-seven Years' Work," Fifty-seventh and Final Annual Report of the Women's Education Association for the Year Ending January 17, 1929, p. 8). 31. T h e only general history of the ACA is that by Marion Talbot and Lois Κ. M. Rosenberry, The History of the American Association of University Women. See also its own series of Publications, and Roberta Frankfort, Collegiate Women, Domesticity and Career in Turn-ofthe-Century America (New York, 1977), ch. 6. 32. Quoted in Martha Foote Crow, " T h e Status of Foreign Collegiate Education for Women," p. 7. See also Vera Brittain, The Women at Oxford, A Fragment of History (New York, 1960), ch. 4. "Unofficially Present (1880-1890)" and Rita McWilliams-Tullberg, "Women and Degrees at Cambridge University, 1862-1897," in Martha Vicinus, ed., A Widening Sphere, Changing Roles of Victorian Women (Bloomington, Indiana, 1977), pp. 117-45. 33. Bessie Bradwell Helmer to Mrs. Hearst, May 1, 1894, Phoebe Apperson Hearst Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. I thank Gayle Gullen Escobar for bringing this collection to my attention. Helmer was known for her strong support for the ACA fellowships (Marion Talbot, History of the Chicago ACA, pp. 3-4 and 5, but her papers have not been found.) 34. Margaret Maltby, comp., History of the Fellowships, pp. 13-14. 35. Felix Klein to "Hochgeehrte Frau Professor!, May 15, 1892, Christine Ladd-Franklin Papers, Special Collections, Butler Library, Columbia University. I thank Ian Dengler for help in transcribing this letter. See also "Ladd-Franklin" in Ν AW. 36. "Hyde" and "Maltby" in NAW; Margaret Maltby, History of the Fellowships, pp. 14-16(but error in year of Winston's degree; cf. AMS [3rd ed., 1921], p. 505); Margaret Maltby to Ida

EDUCATION

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

311

Hyde, September 21, 1929, Ida Hyde Papers, American Association of University Women Archives, Washington, D.C.; E. C. Scott Barr, "Margaret Eliza Maltby," American Journal of Physics, 28(1960): 474-5; Caroline Newson Beshers (daughter of Mary Winston Newson) to author, June 11, 1974; see also Margaret E. Maltby, "A Few Points of author, June 11, 1974; see also Margaret E. Maltby, "A Few Points of Comparison Between German and American Universities," Publications of the ACA, series 2, no. 62(1896). Ida Hyde, "Before Women Were Human Beings, Adventures of an American Fellow in German Universities of the '90s," AAUW Journal, 31(1938): 226-36; Kate Stephens to Ida Hyde, September 27, 1929, Kate Stephens Collection, University of Kansas Archives, Lawrence; "She Opened German Universities to Women." Kansas City Star (April 13, 1902), clipping in Ida Hyde Papers; comments by Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, session on "Pioneers in Science, 1880-1910," Berkshire Conference on Women in History, Mount Holyoke College, August 25. 1978; for a slightly different interpretation, see Gertraude Wittig, "Hyde's 1896 Doctorate: A Lesson from the History of Women in Science," unpublished paper delivered at the National Women's Studies Association annual meeting, Bloomington, Indiana, May 1980 and her " T h e Admission of Women to German Universities," presented at the Berkshire Conference on Women's History, Vassar College, June 1981. Bessie Bradwell Helmer to Mrs. Hearst, September 20,1894 and Marion Tal bot to Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, November 3, 1894 both in Phoebe Apperson Hearst Papers. See also n. S3. For more on women's experiences at German universities in the 1890s, see Alice Hamilton, "Edith and Alice Hamilton, Students in Germany," Atlantic Monthly, 215(March 1965): 129-32 and the Ethel Puffer Howes Papers in the Morgan-Puffer Family Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts. An attempt by the A CA to prepare a full list of women with foreign (as well as American) doctorates apparently failed (Martha Foote Crow, [Request for Assistance], Publications of the ACA, series 2, no. 59(1896). Laura D. Gill, "Report of the Committee upon the Establishment of a Council for Foreign University Work," Publications of the ACA, series 2, no. 59-2, (1896); "Council to Accredit Women for Advanced Work in Foreign Universities," Publications of the ACA, series 3, no. 1, (1898), 97-98 and no. 4 (1901), 82.92-3; "Report of the Internal Committee of the Council to Accredit Women for Advanced Work in Foreign Universities," ibid., no. 5, (1902), pp. 69-72; Helen T. Wool ley, "Report of the Committee on Foreign Universities," ibid., series 4, no. 1 (1911): 30-2 discusses eligibility of foreign degree recipients for ACA membership. Isabel Maddison, Handbook of British, Continental and Canadian Universities with Special Mention of the Courses Open to Women (New York); an endorsement appears in Publications of the ACA, series 3. no. 1 (1898): 102-S. Little has been written on the entrance of German women into the universities. Good starling places are Richard J. Evans, the Feminist Movement in Germany, 1894-1933 (London and Beverly Hills, 1976), pp. 17-21, 72-3, 176-7 and 187; George Bernstein and Lottelore Bernstein, "Attitudes Toward Women's Education in Germany, 1870-1914," International Journal of Women's Studies, 2(1979): 473-88; E. Dühring, Der Weg zur höheren Berufsbildung der Frauen (Leipzig, 1877); Arthur Kirchoff, Die Akademische Frau, Gutachten hervorragender Universitätsprofejsoren. frauenlehrer und Schriftsteller über die befähigung der frau zum wissenschaftlichen Studium und berufe herausgegeben (Berlin, 1897); [Frances Graham French], " T h e Status of Woman from the Educational and Industrial Standpoint," in Report of the [U.S.] Commissioner of Education for 1897-98, vol. 1, pp. 631-72, esp. 637-44; and, for background, Helene Lange, Lebenserinnerungen (Berlin, 1921), which ought to be translated into English. Alice Hamilton, for example, stayed with Dr. and Mrs. Edinger when in Germany in 1896. Their daughter Tilly, born a year later, earned a doctorate at Frankfurt University in 1921 and subsequently became a prominent German-

312

42. 43. 44.

45. 46. 47.

48.

49.

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

American vertebrate paleontologist (Alice Hamilton to Tilly Edinger, May 2, 1964, Tilly Edinger Papers, Museum of Comparative Zoology Archives, Harvard University.) Christine Ladd-Franklin to Marion Talbot, December 8, 1896, Marion Talbot Papers, Special Collections, Regenstein Library, University of Chicago. William James to Christine Ladd-Franklin, March 3, 1892, Christine Ladd-Franklin Papers, Special Collections, Butler Library, Columbia University. T h e full story is in Laurel Furumoto, "Mary Whiton Calkins (1863-1930), Fourteenth President of the American Psychological Association," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 15(1979): 346-56, which uses Calkins correspondence still in private hands. See also "Calkins" in NAW; Bruce Kuklick, The Rise of American Philosophy, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1860-1930 (New Haven, 1977), appendix 4, "Women Philosophers at Harvard;" Matthew Hale, Jr., Human Science and Social Order: Hugo Munsterberg and the Origins of Applied Psychology (Philadelphia, 1980), pp. 63; Margaret Munsterberg, Hugo Munsterberg, His Life and Work (New York, 1922), p. 76; Hugo Munsterberg to Miss Calkins, May 20, 1902, Hugo Munsterberg Collection, Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts. Kate Morris had left Harvard in 1881 after her petition to its Corporation requesting she be admitted to candidacy for a doctorate was denied. (Margaret Farrand T h o r p (η. 11), p. 24). Puffer: Josiah Royce to Miss Puffer. May 23.1898, and "Report of the Committee on Honors and Higher Degrees of the Division of Philosophy in Harvard University." Unidentified clipping, also in Ethel D. Puffer Faculty File, Smith College Archives. "Radcliffe Day, Degrees Conferred on 100 Graduates," Boston Evening Transcript (June 26, 1902), clipping in Morgan-Puffer Family Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College; Agnes Irwin, "Report of the Dean [of the Radcliffe Graduate School]." in Annual Report of the President and Treasurer of Radcliffe College, 1901-1902 (Cambridge: [Radcliffe College] 1902), pp. 13 and 21-22; "Earned Doctorates—," Eells, p. 660; there is as yet no history of the Radcliffe Graduate School, although one may be possible now that the college has hired an archivist. T h e volume by the Radcliffe College, Committee on Graduate Education for Women, Graduate Education for Women, The Radcliffe Ph.D. (Cambridge, 1956) is not historical. Kathryn Jacob, "How Johns Hopkins Protected Women From 'The Rougher Influences,'" Johns Hopkins Magazine, 27 (March 1976): 4-5, 7; H u g h Hawkins, Pioneer, especially chapter 14 ("The Uninvited"); John C. French, A History of the University Founded by Johns Hopkins (Baltimore, 1946), p. 147; "Ladd-Franklin" in NAW. D. C. Gilman's "Memoranda Submitted to the Trustees [on the Education of Women]," November 5, 1877, lists of "Applications Refused," reports of action taken on applications accepted, and correspondence are in three folders on the "Admission of Women" in Special Collections and Manuscripts, Eisenhower Library, Johns Hopkins University. "Bascom" in ΝA W; George D. Williams to Florence Bascom, April 16, 1891; quotation from G. H. Williams to Professor Edward Orton, January 5, 1893; D. C. Gilman to Miss Bascom, May 26,1893; Rebekah W. Griffin to "My dear Florence," n.d. [spring 1893]; D. C. Gilman to Miss Bascom, July 5, 1893; numerous clippings from New York and Baltimore newspapers; all in Florence Bascom Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. See also W. S. Bayley, "Contributions of Hopkins to Geology," and Florence Bascom, "Fifty Years of Progress in Petrography and Petrology," both in Edward Bennett Matthews, ed., Fifty Years' Progress in Geology, 1876-1926, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Geology, No. 8 (1926). Both of Bascom's parents were suffragists: Emma C. Bascom, "Reports of Vice-Presidents," Papers and Reports Read Before the Association for the Advancement of Women at its Annual Congress, . . . Buffalo, Ν. Y„ October 1881 (Boston, 1882), pp. 17-20

313

EDUCATION

and obiiuaries in Florence Bascom Papers; " W o m a n S u f f r a g e , M e e i i n g of the Wisconsin Advocates of the M o v e m e n t Address by J o h n Bascom, President of State University," n.d., copy in Florence Bascom Papers. A l t h o u g h Waller Fells c o u n t e d C o n s t a n c e Pessels, P h . D . '94 as a woman, H a w k i n s cited evidence he was m a l e ( H a w k i n s , Pioneer, p. 266 n. 21). 50. Christine L a d d - F r a n k l i n to Marion T a l b o t , December 8, 1896 (n. 42 above) discusses the imminent o p e n i n g of H o p k i n s to w o m e n . Daniel C. G i l m a n , " T h e F u t u r e of American Colleges and Universities," Atlantic Monthly, 78 (1896): 176; H e n r y A. R o w l a n d to Editor of the Nation, September 27, 1896 a n d C i l m a n ' s request that he not p u b l i s h it (October 2, 1896), in folder o n " A d m i s s i o n of W o m e n , " n. 48 above. A d d i t i o n a l material o n LaddFranklin's degree a n d A. O. Lovejoy's criticisms are in the J o h n s H o p k i n s University Archives also in Milton Eisenhower Library, a n d in the C h r i s t i n e L a d d - F r a n k l i n Papers, Special Collections, Butler Library, C o l u m b i a University. 51. Christian A. R u c k m i c k to Professor R. M. Yerkes, March 14, 1927; C h r i s t i a n A. R u c k m i c k to President Abbott L. Lowell, J u n e 4, 1927; a n d C h r i s t i a n A. R u c k m i c k to Professor R. M. Yerkes, J u n e 25, 1927, Robert A. Yerkes Papers, Yale University Library, New H a v e n , Connecticut. 52.

Garrett" in Ν A W; E d i t h F i n c h . Carey Thomas ofBryn Maun (New York. 1947), p p . 197-202; Alan M. Chesney, The Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine: A Chronicle {2 vols.; Baltimore. 1943 a n d 1958); S i m o n Flexner a n d J a m e s T h o m a s Flexner, William Henry Welch and the Heroic Age of American Medicine (New York. 1941), p p . 215-230; W i l l i a m H . Welch to F. P. Mall. N o v e m b e r 7. 1891; W i l l i a m H . Welch to M. Carey T h o m a s , February 16, 1893 a n d W i l l i a m H . Welch to Harvey C u s h i n g , August 8, 1922 all in W i l l i a m H. Welch Papers, the Alan M a s o n Chesney Medical Archives of the J o h n s H o p k i n s Medical I n s t i t u t i o n s . A n o t h e r f a m o u s s t u d e n t G e r t r u d e Stein, 01, never completed her degree.

53. Reuben Peterson, " T h e D e p a r t m e n t of Obstetrics a n d G y n e c o l o g y , " in W i l f r e d B. S h a w , ed., The University of Michigan, An Encyclopedic Survey ( A n n Arbor, M i c h i g a n , 1951), v. 3, p p . 866-8. 53. Edward P. Cheyney. History of the University of Pennsylvania, 1740-1910 ( P h i l a d e l p h i a , Pennsylvania. 1940). p p . 303-9; Eells, " E a r n e d Doctorates. . . , " p. 647; n. 2 a n d 18 above; Karl G. Miller, " D a u g h t e r s of [the University o f ] P e n n s y l v a n i a , " General Historical Chronicle University of Pennsylvania, 39(1937): 405-20.

Magazine

55. Margaret W. Rossiter, ' " W o m e n ' s W o r k ' in Science. 1880-1910," Isis 71 (1980): 381-98.

&

314

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Here Was Fellowship: A Social Portrait of Academic Women at Wellesley College, 1895-1920 PATRICIA

A.

PALMIER1

IN 1929 HISTORIAN WILLYSTINE GOODSELL noted the meager professional opportunities available to academic women. Only in the women's colleges did women professors of all ranks considerably outnumber the men. Goodsell concluded, "In the realm of higher education this is their one happy hunting ground and they make good use of it."' One such golden arena was the academic community of Wellesley College 1895-1920. Wellesley was the only women's college which from its founding in 1875 was committed to women presidents and a totally female professoriate. In the Progressive era this professoriate was a stellar cast: it included Katharine Coman, historian; Mary Calkins, philosopher; Vida Dutton Scudder, literary critic and social radical; Margaret Ferguson, botanist; Sarah Frances Whiting, physicist; Emily Greene Balch, economist; and Katharine Lee Bates, author of America the Beautiful. T o outside observers this group had created a female Harvard, a "bubbling cauldron that seethed," a "hotbed of radicalism." 2 T o their students the noble faculty provided a rich world which stirred them. T o the next generation of faculty women the "old crowd" were completely dedicated "war horses." 5 T o each other, they were kindred spirits, diverse, but united in the "bonds of Wellesley." 4 Today such outstanding academic women are relatively unknown. It is not solely the passage of time, however, that has distanced these women from us; historians have not considered them worthy of study. Traditional scholarship in the history of academe has tended to focus on presidents, not academic faculty. Moreover, there has been an implicit presumption that only one model of the academic exists—that of the male professional. Even in the recent renaissance in women's educational history, historians have tended to dismiss women scholars a priori. T h u s Sheila Rothman in Women's Proper Sphere concludes that women's colleges were dens of domesticity where female virtue and moraliiy "intruded" on women's intellectual life. According to RothMs Palmieri

is an Assistant

Professor of Education

at Dartmouth

College.

EDUCATION

315

man, the women's colleges did not hire women renowned for their intellectual achievement, but rather ones representative of "female grace and virtue." She asserts that "they rarely employed teachers of scholarly stature." In her ground-breaking Collegiate Women, Roberta Frankfort, depicts the culture of Weilesley (1885-1910) as one of "subdued familial grace," epitomized by Alice Freeman (Wellesley's president from 1881 to 1887). For Frankfort, the faculty of Weilesley play almost no role at all in creating the culture of the college. 5 But to so dismiss the faculty is to misread fundamentally the history of the Weilesley College community in the Progressive era. Indeed, the academic women of Weilesley shaped this major liberal arts college and were responsible for its "golden age." 6 In this essay, using both qualitative and quantitative techniques I will sketch a social portrait of the fifty-three women who attained the rank of senior or associate professor at Weilesley College by 1910.' This collective portrait highlights the fact that the women attracted to academe shared a core set of experiences and attributes derived from their sex, class, family relationships, geographic origins, education and social ideals. Such women were comfortable in what they termed their "Weilesley world"; they fashioned their professional and private lives around the college and each other.* They form not merely a collection of disparate individuals, but a discernible social group, who created at Weilesley a cohesive intellectual and social community. T h a t community is as central to my portrait as any of the individual faculty members: it illuminates the history of academe as it was writ by women scholars, outside the research universities so commonly thought to be the only citadels of genuine intellectual creativity. In this essay I am not particularly concerned with Wellesley's institutional history. However, it is useful to know something of that history for it provides the backdrop to the emergence of the faculty community under consideration. Wellesley's founders Henry and Pauline Durant were bent on establishing more than a women's college. Typical late-nineteenth century evangelical communitarians, they wanted Weilesley to be a model community which would serve as an exemplar to the nation of the possibilities of individual and societal transformation through the regeneration of women. Weilesley served the alienated Durants as a sanctuary and a home; it became, for them as well as for early faculty and students, a romantic refuge, a "little world under one roof." 9 Wellesley's most radical feature was its dedication to the principle of education of women by women scholars. Weilesley was to be a "woman's university," equivalent to Harvard, presided over and staffed entirely by women. T h i s bold experiment captured the imagination of the public. One newspaper noted: T h e President, professors and students are all women; only two men belong to the establishment: the chief cook and the chief baker.

316

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Another hailed Wellesley as an institution which "confirmed the century's progress." 10 While Henry Durant lived, however, his patriarchal style and evangelical zeal prevented the attainment of his radical ideal of an academic community controlled by women. For example, several of the first group of women faculty appointed by Durant voiced their dissatisfaction with his strict behavioral code, which they saw as a vestige of the seminary model. Durant forced the resignations of five faculty women in 1876 but replaced them with other college-educated women. With Durant's death in 1881 and the elevation of Alice Freeman to the presidency, the gap between the real and the ideal narrowed. Her appointment created the basis for a genuine female intellectual community. T o students and faculty the twenty-nine year old Freeman epitomized the "new" college woman. Freeman's charismatic personality and exceptional organizational talents allowed her to rally the Wellesley community from within and to elevate Wellesley to a respected place within the ranks of liberal arts colleges. Freeman resigned to marry Harvard philosopher George Herbert Palmer in 1887, but until her death in 1902, she remained Wellesley's most powerful trustee, controlling the college from behind the scenes. She personally selected as Wellesley's next three presidents women who could be trusted to execute her master-plan for the college. By 1899, Freeman had orchestrated a purge against several old-line faculty women, hiring in their stead junior scholars who could teach a new elective curriculum. Further, she wooed and won a hesitant Caroline Hazard as Wellesley's fifth president. Wellesley sorely needed the wealth and social connections that Hazard brought to the presidency. Her gentility and concern for social reform harmonized well with the spirit of social service which characterized the newly hired faculty. IU-at-ease with the role of president, Hazard left much of the internal administration to the women professors. Using as their power base the Academic Council formed by Alice Freeman, these strong-minded women "reared the college from its struggling babyhood to glorious womanhood." 11 By 1910, fifty-three women had been on the faculty for more than five years and had reached the rank of senior or associate professor. They constitute the faculty group under consideration. Table I lists them with their principal academic department. What characteristics distinguish this group of academic women? They are strikingly homogeneous in terms of social and geographic origins, upbringing, and socio-cultural worldview. Nearly 50 percent were born in New England, with 22 percent from the Midwest and another 20 percent from the Mid-Atlantic region. Four women were born in Europe; there was only one Southerner. Over half (52 percent) of the group was born in the decade 1855 to 1865, with another 30 percent born 1865 to 1875. One hundred percent were single.12 Almost all of these women were children of professional, middle-class

EDUCATION

317

families. Their fathers were cultivated men—ministers, lawyers, doctors, college presidents and teachers. These men were also committed to abolitionism, temperance and prison reform. They passed on to their daughters their respect for learning, their zeal for social reform, and their preference for service over financial success. Several of the fathers abandoned careers in business or law for more fulfilling service oriented vocations. 15 They were, to use William James's term, "tender-minded" in their cultural sensitivity and in their ability to form close bonds with their daughters. Almost all took an avid interest in their daughters' education. For example, when Katharine Coman's father saw that she was making little progress in her seminary, he directed her to tell the principal to give her more work. The principal refused because he thought the female mind incapable of comprehending more difficult material. Mr. Coman thereupon transferred Katharine to a public high school, scorning the dire predictions of what would happen to his daughter's manners and morals in a co-educational environment. 14 T o a remarkable degree, the academic women of Wellesley grew up with such special sponsorship and familial support. Lida Kendrick, who became a professor of Biblical History, complained in 1881 as a Wellesley freshman of her ill-preparation for college. Her father responded that he regarded her depression as "nothing more than a temporary blue spell." He reminded her that she was eminently qualified to distinguish herself and that she should dismiss all doubts from her mind and think of her family who "hoped that she would dream good things and awake with new vigor for the battle." 15 Similarly, Emily Greene Balch's father counseled her against joining him in his law practice because to do so would not provide sufficient opportunity for her talents. He encouraged her instead to be a pioneer and to continue her social science research and her reform activity. 16 Such fathers often acted not as marriage brokers but as career brokers for their daughters, arranging for them to take special graduate programs and even securing their daughters' professional placement. While Mary Calkins was traveling in Europe after her Smith graduation, her father Wolcott Calkins arranged for Mary to have an interview with Wellesley's president, Alice Freeman. Mary Calkins subsequently joined the faculty. Later, when Mary sought a Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard, which did not admit women, Wolcott petitioned the Harvard Corporation to admit his daughter as a special visitor. Mary Calkins went on to study with William James and Josiah Royce.17 Mothers also were ambitious for their daughters. A considerable number of the faculty recalled that their mothers sponsored or even arranged for their higher educations. The mothers of faculty women, many of whom had themselves attended seminaries, "bewailed the fact that they couldn't go to college" and thus were eager that their daughters embrace the new opportunity. 18 Mothers endorsed as well their daughters' spirited activism. Repeatedly, in reminiscences and autobiographies, the academic women of

318

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES TABLE 1 Edith Rose Abbot Emily Greene Balch Katharine Lee Bates Malvina Bennett Charlotte Almira Bragg Caroline Breyfogal Alice Van Vechten Brown Ellen Burrell Mary Whiton Calkins Ellor Carlisle Mary Alice Case Eva Chandler Angie Chapin Katharine Coman Grace Cooley Clara Eaton Cummings Grace Davis Katharine May Edwards Margaret Ferguson Elizabeth Fisher Caroline Rebecca Fletcher Eleanor Gamble Susan Maria Hallowell Sophie Hart Adeline Hawes Ellen Hayes Marion Hubbard Margaret Hastings Jackson Sophie Jewett Elizabeth Kendall Eliza Kendrick Adelaide Locke Laura Emma Lockwood Anna McKeag Helen Abbott Merrill Edna Virginia Moffett Annie Sybil Montague Margarethe Muller Julia Orvia Ellen Fitz Pendleton Frances Perry Ethel Puffer Charlotte Fitch Roberts Vida Dutton Scudder Martha Hale Shackford

Art Economics English Elocution Chemistry Latin Art History Mathematics Psychology and Philosophy Pedagogy Philosophy Mathematics Greek History; Economics Botany Botany Physics Latin Botany Geology Latin Psychology Botany English Latin Mathematics Zoology Italian English History Biblical History Biblical History English Pedagogy Mathematics History Greek German History Mathematics English Philosophy Chemistry English English

EDUCATION

319

TABLE 1 (continued) Margaret Pollock S h e r w o o d C a r o l i n e Rebecca T h o m p s o n R o x a n n e Vivian Alice Waite Alice W a l t o n Sarah Frances W h i t i n g Mary Alice Willcox Natalie W i p p l i n g e r

English Zoology Mathematics English Greek; Archaeology Physics Zoology German

Wellesley proudly proclaimed that their mothers had not expected them to be passive, submissive, dutiful daughters. Rather, as Ellen Hayes, professor of mathematics, noted: "Mother never rebuked me for spatterings or stains . . . she let me live." Economics professors Emily Greene Balch echoed this sentiment: "My mother did not spoil us with tonic. A tumble was not met with sympathy, but with J u m p and take another dear."" Often described as remarkable by their daughters, several mothers had achieved distinction in their own lives and communities.Many mothers had been teachers in seminaries. Often mothers collaborated with their daughters on books or in reform activity. Mother-daughter relationships in this group are characterized by their close, often lifelong companionship. Indeed, one of the distinctive features of the Wellesley academic community was its motherdaughter colony. Seven faculty women lived with their mothers. Partially these living accommodations were the result of a demographic pattern in which wives survived their husbands and were then cared for by their daughters. But mothers could substantially further their daughters' careers by providing social and psychological support. 20 Entire families took pride in and sacrificed for high-achieving daughters. Katharine Lee Bates, the "gifted and youngest daughter," was encouraged to go to Wellesley despite familial financial reverses which forced her brother Arthur to find work. Bates's sister Jennie subordinated her own life, caring for their mother and serving as Katharine's secretary and typist. Likewise, when as a senior at Bryn Mawr Emily Balch felt guilty about accepting a fellowship for graduate study in Europe, her sister Annie scoffed at her "bad New England conscience." She reassured Emily that she and another sister Betsy would manage the Balch home. She rejoiced in Emily's success and suggested that "bells should be rung'.' to extol Emily's honor. 21 Wellesley had a colony of such supportive sisters. About one-quarter of the academic women in this study had sisters who lived at Wellesley or worked nearby. Some faculty women had their sisters appointed to the faculty. More commonly, sisters administered faculty homes and served as social companions. Thus, the academic women of Wellesley routinely escaped the demands of domesticity; such duties fell to their sisters.

320

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

In short, the Wellesley faculty were exempt from what Jane Addams called the "family claim." 22 Nor were they expected to be emblems of conspicuous consumption. Rather, they were emblems of another kind—of their middleclass families' desire to purge superfluity, sponsor reform and enhance their status through their daughters' higher education and careers. These women illustrate that what Burton Bledstein calls the "culture of professionalism" of post-Civil War America was not limited to men; it affected as well the life cycles and careers of women. 25 Notwithstanding their relative freedom from the social norms of "true womanhood," almost all the faculty expressed frustration with the limitations placed on their energies by those social expectations. 24 Repeatedly the academic women reveal that they had been mischievous, even rebellious children. Many felt keenly the contradiction between their privileged family positions and society's demands for their submissiveness. In a sense, many experienced a revolution of rising expectations; their desire to do everything that boys did often tried the patience of even their liberal parents. Quite a few emulated independent, spinster aunts who provided models for—and encouraged—their rebelliousness. 25 This rebelliousness took many forms. It can be seen, for example, in their attitudes towards religion. Several of the women abandoned the stern, Calvinistic religion of their families, choosing instead more liberal faiths, tolerant of their equal participation and intellectual contribution. Women became Quakers, joined the Companions of the Holy Cross, practiced private faiths, and even became atheists. But it should also be stressed that a latenineteenth century evangelical, religious impulse underlay the philosophical idealism and civic humanism which characterized the faculty. Many were active proponents of the social gospel. 26 This cohort of women, reared in rural environs, venerated nature. Their private letters, autobiographies and reminiscences are filled with fond memories of having grown up in close harmony with nature. The faculty found the unspoiled physical environment of Wellesley College, with its BOO acres of fields and lake, perfectly in tune with their sentiments. The beauty of the Wellesley campus brought them not only aesthetic pleasure, but symbolized as well the struggle of romantic idealism against commercialism and urbanization. Thus, in 1899, a plan to crowd buildings around College Hall, the center of academic life at Wellesley, provoked the faculty's vehement objection. As Ellen Burrell noted, the "natural loveliness of Wellesley should not be sacrificed" for it was a "part of the higher values for which the college exists." Conscious of living in a beautiful environment, the Wellesley faculty reveled in their secular retreat.27 Nature as therapeutic was another common theme which resounded in the group's world-view. T h e entire group moved between their Wellesley world (already a splendid setting) to other escapes in Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, where they built and gathered in summer compounds. 28

EDUCATION

321

These women's fondness for nature also appears to have been part of their rebellion against the prevailing societal norms which prescribed domesticity and passivity for women. Every woman on whom information is available passionately loved being physically out-of-doors. They were never so happy as when they were mountain climbing, hiking and bicycling. Sometimes such passion led to humorous extremes, as when English professor Sophie Jewett "took her typewriter up into a tree, having had a loft, complete with table and chairs built into a huge maple"! 29 These apostles of the strenuous life denounced the excessive confinement to which women were subject and lamented its cost in loss of vigor. In their lives as well as in their educational philosophy they upheld the image of the pioneer, the New Woman. Individually and collectively, the academic women of Wellesley fashioned a modern identity for women, though one based paradoxically on premodern virtues and values. Their ideology emphasized equally women's physical and intellectual capabilities—strengths which had been sapped by second-class citizenship and expecially by the denial of access to higher education. Extensive education was, of course, another common characteristic of this group. Ninety percent had Bachelors degrees, 35 percent Masters degrees, and 40 percent held Ph.D.s. In addition to formal degrees, over 80 percent studied summers or during leaves both in this country and in Europe; many did so repeatedly. Education was lifelong. Mary Case, for example, wrote an essay on Hegel that earned her a Masters degree in philosophy at the age of 86. Many of the faculty were highly talented in areas outside of their academic specialty; quite a few painted, wrote poetry, or were inventors. Some took up second and even third careers over the course of their lifetimes. 50 The foregoing are some of the shared characteristics of the women who made up the senior faculty at Wellesley College 1895-1920. They give us some clues as to what motivated these women to enter academe. For some, the choice of the profession was inherent in family culture: the intellectual life was sanctioned and indeed sanctified. Women like Margaret Sherwood, Mary Calkins, Mary Alice Willcox, and Alice Van Vechten Brown, came from scholastic families where brothers and sisters became college professors. For others, an offer to teach at Wellesley came at a propitious moment, rescuing them from their post-graduate drift. After her graduation from Smith, Vida Scudder felt like a "lady in waiting," waiting not for her destined mate but for her "destined cause." Upon being hired at Wellesley, Carla Wenckebach similarly informed her family that she had made a "superb catch: not a widower, nor a bachelor, but something infinitely superior"—useful, intellectual work.51 Another motivation was disillusionment with secondary school teaching. These women were dominant, assertive and highly achievement-oriented. Yet since secondary school teaching had been the most common vocation for women in New England since the 1830s, many of the women had originally

322

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

chosen or had been channeled into such teaching. But with the opening of the women's colleges, new and more challenging posts became available. T h u s Ellen Burrell, after teaching for five years in a seminary, resolved to be a "big frog in a big puddle," and joined the Wellesley faculty. 52 The opportunity for distinction and innovation attracted many of the faculty women to academe. Women who had been the natural leaders of their siblings and their peers sought an adult role where they could again be in the lead. Ellen Hayes captured this motivation when she spoke of college teachers as "trailblazers." 55 Those faculty women who found it difficult to justify personal ambition, did feel justified in leading the movement for women's higher education. T o these women the reform of women's higher education was a revolution which signalled the millenium; one termed the movement the "Second Reformation. " 54 T o be a part of the academic profession when the women's colleges first opened was romantic, and women college teachers, conscious that they were the vanguard, felt "flushed with the feeling of power and privilege."' 5 Recruitment by friends, former mentors and family members also brought many women into the Wellesley community. For example, professor of psychology Mary Calkins was instrumental in having her childhood chum Sophie Jewett appointed in English. In addition, by 1910 there were thirteen Wellesley alumnae on the faculty (30 percent). Several of these formed mentordisciple relationship» termed "Wellesley marriages," in which pairs of women lived together and entwined their lives around the college.56 Given these motivations and recruitment patterns, Wellesley was very much like an extended family. Its members, with shared backgrounds and tastes, shared visions of life and work, and often shared bonds of family or prior friendship, could hardly but produce an extraordinary community. In this milieu, no one was isolated, no one forgotten. In contrast to today, when occupational and private selves rarely meet, the academic women of Wellesley conjoined public and private spheres. Individual patterns of association overlapped: one's friends were also friends and colleagues to each other. Networks which provided both social camaraderie and intellectual stimulation were characteristic of Wellesley community. It is difficult if not impossible to dissect this community, for any attempt to do so is in some ways artificial. In this short article it is not possible to convey the full range and depth of this community, but I will sketch some of its contours, quality and flavor. The Wellesley faculty were not merely professional associates but astoundingly good friends. They formed a world whose symbols were respect for learning, love of nature, devotion to social activism, a fondness for wit and humor, frequent emotional exchanges, and loyalty to Wellesley and to each other. In 1890, when one can discern the beginnings of this group, they were young and at the height of their energies. For example, members of the English department ranged in age from 26 to 31. They had a vivacity and

EDUCATION

323

energy that made them "brimful of life." 17 Their students remembered confusing them with brilliant seniors and that they were "more like playmates than professors." 58 They perceived themselves to be a colony. When someone entered, there was joyful exhilaration; whenever someone died the group mourned together and consoled themselves that their departed friend had "joined their advance guard on the other side." 59 With a mean tenure of thirtytwo years and with fifteen academic women staying at Wellesley over forty years, theirs was a rich river of memories and shared experiences. Faculty homes, where women lived together, were centers for social and academic occasions. It was common for women who saw each other during the day—between teaching assignments, at departmental meetings and in the faculty parlor for tea—to drift together in the evenings for fun and conversation. One young instructor recounted her reactions to these nightly roundtables at the home of Katharine Lee Bates, where she lodged for a year Miss Jewett lived with us and Miss Balch who lived down the street had dinner with us every night. And if you ever sat at a table night after night with Miss Jewett who was a poet. Miss Bates, who was a poet and a joker, and Miss Balch. . . well,. . . that was a wonderful year. 40

Professionally, collaboration was standard: books were co-authored; lectures and courses conceived in concert; social and political causes sponsored jointly. For example, when Katharine Lee Bates took a young Vida Scudder under her wing in 1887, she introduced her not only to the ways of the English department but also to economics professor, Katharine Coman, who shared Scudder's concern for social reform. Coman and Scudder together formed Denison House, a social settlement in Boston. They were joined in this endeavor by Emily Greene Balch whom Coman had recruited. 4 ' The social concerns of the faculty sometimes found expression in literary endeavors. Margaret Sherwood fictionalized in 1899 the group's debate over whether to accept tainted money from John D. Rockefeller in a novel, Henry Worlhington, Idealist. The Rockefeller monies issue, which divided the community, illustrates not only the idealism of the faculty but also its tolerance for divergent opinion. Conflict was contained by the crosscutting ties of friendship and by loyalty to the group life.42 Such loyalty spilled over into concern for the health and welfare of comrades. Thus when Katharine Lee Bates and Katharine Coman were in Spain on a research trip, Emily Greene Balch wrote them frequently. The correspondence is revealing, for it depicts not only Batch's shared interest in her friends' professional work, but her sisterly and motherly attention. In answer to one of Batch's solicitous notes and gifts Coman wrote: Dear Emily: Heartfelt thanks are due for the hot water bottle which arrived in good condition and is being cherished for the exigencies of the journey we are about to undertake. 45

324

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Similarly, ihe entire community expressed concern for Elizabeth Kendall, who took frequent research trips to China and other remote parts. A slew of letters, birthday greetings and Christmas cards followed Kendall wherever she journeyed; the chain of friendship ceased only with her death in 1952. Networks at Wellesley reveal not only shared professional and social lives; they were built as well from deeply emotional bonds. Single academic women expected and derived all the psycho-social satisfaction of a family from their female friendships. How to treat such relationships is currently at issue among historians of women. Lillian Faderman, in her recent Surpassing the Love of Men, has demonstrated that romantic love between women was common in the nineteenth century. Faderman concludes that such relationships were often not primarily defined by genital contact but were nonetheless sensual, serious engagements, not to be dismissed as sentimental nonsense. Blanche Cook believes that historically "women who love women, who choose women to nurture and support and to create a living environment in which to work creatively and independently" should be acknowledged as lesbians. Faderman contends that the contemporary term lesbian cannot appropriately be applied to the experience of women in the late nineteenth century. Her discussion of "Boston Marriages"—friendships between independent career women who were involved in social and cultural betterment— provides an excellent context within which to understand "Wellesley Marriages." At Wellesley, the academic women spent the main part of their lives with other women. We cannot say with certainty what sexual connotations these relationships conveyed. We do know that these relationships were deeply intellectual; they fostered verbal and physical expressions of love. Many women who had complained of being shy, isolated individuals before coming to Wellesley became more self-assured and less withdrawn. Frivolity, intimacy and emotional interdependency often developed between senior and associate professors. Lifelong relationships of deep significance to women's careers and personal identities were common at Wellesley.44 A few examples should suffice to convey the quality of these relationships. Vida Scudder and Florence Converse were a couple devoted to each other but not to the exclusion of a wider network of friends. They met as teacher and student at Wellesley and became lifelong companions. Besides teaching together, they were also both socialists who labored in the Denison House Settlement. Each wrote books dedicated to the other, and often their fiction draws on their relationship. An aged Scudder wrote that despite being increasingly feeble, she was "content to stay in my prison of time and space on Florence's account." When Scudder died, she left their home and the bulk of her money to Converse.44 Similarly Katharine Lee Bates and Katarine Coman lived, traveled, and collaborated together. In letters to mutual friends they fondly detailed their numerous walks and conversations and praised each other's accomplish-

EDUCATION

325

ments. Bates nursed C o m a n t h r o u g h o u t her terminal illness. C o m a n ' s will left all of her personal possessions to Bates. Bates then moved into C o m a n ' s room and thereafter did all her writing there, i n c l u d i n g Yellow Clover, a volume of poetry dedicated to the memory of her lifelong intimate. Publication of these poems inspired the entire Wellesley f r i e n d s h i p network (and even J a n e Addams) to send Bates notes of appreciation for h a v i n g captured "a w o m a n ' s love for a w o m a n , " and the " n e w type of f r i e n d s h i p between women." 4 6 Bates's intimacy with C o m a n did not prevent her from h a v i n g other deep relationships. T h e most notable of these was with President Caroline Hazard. T h e Bates-Hazard f r i e n d s h i p is typical of female friendships at Wellesley: it endured for over twenty-five years, f u s i n g private and p u b l i c roles and giving each m u t u a l s u p p o r t from youth to old age. 47 As pioneers in their fields at a time when college educated women felt special and united, these women were anxious to encourage, to assist and to learn from one another. Academic women looked to each other for the definition of the professional woman, and for the skills necessary for conducting a professional life. They exchanged bibliographies and syllabi freely. More importantly, women served as mentors and role models to each other. A young, shy, and insecure Vida Scudder reported that she had gained confidence from her association with her senior colleagues. Such associations casually mixed shop talk with gossip sessions, walks, teas and luncheons. 4 * Florence Converse wrote in her 1939 history of Wellesley College that the "intellectual fellowship among the older women in the community is of a peculiarly stimulating quality." 49 And indeed, Wellesley forestered many distinguished achievers. T h e science departments had sixteen members; fourteen are listed in James M. CaiitU's American Men of Science. A review of five compendia (American Men of Science, Notable American Women, Dictionary of American Biography, Who Was Who in America and Woman in the 20th Century) found that 50 percent of the 53 women in this essay were cited at least once. More than 20 percent were cited two or more times. It is worth noting that n o faculty member had achieved prominence prior to Wellesley, and most w h o achieved distinction in their scholarly fields also were carrying heavy teaching loads. Far from embracing an ethos of domesticity, Wellesley professors pioneered in laboratory and seminar methods, field research, and courses in the new social sciences. Faculty noted with pride their innovations, citing their advocacy of methods and courses current at such places as Harvard or the University of Michigan, or only later adopted by such universities. 50 T h e community at Wellesley was also a hothouse of reform. Social activism was pervasive a m o n g the faculty. Of the 53 women in this study, 39 (74 percent) were active in at least one of the following broad areas of reform: women's education and health reform; suffrage; social reform (temperance, consumer leagues, settlements, socialism, pacifism and opposition to tainted

326

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

monies); and religious activism. Twenty-three women (44 percent) were active in two or more reform categories. Given these figures it is not surprising that Wellesley was one of the colleges branded by Vice-President Calvin Coolidge in 1921 as a "hotbed of radicalism."* 1 This contravenes the prevailing scholarly consensus that the Wellesley faculty were proponents of "subdued familial grace."" Of course there were costs associated with the creation and maintenance of such a community. Women so deeply involved in so many social reform movements did not always form a united front. Again and again, a recurring question strained friendship ties: when should commitment to social activism yield to institutional loyalty? For example, Katharine Lee Bates, Vida Scudder's mentor, close friend and department head, was appalled when Scudder gave a speech endorsing the Lawrence Strike of 1912. She asked for Scudder's resignation, then quickly rescinded the request. Yet Bates worried lest socialist propaganda intrude upon Scudder's classes and forbade her to teach her famous course on Social Ideals in English Literature that year. Many years later, Bates did not recommend Scudder to succeed her as head of the English Department." The case of Emily Greene Balch, who was terminated by the college for her pacifism in World War I, caused the most serious division within this community. Many colleagues disagreed with Balch's politics yet rallied to defend her right to espouse an unpopular cause. They addressed repeated petitions to the Trustees to keep Balch at Wellesley. Partially because Balch herself was reluctant to make an issue of her firing, these protests were unavailing. Balch's dismissal severely strained friendships within the community, but not irrevocably. After her activism for international peace drew to a close, Balch chose to retire at Wellesley.51 Other tensions beset this faculty community. Wellesley's finances were often precarious, teaching loads were heavy. Women in science often complained that they could only conduct original research at odd moments between teaching and committee work. They envied the "prima donnas" in belles lettres, but the professors in the humanities also felt constrained by too many students and too heavy a teaching load. In 1919 Vida Scudder rejoiced that retiring Katharine Lee Bates could now listen to her own music, which had been somewhat smothered by the "drone of student recitations. " s s The pressure of teaching caused many women to shelve pet projects, putting them off. until retirement. German professor Margarethe Muller decided to retire in 1908, before she became eligible for a Carnegie Foundation pension, in order to "do a piece of creative work which I have wanted to do for more than fifteen years." She forfeited the pension yet never completed her manuscript. 56 Commitment to Wellesley and the desire to remain within the community also at times conflicted with the opportunity for other kinds of professional advancement. An offer of employment from a publishing house attracted poet

EDUCATION

327

Katharine Lee Bates. The Wellesley community pressured her not to defect. Personal ties, especially with her companion Katharine Coman, were "love anchors" keeping Bates at Wellesley. She rejected the offer but confided to her diary that she was a "reluctant captive." 57 T o be fair to those who turned down invitations to teach at other institutions, however, it must be said that Wellesley often did offer the better professional opportunity. Mary Calkins, a senior philosopher who was elected president of the American Psychological Association and the American Philosophy Society, rejected an offer from Columbia University because she wanted to remain close to her family and friends at Wellesley and because she feared that she would be trapped teaching elementary laboratory psychology at male-dominated Columbia. 58 These potent, strong-minded women, who ran their departments in dictatorial fashion, affected not only the style of the college's administration but the career ambitions of junior faculty in the 1920s. In self-conscious recognition of their enormous power they jokingly referred to each other as "benevolent despots" and "little Bismarcks." 59 T h e situation of younger instructors, locked out of power by these "absolutely dedicated war horses," was "pretty grim." 60 They were too intimidated to speak at Academic Council and had no vote. A revolt by junior faculty in 1920 was crushed by their senior counterparts. It was not until the late 1940s, when most in the charmed circle had either retired or died, that young faculty found a voice. Even then these junior women stood in awe of their "exceptional" elders. They envied their dedication and admired their intellectual vitality. T h e younger generation also admitted that although the old guard kept them impotent in departmental affairs and Council, they did allow them full freedom in their classrooms. Perhaps the most remarkable quality of the Wellesley community was its endurance. Despite the inevitable clash of temperaments, such factors as career commitment, respect for each other, and tender memories bound these women to each other and to Wellesley. When in 1927 professor emeritus Vida Scudder spoke on teaching at Wellesley, she noted that "cooperation in group life was its highest privilege." Notwithstanding obstacles and "weary moments" when they questioned whether their fellowship was a sham, Scudder emphasized that At our best we know that it is a triumphant reality. We meet the challenge of our privilege with gayety and courage, and with a sense of the dramatic fascination there is in our task of living together. And through accelerations and retards, through concessions and slow innovations, we do move on. 61

Indeed until the end of their lives this extraordinary group remained loyal and committed to each other. The constant stream of life which flowed among them removed in their old age any final sense of isolation, despair or remorse. They looked back on lives which had been fun and which were blessed with

328

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

the quest (or truth, adventure, and friendships. T h e group, whose mean age at death was 76 years, remained quite healthy, active in social causes, and involved in their work and the College. At the age of eighty-one Margaret Sherwood wrote a novel; at eighty-six, Mary Case wrote a scholarly article on Hegel; Emily Greene Balch wrote essays well into her eighties. Together the academic women of Wellesley had spent their youths and adulthoods, together they embraced old and even death. As Margaret Sherwood wrote to her friend Elizabeth Kendall: T h e road seems long as one draws nearer to (he end, long and a bit lonely. It is good to have footsteps chiming with one's own, and to know that a friend in w h o m one has a deep and abiding trust is on the same track, moving toward the same goal. 62

And echoing these sentiments an aged Vida Scudder wrote to an old student: I am sorry (or your long winter of illness. It is hard for me to think of you a n d Florence and my other "girls" as elderly women, but time marches on. Miss Balch told me last evening that she woke u p a night or two ago, laughing incredulously, because she was an old woman! We agreed that age was really just a j o k e . "

Of course these women were not spared the toll of time. They grew infirm. Rebels till the end, they yearned to be the vanguard still. Emily Balch epitomized this striving when she lamented that at times "old age was duller than ditch-water." 64 Yet old age never diminished the spirit of this community. In 1953, over sixty years after the formation of this group, Martha Hale Shackford wrote to a former student: Just a word of greeting and good wishes from us (Margaret Sherwood), and, on my part, to tell you that a few weeks ago Miss Sherwood was able to make a call u p o n Miss Scudder who you know is exceedingly lame and also deaf. Florence Converse was there too. I wish you could have seen the meeting—with our friends sitting on the sofa very much themselves in spile of t i m e . "

These women share one final quality. As old women, they were prone to embellish the memory of their role as pioneers. Faculty autobiographies and reminiscences contain a near-mythic account of their struggles, one which understates the enormous sponsorship and ease with which this select elite navigated the uncharted waters of women's roles in academe. Once again they sought to distinguish themselves, this time from younger generations of college educated women; they thus upheld their collective identity. Here indeed was fellowship! Women born and reared in a similar tradition, who wove their lives around a similar set of educational and socio-cultural ideals and w h o remained at the same institution for a lifetime found the meaning of life not simply in professional experiences or achievements but as well in the inexhaustible h u m a n treasury of which they were a part. These academic women did not shift their life-courses away from the communal mentality as did many male professionals; nor did they singlemindedly adhere

EDUCATION

329

to scientific rationalism, specialization, social science objectivity, or hierarchical associations in which vertical mobility took precedence over sisterhood. 66 Of course this constancy was not the product of choice alone. Many of these academic women were the "uninvited"—locked out of the research universities, excluded from the professional patronage system of male academics. For example. Harvard refused to grant Mary Calkins a Ph.D., although the entire Harvard philosophy department petitioned that she be awarded the degree. T h e Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard denied Mary Alice Willcox a place because "we have one room with three windows and a man for each window." Women chafed in private against this discrimination, but most did not publicly protest, especially as they grew older. 47 Despite having accomplished so much, many of these women could have done more. Partially this is the result of their relative insulation from the larger academic community. Historian of science Margaret Rossiter has observed that these women, unlike men, were not going to be invited to the major research universities. For them, Wellesley was the pinnacle of their careers. 68 Lacking mobility, many remained satisfied with a few stellar articles or just one good discovery. Many compensated for stalled careers with trips or homes. Despite their class, family backgrounds and a supportive community, as women these academics were susceptible to breakdowns and conflicts over achievement. Several took pains to dismiss or minimize their accomplishments. Vida Scudder, for example, was a prolific writer, ardent social radical and charismatic teacher, w h o berated herself for "scattering her energies." 69 She judged herself a failure by the male norm of achieving professional eminence in a single narrow field. Praise for her individual achievement made Scudder uncomfortable; instead she drew attention to her work in groups. Many others shied away from public recognition, and even refused to list their publications for college and national biographies. 7 0 It should be clear that the Wellesley faculty do not fit what Robert McCaughey terms the "Harvard model" of the modern academic professional—the cosmopolitan w h o felt no personal attachment to his institution, valuing academic mobility over loyalty. Neither did they tread the predominant path of late nineteenth century academics outlined by Mary Furner in Advocacy and Objectivity: the Wellesley academic women never abdicated advocacy nor relinquished reform as a crucial component of the scholar's role. T h e Wellesley g r o u p of academics defined themselves intellectually and socially in a local, particularistic, face-to-face community rather than a bureaucratic, professional society. In short, their achievements and their legacy defy the prevailing paradigms used to explain the late nineteenth century culture of academe. T h e i r experience demands that we seek new ways of seeing the richly pluralistic history of the academic profession in the United States and that we devote more scholarship to academic subcultures. 71

330

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

And what of the unique community they created? Hugh Hawkins has highlighted the tragedy of academic life at Johns Hopkins where an unbreachable gulf existed between isolated, specialized researchers. Men there found it extremely difficult to get to know fellow faculty members. A senior professor lamented: We only get glimpses of what is going forward in the minds and hearts of our colleagues. We are like trains moving on parallel tracks We catch sight of some face, some form that appeals to us, and it is gone. 72

How different from Wellesley where the academic women wrought a world which touched every women in every aspect of her life, and gave each a sense of belonging to an all-purposive, all-embracing whole. Virtually without exception, historians have seen the research university as an advance over the sterile, old-time, liberal arts college. 7 ' T h i s view understates the costs of the research university, while at the same time it belittles the benefits of at least some liberal arts colleges. T o assess accurately the relative benefits and costs of each educational institution, we need to accord more value to community. For women, the liberal arts college provided a rich and professionally pivotal milieu at a time when the research university denied them careers. At Wellesley, the faculty flourished in what they called their "Adamless Eden."' 4 Their community cannot be recreated, nor, perhaps, should it. However, like all Edens, it compels us still. I wish to thank the following people for helping me to refine the ideas presented in this article: George H. Ropes; Barbara Sicherman; Joseph Featherstone; Charles Strickland and an anonymous reviewer from the Quarterly.

FOOTNOTES 1. Willysline Goodsell, "The Educational Opportunity of American Women—Theoretical and Actual," The American Academy of Political and Social Science, MS (May, 1929): 12. 2. Diary o( Horace Scudder, February 23. 1891, Box 6, Horace Scudder Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge. Mass. Calvin Collidge, "Enemies of the Republic: Are the Reds Stalking Our College Women?," The Delineator (June, 1921): 67. 3. Transcribed oral interview with Lucy Wilson, p. 15. 1H/I975. Centennial Historian. Wellesley College Archives (hereinalter cited as WCA). 4. Ellen BurTell to Mildred H. McAlee, November 16. 1938. SL. Math Department Folder,.WCA 5. Sheila Rothman, Woman's Proper Place: A History of Changing Ideals and Practices, 1870 to the Present (New York, 1978), p. 39; Roberta Frankfort, Collegiate Women, Domesticity and Career in Turn-of-the Century America (New York, 1977). p. 64. 6. Jean neue Marks, Life and Letters ο/ Mary Emma Woolley (Washington, D.C.. 1955), p. 47. 7. This social portrait studied every woman faculty member at Wellesley who satisfied two criteria: tenure of at least five years on the Wellesley faculty between 1900 and 1910 and attainment of the rank of associate professor. I imposed these conditions because I was interested primarily in the senior

EDUCATION

8. 9. 10 11

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. j 1. 32.

331

(dtuUv and because lecords are fuller fur them Selection by these criteria yielded a total of fifty-three women; ihr iwo men who met the criteria were excluded. T h e ten year duration (1900-1910) seemed to satisfy the need both for a manageable study a n d for one which would produce a valid picture of a faculty g r o u p over time. However, it should be noted that the g r o u p mean for service lo the college is thiny-two years and this many women were still teaching at Wellesley in the 1920s and 1930s. T h e quantitative study was ptotessed with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). I a m indebted to George H. Ropes for his assistance in q u a n t i f y i n g data. Caroline Hazard speaks of a "Wellesley w o r l d " in " T r i b u t e to Katharine Lee Bates." Wellesley Alumnae Magaimr, 12. n o 5 (June. 1929): 15 (hereinafter cited as WAM). Mary Barneti Burke. " T h e G r o w t h of the College," WAM (February, 1950): 179. "A W o m a n ' s College." Bust υπ Daily Advertiser (October 28. 1875); Henry A. Tilley. "Wellesley College for W o m e n , " Washington Chronicle (November 14. 1875). IH Histories, WCA. Katharine Lee Bates, " T h e Purposeful Women W h o Have Reared the College From Struggling Babyhood to Glorious W o m a n h o o d , and the Men W h o Have Aided T h e m . " Boston Eivning Transcript (May 16. 1925). For a more detailed discussion of the Alice Freeman presidency and the years of transition which followed, see: Patricia A. Palmieri. " I n Adamless Eden: A Social Portrait of the Academic Community at Wellesley College. 1875-1920" (Diss. Harvard University Graduate School of Education, J u n e 1981), esp. chapters 2 and 3. Statistics computed f r o m data taken from Faculty Biographical Files, WCA; also: U.S. Federal Census of 1880. Examples of such fathers include: Walter Willcox; T h o m a s Sherwood; Levi Co man. k a t h a r i n e C o man, ed., Memories of Martha Seymour Coman (Boston, n.p.. 1913), p. 46. Dr.Kendrick to Lida Kendrick. September 15. 1881. Ε lira bet h Kendrick Unprocessed Papers. WCA. Francis V. Balch to Emily Greene Balch, March 8, 1896. Folder 89. Box 52. Emily Greene Batch Papers, Swarthmore College Peace Collection (hereinafter SCPC). Laurel Furumoto. "Mary Whiton Calkins (1863-1930): Fourteenth President of the American Psychological Association," Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences. 15 (1979): 346-356. Jean Dietz, "Wellesley's Miss Mary Linked Dreams to Real Life," Boston Sunday Globe (June 17, 1962). Ellen Hayes as quoted in Louise Brown, Ellen Hayes: Trail Blazer (n.p.. 1932), p. 20. Emily Greene Balch as quoted in Mercedes Randall, improper Bostonian (New York, 1964), p. 44. T h e seven faculty women w h o lived with their mothers are: Vida Dutlon Scudder; Elizabeth Kendall; Katharine Lee Bates; Katharine C o m a n ; Adelaide Locke; Mary Calkins; Margaret Jackson. Dorothy Burgess, Dream and Deed, The Story of Katharine Lee Bates (Norman, O k l a h o m a , 1952), pp. 30-35. Anne Balch to Emily Balch (n.d., probably 1899], Folder 505, Box 63, Balch Papers. SCPC. J a n e Addams, " T h e Subjective Necessity of Social Settlements," in Christopher Lasch (ed.). The Social Thought of Jane Addams (New York. 1965). p p . 151-174. Burton J. Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism (New York, 1976). According to historian Barbara Welter, the mid-Victorian "true w o m a n " was supposed to cultivate piety, purity, domesticity a n d submissiveness. Welter, " T h e Cult οI T r u e W o m a n h o o d , " American Quarterly, 18 (1966): 151-174. Women w h o were influenced by independent a u n t s include: Emily Greene Balch, Vida Dutlon Scudder, Ellen Burrell. Examples of faculty religious attitudes are contained in: Margaret Sherwood to Marion Wcsicott, April 17, 1937. Sherwood Faculty Biographical File, WCA; also see: "Gracious Ladies" (newspaper clipping) n.p., n.d., Sherwood Faculty Biographical File, WCA; Vida Dutton Scudder, On Journey, pp. 43; 37-390, 416. ALS. Ellen Burrell to Louise McCoy North, J u n e 4, 1899. WCA. For information on one such c o m p o u n d , see: Anna J a n e McKeag, "Mary Frazier S m i t h , " Weitestey Magazine, 18, no. 1 (October. 1933): 6-9. Katharine Lee Bales, "Sophie Jewett: T h e Passing of a Real Poet," (untitled newspaper clipping, u.d.J, Jewell Faculty Biographical File, WCA. Emily Green Balch wrote essays, painted and wrote poetry well into her late 80s; at the age of 50 Professor of Latin Katharine May Edwards began another career dating Corinthian coins. Vida Dutton Scudder, On Journey, p. 94. Carla Wenckebach as quoted in Margarethe Muller, Carla Wenchebach, Pioneer (Boston, 1908), p. 213. Ellen Burrell as quoted in Helen Merrill, " T h e History of the Department of Mathematics," p. 51. 3L. Mathematics Department Folder, WCA.

332

33. 34. 35. 36.

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Ellen H a y « . The Sycamore Trail (Wellesley Mass., 1929). Louise Manning Hodgkins, "Wellesley College," New hngland Magazine (November 1892): 380. Florence Converse as quoted in Jessie Bernard, Academic Women (New York, 1964), p. 31. Dorothy Weeks, a student οI this fatuity group who returned to live at Wellesley. noted that pairs of faculty women were termed "Wellesley Marriages." Personal interview with Dorothy Weeks, February 5, 1978. 37. Mary Haskell, "Professor Wenckebach's Relation to Her Students," Wellesley Magazine (February, 1903): 160. 38. "Tribute to Miss Kendall," (Typescript), p. Kendall Faculty Biographical File. WCA. 39. Marion Pelton Cuild to Birdie Ball Morrison. December 6. 1930. 6C Box 2. Class of 1880, WCA. 40. Transcribed oral interview with Geraldine Cordon, p. 15. WCA. 41. Vida Scudder. On Journey, pp. 109-110. 42. Margaret Sherwood. Henry Worthington, Idealist (New York, 1899): a fuller discussion of the Rockefeller "tainted monies" issue is given in "In Adamless Eden," chapter 6. 43. Katharine Coman to Emily Greene Balch. February 28, 1914. Coman Unprocessed Papers, WCA. 44. Lillian Faderman. Surpassing The Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present (New York, 1981), Introduction; pp. 190-230; Blanche Wiesen Cook, "Female Support Networks and Political Activism: Lillian Wald, Crystal Eastman, Emma Goldman." Chrysalis, 3 (1977): 43-61. Also see: Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "The Female World ol Love and Ritual." Signs, I. no. I (Autumn, 1975): 1-29. 45. ALS. Vida Scudder to Louise Manning Hodgkins. May 29. 1928, WCA. 46. Caroline Hazard praised Bates' Yellow Clover in a letter to Bates, April 25, 1922. WCA; Vida Scudder to Bales, April 1922; WCA. Jane Addams to Bates. May 9, 1922. Jane Addams Unprocessed Letters, WCA. 47. There is extensive correspondence between Caroline Hazard and Katharine Lee Bates in both the Bates and Hazard Papers, WCA. 48. Vida Dutton Scudder. On Journey, pp. 107-109. 49. Florence Converse, Wellesley College. A Chronicle of the Years 1875-19)8 (Cambridge, Mass., 1939). p. 98. 50. The fourteen women scientists listed in Catiell's American Men of Science (the first five editions: 1906; 1910; 1921; 1927; 1933) are: Calkins, Psychology and Philosophy Hayes, Astronomy Case, Philosophy Hubbard, Zoology Cummings, Botany Puffer, Philosophy Ferguson, Botany Roberts, Chemistry Fisher, Geology Thompson, Zoology Gamble, Psychology Whiting, Physics Hallowell, Botany Willcox, Zoology These dictionaries of notable Americans are among the best reference guides to the biographies of academic women. They are by no means exhaustive. Each employs subjective criteria to determine what constitutes achievement. For a discussion of the kinds of women scientists included in James M. Cattell (ed.), American Men of Science, set: Margaret Rossiter, "Women Scientists in America Before 1920," American Scientist (MayJune, 1974): 312-333. 51. Calvin Coolidge, "Enemies of the Republic." 52. Roberta Frankfort, Collegiate Women, p. 64. 53. Vida Scudder, On Journey, pp. 189-190. 54. A full discussion of the Balch case is contained in the epilogue, "Eden's End," in "In Adamless Eden." See also the extensive correspondence in the Emily Greene Balch papers, S C P C 55. ALS. Vida Scudder to Katharine Lee Bates. August 6. 1919. WCA. 56. ALS. Margarethe Muller to Caroline Haiard. Autumn 1908. WCA. 57. Katharine Lee Bales to Katharine Coman, February 28, 1891. SP. Katharine Lee Bales Papers, WCA. Diary of Katharine Lee Bates, March 5, 1896. Box 3, Katharine Lee Bates Papers, WCA. 58. Laurel Furumoto, "Are There Sex Differences In Qualities of Mind? Mary Whiton Calkins Versus Η award University. A 37-year Debate," pp. 42-43. WCA. 59. Vida Scudder discusses Katharine Lee Bates' despotism in On Journey, p. 123 and Scudder, "Katharine Lee Bates, Professor of English Literature," WAM, Supplement, 13, 5 (June, I929):5. 60. Transcribed oral interview with Lucy Wilson, p. 15. WCA. 61. Vida Dutton Scudder, "The Privileges of a College Teacher" WAM (August 1929): 327.

EDUCATION 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

67. 68.

69. 70.

71. 72. 73.

74.

333

Margarft Sherwood ιο Elizabeth Kendall, December 2, 1945. Kendall Unprocessed Papers, WCA. Vida Dulion Scudder ιο Jeanneue Marks. July 9. 1939. Scudder Papers. WCA. Emily Greene Balch as quoied in Mercedes Randall. Improper Bostoman p. 443. Martha Hale Shackford to Jeanneue Marks. May 27. 1953. Shackford Papers. WCA. For a general discussion of (he increasing bureaucratization characteristic of American culture 1870-1920. see: Robert Wrebe. The Search For Order: 1877-1920 (New York. 1967); in the various professions this shtlt manifests itself as a loss of respect for the amateur and the glorification of the highly ere· dentialed professional. See: Bledstein, The Culture of Professionalism; Mary J . Furner, Advocacy and Objectivity. A Crisis in the Professionalizjstion of American Social Science 1865-1905 (Lexington, Kentucky. 1975). Mary Alice Willcox to Marian Hubbard. December 2. 1927. Willcox Faculty Biographical File. WCA. Margaret Rossiter, "Women's Education: T h e Entering Wedge." Chapter from a forthcoming book on women scientists at the women's colleges 1865-1940. I am grateful to Prof. Rossiter for sharing this work with me. Vida Dutton Scudder, On journey, p. 175. See, for example: Mary Alice Willcox to Miss Whiting. March 27. 1948. Willcox Faculty Biographical File. WCA; ALS. Louise Manning Hodgkins to Martha Hale Shackford, November 12. 1924. WCA; Emily Creene Balch ("1 am no princess . . . J. Folde 604, Box 66, Balch Papers, S C P C Robert A. McCaughey. "TheTransformation of American Academic Life: Harvard University 1821-1892,'' Persepctwes in American History, 8 (1974): 239-232; Mary J . Furner, Advocacy and Objectivity. Hugh Hawkins. Pioneer: A History of the Johns Hopkins University, 1874-1889 {Hew York, I960), p. 237. James McLachlan reviews and criticizes standard historical accounts of the "old-time" liberal arts college in "The American College in the Nineteenth Century: Toward a Reappraisal," Teachers College Record. 80 (December. 1978): 287-306. When President Caroline Hazard retired in 1910, rumors spread that she was to be replaced by a man. Alumnae and faculty cried out, "What and spoil our Adamless Eden'?" "Man to Rule Wellesley? Nol Say Graduates," Evening Newspaper, Minneapolis, Minnesota, [n.d., probably 1910]. Hazard Scrapbook, 1909-1910. WCA.

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Women's Colleges and Domesticity, 1875-1918 ROBERTA

WEIN I.

THE FEMALE COLLEGE was a new phenomenon which developed after the Civil War. Those who planned these infant colleges were aware of their institutional antecedents—academies and seminaries which' generally steeped females in the domestic arts along with cultural and moral refinements. In antebellum America, female education and domesticity were inexorably related as educators sought to insure the endurance of the domestic occupation for women by elevating it from drudgery to a noble profession. The pious homemaker would uplift American civilization by providing order, stability, and self-restraint in an otherwise chaotic society. After the Civil War, however, molders of female colleges struggled with these traditions as they tried to determine whether such colleges would continue to protect domestic values from decay or whether higher education for women would represent a break from the perpetuation in educational institutions of feminine passivity and dependence. Women concerned with this crucial question founded the Association of Collegiate Alumnae in 1881. All those who gathered to discuss goals of feminine collegiate instruction and to implement programs designed to encourage the growth of women's higher education were among the first women in the United States to graduate from college. Many of them—particularly the leaders of the organization—were now charged with administering newly-founded women's colleges or were directly concerned with women students in coeducational institutions. As first generation college women, they had lived through collective female experiences that were fraught with conflict. Many nineteenth century Americans, who were instilled with the cult of feminine domestic sanctity, considered higher education for women unnatural and heretical. Previous educational institutions for women perpetuated at least the vision of women tending the hearthside with moral fortitude and elegant cultural reMi. Wein is a graduate student in the Division of Historical and cal Foundations, School of Education, New York University.

Philosophi-

EDUCATION

finements. But these Americans did not think of colleges as custodians of domestic values; colleges were for men, and women who attended them might undermine the moral fiber of America, which had to be nourished by wives and mothers who stayed in the home. Furthermore, "proof" that college education was antithetical to a woman's nature was furnished by doctors such as Edward H. Clarke who, in his sensational best seller, depicted over-educated women as acquiring an Amazonian coarseness, becoming hysterical, anemic, and incapable of maternal feeling. (1) The Association of Collegiate Alumnae women deplored such sensationalism unanimously. One of their first tasks was to attempt to systematically dispel distorted notions about feminine physiology by sponsoring studies designed to survey the effect of college on women's health. But while all of these women had strong beliefs about the ability of females to endure in college, they did not have unanimous feelings about the crucial question of relationships between women's higher education and domesticity. There were perceptible differences in the degree to which these women accepted traditional sentiments about proper female roles. Tradition-bound Americans were harsh in their criticisms of females who attended college. They produced characterizations and stereotypes which clouded the public's understanding of the many shades of opinion about relationships between domesticity and higher education that these women held. The mere access to education did not alter the consciousness of these women in similar ways. They dealt with the role conflicts that resulted from beliefs about their natural passivity in a wide range of ways. Therefore, lively debates would occur in the ACA when, members discussed an issue such as whether the college curriculum should prepare women for marriage. Mary Roberts Smith of Stanford University expressed an opinion consistent with traditionally held beliefs about the sanctity of domestic life when she said that "the possibility of motherhood is the primary consideration u> which the aims of self-culture and self-support must forever be subordinated." (2) For her, tradition did not clash with women's higher education; rather, the college became a natural outgrowth of the domesticity cult as that institution could—even more extensively than aduaU Nurses Co.. 1929). pp. 12-13: 77* Crisu 32 Dune. 1926), p. 84; M. Elizabeth Carnegie. "Are Neero Schools of Nuning Needed Tbda*" in Monis. History of the Negro m Medicine, pp. 2S159. " See Patricia E. Sloan, "Black Hospitals and Nune Training Schools: Spetman, Provident. Hampton and IViskegee," Unpublished Ed. D. Dissert* tion, Teachers College. Columbia University New York. 1978. " Hine. "From Hospital to College," pp. 226-27 » Ibid. ° Shanda Thomas Ivory and Jean Rosenblatt. "Minority Shortage in Health Field Linked to Aid." Higher Education and National Affairs: Newsletter of the American Council on Education 34 Uuly, 1985). pp. 3, 8.

EDUCATION

Black Women and Higher Education: Spelman and Bennett Colleges Revisited Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Director, Women's Resource and Research Center, Spelman College No history of women's education in America would be complete without the Spelman and Bennett stories. However, the histories of higher education for women usually focus narrowly on the "seven sisters." Such authoritative treatises as Thomas Woody's classic A History of Women's Education in the United States, Louise Shutz Boas' Women's Education Begins: The Rise of Women's Colleges, and Mabel Newcomer's A Century of Higher Education for American Women, are similar in their failure to include even a footnote on Spelman and Bennett Colleges, the nation's oldest and best-known colleges for Black women. Despite increased interest during the past decade in a number of topics relating to women, including women's education, the history of higher education for Black women has been grossly ignored by those documenting the history of education for women in America.1 Recently, however, Patricia Bell Scott, in a ground-breaking article entitled "Schoolin' 'Respectable' Ladies of Color . . . , " has analyzed in a cogent manner the most critical issues surrounding the history of Black women's higher education. She also traces the development of educational institutions for Black women from the early efforts of Myrtilla Miner, a white woman who established in 1851 in Washington, D.C., a teachers' training school for Black girls (later known as District of Columbia Teachers Colleges—Miner

'Exceptions to this generalization would be the pioneering work of Jeanne Noble (see Bibliography) and more recenüy Patricia Bell Scott (see Bibliography), as well as a number of graduate students primarily Black women, who have chosen the subject of Black women's education for theses aid doctoral dissertations (see Bibliography).

389

390

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES Branch arid finally became part of the University of the District of Columbia), to the emergence of Spelman and Bennett Colleges. Similarly, a bibliographical essay on academic women in the South, which appears in Stepping Off the Pedestal (See Bibliography) reviews the major sources available on the history of higher education for women, and includes a section on Black women. 2 However, the history of the Black woman's contribution to education in general remains to be written, despite the numerous primary and secondary sources now available to scholars. This article will highlight the impact that Spelman and Bennett Colleges have had on educational opportunities for Black women. There will also be a brief discussion of selected Spelman and Bennett alumnae and their roles in the larger community. Special attention is given, near the end, to Dr. Willa Player (Bennett's first woman president), who still has the distinction of being the only Black woman to have headed a Black woman's college. 3 And, finally, the article contains an extensive bibliography which includes material that focuses entirely on Black women and higher education or that contains information on the subject. 4 Though the majority of Black women have been educated in coeducational institutions, 5 single-sex colleges for Black women, all of which have been located in the South, have provided unique educational experiences for those women who have chosen through the years to attend Bennett, Spelman, Barber-Scotia, and HustonTillotson. Bennett, founded as a co-educational school in 1873 in the basement of St. Matthew's Methodist Episcopal Church in Greensboro, North Carolina, became a college for women in 1926 mainly as a result of the Women's Home Missionary Society's desire to enlarge its educational program to Black women. Spelman, founded in 1881 by Sophia Packard and Harriet Giles in the basement of Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, has always been for I n addition to exploring issues involved in studying various aspects of the higher education for Black women in the South, this section of the article also suggests a series of questions to which future scholars might address themselves. J Barber-Scotia in Concord, North Carolina, which was founded for Black women in 1867, has had a Black female president but only after the college became co-educational. Two historically Black TO-educational colleges have also been headed by Black women—Bethune-Cookman (founded by Ma/y McLeod Bethune, who was president from 1904-1942) and Frelinghuysen University of Washington, D C., (whose president was Anna J. Cooper from 1930 to 1941). «I was assisted by Eleanor Hinton Hoytt, assistant professor at Atlanta University in the School of Library and Information Studies, in the preparation of the Bibliography Ms. Hoytt and 1 also co•uthored the section on Black women in the bibliographical essay mentioned earlier and which appears in Stepping Off the Pedestal: Academic Women in the South. T h e first Black woman to receive a college degree, Mary Jane Patterson, also attended a coeducational institution, Oberlin College, from which she graduated in 1862. Since it was more economical to educate Black men and women together, because of a limited amount of resources '"''lable for the establishment of Black institutions after Emancipation, single-sex institutions were •typical in the Black community.

EDUCATION women only. 6 Barber-Scotia and Tillotson were initially for women, but later became co-educational. High on the list of priorities at both institutions has been the training of Black women for leadership roles, though the training of teachers was their earliest mission. The extent to which Spelman and Bennett have been successful in this regard is apparent if one considers only a few of their outstanding alumnae whose roles as policy makers and managers deserve special mention. This very special sisterhood of Spelman and Bennett graduates was certainly nurtured in environments which stressed the importance of Black women serving their communities and the nation. President Florence Read of Spelman alludes to the kind of education that was stressed at both institutions and what was expected of their daughters: This must be the spirit that motivates Negro education, particularly the education of Negro w o m e n , w h o must go forth from college and share to the full with their fellows what they have gained. It is not enough that a w o m a n shall become a self-contained, economically independent, and completely rounded individual. Neither is it sufficient that she shall have developed her taste for the good things in life and acquired skills in the arts. If the college has succeeded in its purpose, she will be not only willing but eager to share her gifts and use her newly acquired skills to better the lives of all those within the reach of her influence. And by that strange paradox which is the profoundest truth yet discovered or revealed, it is thus that her own life will reach its richest fulfillment. 7

A large number of Spelman and Bennett alumnae certainly have lived up to these ideals, and they include: Selena Sloan Butler, who established the first Black parent-teacher association in the country and later founded the National Congress of Colored Parents and Teachers; Georgia Dwelle Rooks, founder of Dwelle Infirmary, an obstetrical hospital in Atlanta, which was the first of its kind for Black women in the South; Ludie Clay Andrews, founder of the training School for Colored Nurses at Grady Memorial Hospital; Dorothy Brown, a graduate of Meharry Medical College and a practicing surgeon in Nashville; Atty. Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund of Washington, D.C., and the first Black woman to head Spelman's Board of Trustees; Maxine Atkins Smith, executive secretary of the Memphis branch of the NAACP and a key member of the Board of Education for the Memphis city schools; Dr. Eleanor Ison Franklin, first woman to obtain 'Florence Read's history of Spelman College and Spelman: A Centennial Celebration (see Bibliography) are the only published accounts of a black women's college. No formal history of Benne» College exists. Willa Player presents the needs and experiences of Bennett's graduates in her 1948 Columbia Teachers College dissertation (see Bibliography). " T h e Place of the Women's College in the Pattern of Negro Education," Opportunity. 15 (September 1937), 270.

391

392

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES a top-level administrative post at the Howard University School of Medicine when she was appointed Associate Dean for Administration; Thelma Davidson Adair, professor of education at Queens College in New York, and the first woman to serve as president of Black Presbyterians United; and finally, Atty. Glendora Mcllwain Putnam, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Boston Conservatory of Music, a member of the Massachusetts Bar, the Federal Bar, and the Supreme Court Bar, and former chair of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. Though women's colleges traditionally have been less resistant than coed colleges to placing women in high-level administrative posts and in hiring women faculty, only recently have Spelman and Bennett (though to a lesser degree) begun to practice what they preached in terms of placing Black women in leadership positions on the campus, though they certainly always encouraged their students to seek such positions in the larger society. It was not until the mid-seventies that a woman became the dean of the college at both institutions, even though females had constituted well over half the faculty for a much longer period. 8 At Spelman, all the division chairs presently are Black women while Bennett has two male and two female division chairs. Bennett's top-level administrative staff (which includes the President, Dean of the College, Director of Planning, Dean of Student Affairs, Director of Development, Business Manager, Special Consultant to the President, and Registrar) consists of only two women, while Spelman's top administrative staff (which includes similar positions) consists primarily of women, all of whom are Black. President Donald Stewart must be credited for the increase in the number of Black women as high level administrators at Spelman. Black female college presidents, even at Black women's colleges, have been extraordinarily rare, which is a reflection of the persistent male control of Black institutions generally. When Dr. Willa Player became president of Bennett College in 1955 (after having been a teacher of French, director of admissions and vice president in charge of instruction there), she became the first Black woman to head a college for Black women. Spelman has been headed by several white women and two Black men. 9 During her almost eleven "Before 1920, the majority of teachers at Spelman were white females, though there were a few Blacks. During the '20"s and '30"s, however, Blacks became more prominent on the faculty. In 1925, Margaret Nabrit Curry, a 1924 Spelman graduate, became the first Black to join the College faculty. "Following the announcement of Dr. Donald Stewart's appointment to the Spelman presidency in 1976, dramatic efforts were taken by some students and faculty to block the appointment of a man to succeed Dr. Albert Manley. It was felt that the time had come for Spelman to have its first Black female president. See G. O'Brien, "Five Campuses Hit by Protest," The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 3, 1976, p. 4.

EDUCATION years of service to Bennett, Dr. Player, a nationally known educator, demonstrated superb leadership skills, and during her tenure Bennett was admitted to membership in 1957 to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, being one of the first fifteen Black four-year colleges to be admitted. Though some would argue that separate colleges for women are presently an anachronism, it seems reasonable to assume that Spelman and Bennett will continue to provide for the special educational needs of Black women in ways that co-educational institutions do not. Both institutions, for example, are in the forefront of curriculum development in women's studies on Black college campuses, mainly as a result of their historic commitment to the education of women, especially Black women. Bennett has an interdisciplinary women's studies program which includes a number of women's studies courses and a wide range of informal programs and seminars that explore the female experience. Spelman has recently established an interdisciplinary women's studies minor, though the College's involvement in sponsoring seminars and conferences on issues relevant to Black women is considerably older. Even as early as 1944, for example, Spelman was the site of a "Conference on Current Problems and Programs in the Higher Education of Negro Women," during which representatives of several Black colleges focused on directions for the post-war education of Black women. Bennett's Women for Leadership Roles in International Service is just one of the newly established programs at the College which illustrates its continuous efforts to provide for the special needs of women. Similarly, the newly established Women's Research and Resource Center at Spelman (the first of its kind on a Black college campus) is the most recent example of the College's commitment to the educational development of Black women. The Center will conduct research on Black women, sponsor outreach activities to women in the community, and develop courses in women's studies, especially Black women's studies. Both colleges have also seen a need for collecting books and other material on Black women; the development of the Afro-American Women's Collection at Bennett was initiated during the early 1940s and the Margaret Nabrit Curry Collection on Women opened as part of the Quarles Library at Spelman in 1970. Both colleges also have an impressive archives which is indispensable for the scholar who would chronicle the history of Black women's education in this country. The Spelman and Bennett families continue to affirm the value of separate colleges for women and recognize the unique role that Black women's colleges must play in the continuing saga of women's education in America. Spelman and Bennett are indeed very

393

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES special places for Black women to pursue an education. As President Donald Stewart observed in his inaugural address at Spelman:

. . . Spelman and institutions like it provide a unique environment which is supportive of . . . female leadership roles in our society . . . Coed schools . . . tend to be male dominated. It is the presence of high-status women faculty and administrators in women's colleges that help develop strong identities and positive self-images on the part of female students.10

B L A C K W O M E N AND H I G H E R EDUCATION: SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Alexander, William T. "Women's Higher Education," in History of the Colored Race in America, 1887. Brawley, James P. Two Centuries of Methodist Concern: Bondage, Freedom and Education of Black People. New York: Vantage Press, 1974. Brown, Hugh Victor. A History of the Education of Negroes in North Carolina. Raleigh: Irving Swain Press, 1961. Burroughs, Nannie. Making Their Mark. Washington, D.C. The National Training School for Women and Girls, n.d. Carroll, Constance, "Three's a Crowd: The Dilemma of the Black Woman in Higher Education" in But Some of Us Are Brave, ed. Gloria Hull et al. Old Westbury, New York: Feminist Press, 1982. Culp, D. W. Twentieth Century Negro Literature, Toronto: J. L. Nichols and Company, 1902. Daniel, Sadie Iola. Women Builders. Washington, D.C.: Associated Publishers, 1970. Dannett, S. Profiles of Negro Womanhood. Vol. 1,. Chicago: Educational Heritage, 1966. Fletcher, R. A. A History ofOberlin College. Vol. II. Ohio: Oberlin College, 1943. Flexner, Eleanor. A Century of Struggle. Cambridge: Howard University Press, 1959. Fuller, Edmund. Prudence Crandall: An Incident of Racism in 19th Century Connecticut, 1971. Fumiss, W. Todd and Patricia Graham, eds. Women in Higher Education. Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1974 Guy-Shertall, Beverly and Jo Moore Stewart. Spelman: A Centennial Celebration. Delmar, 1981. Harley, Sharon and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, eds. The Afro-American Woman. Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, 1978. Hutchinson, Louise Daniel. Anna J. Cooper, A Voice from the South. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981. Holmes, Dwight Oliver Wendell. The Evolution of the Negro College. New York: Spelman Messenger, November 1976.

10

EDUCATION

Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1934. Lemer, Gerda, ed. Black Women in White America: A Documentary History. New York: Random House, 1972. Malcolm, S. et al. The Double Bind: The Price of Being a Minority Woman in Science. Washington, D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1976. Montgomery, Winfield Scott. Historical Sketch of Education for the Colored Race in the District of Columbia, 1807-1905. Washington, D C.: Smith Brothers Printers, 1907.National Institute of Education. Conference on the Educational and Occupational Needs of Black Women. Washington, D.C.: NIE, 1978. Noble, Jeanne. The Negro Woman's College Education. New York: Columbia University Press, 1956. O'Connor, Ellen. Myrtilla Miner: A Memoir and the School for Colored. Miami: Mnemosyne Publishing Co., Inc., 1969. Range, Willard. The Rise and Progress of Negro Colleges in Georgia, 1868-1949. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1951. Read, Florence. The Story of Spelman College. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961. Sicherman, Barbara and Carol Hurd, eds. Notable American Women. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981. Silene-Yates, Josephine, "Afro-American Women as Educators," in Women of Distinction, ed. Lawson S. Scruggs, 1893. Spivey, Donald. Schooling for the New Slavery: Black Industrial Educational, 18681915. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1978. Stringer, Patricia S. and Irene Thompson. Stepping Off the Pedestal: Academic Women in the South. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1982. Sutton, Virginia Ann. The Early History of Bennett College. Winston-Salem, N.C.: The Author, 1969. Washington, Josephine Turpin. "Higher Education for Women" in Women ol Distinction, ed. Lawson A. Scroggs., 1893. Periodical Literature The Belle Ringer. Bennett College. Greensboro, N.C., 1970Berry, R. M. F. "Southern Training School for Colored Women," Good Housekeeping, 53 (October 1911), 562-63. Black, Watt. "Education in the South from 1820 to 1860 with Emphasis on the Growth of Teacher Education." Louisiana Student, 12 (Winter 1973), 1,61729. Breit, Ruth et al. " A Symposium, Our Living History, Reminiscences of Black Participation in NAWDAC, Journal of ΝAW DAC, (Winter 1979), 3-13. Bruce, Josephine D., "What Has Education Done for Colored Women?" Voice of the Negro, Quly 1904), 294-98. Carnegie, Μ. E. Lancaster. "Nurse Training Becomes Nursing Education at Florida's A & Μ College." Journal of Negro Education, 17 (Spring 1948), 20004. Chivers, Walter. ' T h e Founding of Spelman College—A Challenge to Negro Women." Spelman Messenger, 59 (May 1943), 7-10. Cochran, Anne S. "The Development of Teacher Education at Morris Brown College." Journal of Negro Education, 16 (Spring 1947), 146-57.

396

HISTORY OF WOMEN DM THE UNITED STATES Coles, Anna B. " T h e Howard University School of Nursing in Historical Perspective." Journal of the National Medical Association, 61 (March 1969), 105— 118.

Cooper, Anna J. ' T h e Higher Education of W o m e n , " Southland, 2 (April 1891), 186-202. " T h e Higher Education of W o m e n , " in A Voice From the South by a Black Woman of the South. Xenia, Ohio: The Adine Printing House, 1892. Doughty, R. " T h e Black Woman in School Administration." Integrated Education, (July/August 1977), 34-47. Eagleston, Oran and Eleanor Bell. " T h e Values of Negro Women College Students." journal of Social Psychology, 22 (Nov 1945), 149-54. Friedman, Lawrence J. "Racism and Sexism in Antebellum America: The Prudence Crandall Episode Remembered." Societas, 4 (Summer 1974), 211-27. Harper, R. N. "Matrimonial Prospects of Southern College W o m e n . " Journal of Heredity, 21 (1930), 29-33. Jones, David. " T h e War and the Higher Education of Negro W o m e n . " Journal of Negro Education, 11 (July 1942), 329-37. Kittrell, Flemmie. " H o m e Economics at Bennett College for W o m e n . " Southern Workman, 60 (1931), 381-84. Laney, Lucy. " T h e Burden of the Educated Negro Woman." Paper read at Hampton Negro Conference, No. 3, July, 1899. Leffall, Dolores C. and Janet 1. Sims. "Mary McLeod Bethune—The Educator: Also Including A Selected Annotated Bibliography ." lournal of Negro Education, 45 (Summer 1976), 342-59. Marteena, C. " A College for Girls," Opportunity, 16 (1938), 306. Moore, Malvin E. "Mainstreaming Black Women in American Higher Education." Journal of the Society of Ethnic and Special Studies, V (Spring-Summer 1981), 61-69. Noble, Jeanne. "Negro Women Today and Their Education." Journal of Negro Education, 26 (Winter 1957), 15-21. Ostlund, Leonard A. "Occupational Choice Patterns of Negro College Women." Journal of Negro Education, 26 (Winter 1957), 86-91. Parsons, M. "Mount Holyoke of the South." Home Mission Monthly, 1908. Read, Florence, " T h e Place of the Women's College in the Pattern of Negro Education." Opportunity, 15 (September 1937), 267-70. Scott, Patricia Bell. "Schoolin' "Respectable" Ladies of Color: Issues in the History of Black Women's Higher Education." Journal of NAWDAC, Winter 1979, 22-28. Shadron, Virginia, Eleanor Hinton Hoytt, Margaret Parsons, Barbara Reitt, Beverly Guy-Sheftall et al. "The Historical Perspective: A Bibliographical Essay," in Stepping off the Pedestal (op. cit.), pp. 145-170. Slowe, Lucy. "Higher Education for Negro Women." Journal of Negro Education, 2 Ouly 1933), 352-58. "The Colored Girl Enters College: What Shall She Expect?" Opportunity, 15 (1939), 276-279. Small, Miriam R., "Prudence Crandall: Champion of Negro Education." New England Quarterly, 17 (December 1944), 506-29. Spelman Messenger. Atlanta: Spelman College, 1885. Stevens, B. S. " T h e Development of Stronger Womanhood." Paper read at Hampton Negro Conference, No. 2, July, 1898. St. Clair, Sadie, "Myrtilla Miner: Pioneer in the Teacher Education of Negroes." Journal of Negro History, 34 (1949), 30-45.

EDUCATION 'Talented Negro Women." in Graduates of Predominantly Negro Colleges, Class of 1964, by Joseph H. Fichter, Public Health Service Publication No. 1571, p. 77-101. Tapley, Lucy. "Our Negro Colleges—Spelman Seminary." Opportunity, 1 (April 1923), 16-17. "Spelman College," Atlanta Historical Bulletin, 1 (May 1930), 38-56. Taylor, Lois. "Nurse Education at Hampton Institute." Opportunity, 22 (Spring 1944): 83, 100. "Social Action at Bennett College" Opportunity, 20 (January 1942), 8-10. Terrell, Mary C. "History of the High Schools for Negroes in Washington," Journal of Negro History, 2 (1917), 252-66. Thorpe, Jack. " A Plea for Social Justice for the Negro Woman." Occasional papers, No. 2, Negro Society for Historical Research, 1912. Trenholm, H. Councill. ' T h e Role of the Negro Teacher's College in Post-War Reconstruction." Journal of Negro Education, 11 (July 1942), 412-22. Trigg, Frank. "Bennett College," Southern Workman, 5 (February 1926), 84-5. Wesley, Charles. "Graduate Education for Negroes in Southern Universities." Harvard Educational Review, 10 (January 1940), 82-94. Wormley, S. Smith. "Myrtilla Miner," Journal of Negro History, 5 (1920), 448-57. Theses and Dissertations Bolton, Ina. "Problems of Negro College Women Graduates." Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Calif., 1948. Butcher, Beatrice. ' T h e Evolution of Negro Women's Schools in the United States." Master's thesis, Howard Univ., 1936. Carter, Mary M. ' T h e Educational Activities of the National Educational Association for College Women, 1923-1960." Master's thesis, Howard Univ., May, 1962. Cash, R. Singleton. " A Follow-up Study of the Graduates of Spelman College for the years 1947-58." Master's thesis, Atlanta Univ., 1960. Cuthbert, Marion. "Education and Marginality: A Study of the Negro Woman College Graduate." Ph.D. dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia Univ. 1942. Demons, Leona Marie. "Graduates of Spelman, Clark and Morris Brown College Who Have Earned Doctoral Degrees." Master's thesis, Atlanta Univ., 1965. Gordon, Ruth L. Hill. "Differential Value Patterns of Black and White Women in Higher Education." Ph.D. dissertation, U.S. International Univ., Calif, 1974. Lane, Cecilia Scott. "The Place of Home Economics in the Curriculum for Women of Houston College for Negroes." Master's thesis, Iowa State College, 1937. McDowell, Ruth Doris. "Beliefs About Sex Among College Women and the Sources of Their Information." Master's thesis, Atlanta University, 1949. Patterson, Ε. H. ' T h e Work of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Establishing and Maintaining Schools in the South for Negroes, 1866-1892." Master's thesis, Univ. of Chicago, 1940. Payne, N. Joyce. " T h e Status of Black Women in Education Administration." Ph.D. dissertation, Atlanta Univ., 1975. Perkins, Linda. "Fanny Jackson Coppin and the Institute for Colored Youth: A Model of Nineteenth-Century Black Female Educational and Community

398

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES Leadership 1837-1902." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, 1978. Phillips, Ollie. "Higher Education for Negro Women in Alabama." Master's thesis, Fisk, 1939. Player, Wiila. "Improving College Education for Women at Bennett College." Teachers College, Columbia, 1948 Porter, Ruth. "The Health Program for Women Students in Southern Colleges." Master's thesis, Univ. of Calif., 1937. Robinson, Florence Ann. "A Study of the Occupational Choices of the Negro Women of the Senior Classes in Atlanta Colleges, 1940-1941, in Relation to Possible Employment." Master's thesis, Atlanta Univ., 1941. Robinson, Omelia. "Contributions of Black American Academic Women to American Higher Education." Ph.D. dissertation, Wayne State, 1978. Smothers, James. "Socio-Economic Status and Academic Achievement of College Women, North and South." Master's thesis, Fisk, 1947. Taylor, Annie Alford. ' T h e Current Status of Black Women in American Higher Education Administration." Ph.D. dissertation, Arizona State, 1977.

References Chambers, Frederick. Black Higher Education in the United States, A Selected Bibliography on Negro Higher Education and Historically Black Colleges and Universities Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978. Sims, Janet L. (comp.). The Progress of Afro-American Women: A Selected Bibliography and Resource Guide. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980. (Chapter on Education).

399

EDUCATION

IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN EUTHENICS: THE LAKE PLACID CONFERENCES AND THE HOME ECONOMICS MOVEMENT EMMA SEIFRIT Philadelphia,

WEIGLEY Pa.

THE HOME E C O N O M I C S M O V E M E N T IN THIS C O U N T R Y HAS R E C E I V E D

SCANT

attention from researchers and writers, yet it played an i m p o r t a n t role in women's history, the history of w o m e n ' s education a n d in opening new careers for women. A discipline that developed during the liberating years for women's careers that followed the Civil W a r , it h a d no tradition of domination by men. Initially, h o m e economics courses were taught almost exclusively by w o m e n , many highly educated with degrees in established academic fields. These pioneers envisioned the field as extending far beyond the mere skills of cooking and sewing. They believed that the family was central to the fabric of the country a n d by applying the principles of science to the h o m e , family life could be m a d e better, fuller a n d more rewarding. The exact beginnings of the h o m e economics m o v e m e n t in the United States are difficult to pinpoint, but are sometimes traced to 1841 when Catharine Beecher published Treatise on Domestic Economy for the Use of Young Ladies at Home. This book has been called " t h e first m o d e r n book treating of the household in a large way, fully conscious of its i m p o r t a n c e as a social institution, fully aware of the great interests centered in it " Treatise is considered by some to have been the first h o m e economics textbook. C a t h a r i n e Beecher went on to m a k e reform of the h o m e one of her pet causes and published several m o r e guides for the h o m e m a k e r . She also

400

HISTORY O F W O M E N IN T H E U N I T E D STATES

a g i t a t e d for instruction in d o m e s t i c e c o n o m y as p a r t of the e d u c a t i o n of all w o m e n . 1 E d u c a t i o n in h o m e e c o n o m i c s received a b o o s t with t h e passage of the M o r r i l l Act of 1862, f o r s o m e of t h e agricultural a n d m e c h a n i c a l colleges m a d e possible by this law i n t r o d u c e d h o m e e c o n o m i c s courses in an effort t o p r o v i d e offerings of especial interest a n d relevance to female students. In 1872 Iowa S t a t e A g r i c u l t u r a l College offered its j u n i o r w o m e n lectures o n m a t t e r s relating to h o u s e k e e p i n g ; in 1877 a c o u r s e in c o o k e r y was a d d e d . At K a n s a s A g r i c u l t u r a l College sewing was first t a u g h t in 1873, lectures on t h e chemistry of c o o k i n g were a d d e d in 1875 a n d a kitchen f o r c o o k i n g lessons fitted u p in 1877. A School of D o m e s t i c E c o n o m y w a s established at Illinois I n d u s t r i a l University in 1874 a n d o t h e r land g r a n t colleges in t u r n began offering courses in h o m e economics. 2 In t h e East, u r b a n c o o k i n g schools s p r a n g up to parallel the home e c o n o m i c s work of t h e land g r a n t colleges in the West a n d M i d w e s t . In 1876 Juliet C o r s o n o p e n e d the N e w Y o r k C o o k i n g S c h o o l . T h e Boston C o o k i n g School w a s established in 1879 with M a r i a P a r l o a as one of its early teachers. A c o o k i n g school was o p e n e d in P h i l a d e l p h i a in 1879; the next year S a r a h T y s o n R o r e r b e c a m e the i n s t r u c t o r a n d later took over o p e r a t i o n of the school n a m i n g it the P h i l a d e l p h i a C o o k i n g School. D u r i n g this p e r i o d , a c c o r d i n g t o Page S m i t h , " C o u r s e s in ' h o m e econ o m i c s ' g r a d u a l l y p e n e t r a t e d t h e c u r r i c u l u m of high schools, w o m e n ' s colleges a n d t h e state u n i v e r s i t i e s . " 1 L e a d e r s in t h e evolving field of h o m e e c o n o m i c s p o i n t e d out t h a t the industrial revolution h a d r e m o v e d h o u s e h o l d industries f r o m the home. C o u r s e s in schools a n d colleges w o u l d replace instruction in t h e domestic a r t s t h a t n o longer t o o k place in t h e h o m e . Ellen R i c h a r d s , I n s t r u c t o r in S a n i t a r y C h e m i s t r y at t h e M a s s a c h u s e t t s Institute of T e c h n o l o g y w h o was t o b e c o m e t h e guiding force b e h i n d the h o m e e c o n o m i c s m o v e m e n t , felt t h a t the A m e r i c a n h o m e h a d shifted f r o m a center of p r o d u c t i o n to a center of c o n s u m p t i o n , a n d with this c h a n g e m a n y skills a n d a t t i t u d e s once •Benjamin R. A n d r e w s , " M i s s C a t h e r i n e [jic] E. Beecher: The Pioneer in H o m e Economics,' 'Journal of Home Economics, 4 (June 1912), 211, 214; C h a r l o t t e Elizabeth Biester, " C a t h a r i n e Beecher and Her C o n t r i b u t i o n s to H o m e E c o n o m i c s , " Field Study, Colorado State College of E d u c a t i o n , 1950; K a t h r y n Kish Sklar, Catharine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity (New Haven; Yale Univ. Press, l973);Page Smith, Daughters of the Promised Land (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), p. 207. J Isabel Bevier, Home Economics in Education (Philadelphia: Lippincolt, 1924) pp. 119-23; Ercel S. Eppright and Elizabeth S. F e r g u s o n , A Century of Home Economics at Iowa Slate University (Ames: Iowa State Univ. Press, 1971), pp. 12-21; Hazel T . Craig, The History of Home Economics (New York: Practical H o m e Economics, 1945), pp. 5-6; Industrial Education in the United States ( W a s h i n g t o n : G P O , 1883), pp. 278-85; Training Schools of Cookery ( W a s h i n g t o n : G P O , 1879), pp. 33-36; " D o m e s t i c Science in the Agricultural Colleges," American Kitchen Magazine, 7 (Sept. 1897), 213-23. 'Bevier, pp. 134-41; Industrial Education, pp. 285-90; Training Schools, pp. 17-27, 28-33; Smith, p. 207.

EDUCATION

acquired in the h o m e were lost. M r s . R i c h a r d s , h o w e v e r , h a d no desire to return activities such as c h u r n i n g a n d weaving to the h o m e . R a t h e r , with her overriding " f a i t h in science as a c u r c - a l l , " she felt t h a t t h r o u g h application of the principles of science to everyday living, the e n v i r o n m e n t could be controlled a n d c o n s e q u e n t l y the quality of life i m p r o v e d . 4 The potential of h o m e e c o n o m i c s courses in d e v e l o p i n g g o o d A m e r i c a n citizens was e m p h a s i z e d by their c h a m p i o n s . M a r i a P a r l o a felt that all students w o u l d benefit f r o m m a n u a l training. F o r t e n e m e n t dwellers, "idle and vicious h a b i t s are easily f o r m e d unless there is o c c u p a t i o n for h a n d s and brain. If the children in these n e i g h b o r h o o d s d o not f o r m h a b i t s of industry, o r d e r a n d neatness in the schools, w h e r e is the o p p o r t u n i t y outside?" she asked. N o t only t h e p o o r would profit f r o m such training for "there is not a man or a w o m a n in any station in life, f r o m the highest to the lowest w h o will not be better a n d m o r e useful for s o m e sort of technical training, a n d every i n s t r u c t o r in schools o r colleges s h o u l d i m p r e s s upon his pupils the dignity a n d b e a u t y of l a b o r . " A t r i b u t e to Miss P a r l o a recalled, " R e c o g n i z i n g as she did years a g o that the n a t i o n which will lead the world will be a n a t i o n of h o m e s , her w o r k s t a n d s as r e p r e s e n t a t i v e of the truest f o r m of p a t r i o t i s m , t h a t which builds for c h a r a c t e r a n d c o u n t s for love of c o u n t r y a n d of h o m e . " 5 Teachers a n d writers in the field of h o m e e c o n o m i c s t e n d e d to be traditional in their c o n c e p t of w o m a n ' s role. C a t h a r i n e Beecher in her last book (1874) wrote of w o m a n ' s " d i s t i n c t i v e d u t i e s as h o u s e k e e p e r , wife, mother a n d chief e d u c a t o r of the n a t i o n ' s c h i l d r e n . " " A s the general rule every time w o m a n w o u l d prefer to be a wife, m o t h e r a n d h o u s e k e e p e r , could her ideal be fully m e t . " In an a d d r e s s to t h e A m e r i c a n M a n u a l Training A s s o c i a t i o n , M a r i a P a r l o a stated, " T h e h o m e is necessary t o t h e life of the family a n d the d e v e l o p m e n t of g o o d citizens; t h e w o m a n m a k e s the home, t h e r e f o r e t h e training for this i m p o r t a n t position s h o u l d begin early a n d s h o u l d be given in such a m a n n e r that h o u s e h o l d science s h o u l d rank as fine a r t . " 6 Ellen R i c h a r d s ' a t t i t u d e t o w a r d w o m a n ' s n a t u r a l role r e m a i n e d basi4 Marion T a l b o t , The Education of Women (Chicago: Univ. of C h i c a g o Press, 1910), p. 10; " T h e Domestic Economy C o n f e r e n c e , " American Kitchen Magazine. 6 (Oct. 1896), 20; Caroline L. H u n t , The Life of Ellen Η Richards: 1842-1911. Centennial Ed. ( W a s h i n g t o n : American H o m e Economics Assn., 1942), pp. 263, 265; Ellen H. Richards, " T h e Present Status and F u t u r e Development of Domestic Science Courses in the High S c h o o l , " in Fourth Yearbook of the National Society for the Scientific Study of Education, ed. M a n f r e d J. H o l m e s (Bloomington, III.: P a n t a g r a p h Printing, 1905), p. 49. 5 Edith F. M c D e r m o l t , " S h a l l Domestic Science and H o u s e h o l d E c o n o m y be T a u g h t in Our Public Schools?", American Kitchen Magazine. 6 ( F e b . 1897), 211; Maria Parloa, "Cooking and Housework in the Schools," American Kitchen Magazine. 6 (Oct. 1896), 4 - 5 ; Annie Dewey, " M i s s M a r i a P a r l o a , " Journal of Home Economics. 1 (Oct. 1909), 383. 6 C a t h a r i n e E. Beecher, Educational Reminiscences and Suggestions (New York: J. B. Ford, 1874), p. 202; Parloa, p. 5.

401

402

HISTORY O F WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

cally conservative. " T h e educated woman longs for a career, for an opportunity to influence the world. Just now the greatest field offered to her is the elevation of the home into its place in American life." After posing the question, " W h o is to have the knowledge and wisdom a n d time to carry out the ideals and keep the family up to these s t a n d a r d s ? " she replied, " W h o , indeed, but the woman, the mistress of the h o m e , the one who chooses the household as her profession, not because she can have no other, not because she can in no other way support herself, but because she believes in the home as the means of educating and perfecting the ideal h u m a n being, the flower of the race for which we are all existing; because she believes that it is worth while to give her energy and skill to the service of her country and age." 7 She believed passionately that " t h e family is the heart of the country's life, and every philanthropist or social scientist must begin at that point. Whatever, then, will enlighten the mind, and lighten the burden of care of every housekeeper will be a b o o n . " Mary Hinman Abel, herself a pioneer in h o m e economics, eulogized: " I t is not too much to say that in her later years one thought and interest so predominated in M r s . Richards as to make it the center. She considered the American home the most precious development of civilization and to preserve its essentials while helping to adjust it to the demands of our age became with her an absorbing passion." 8 Others also saw the great potential in the application of the principles of science to the home. Advances in science should not be ignored, but rather h o m e life could be improved, as Alice Peloubet N o r t o n of the University of Chicago wrote: " b y making use of every help that will give knowledge of the materials with which we work, that will cultivate the power to distinguish between the essential and non-essential, and that will give control of the situation." 9 T h e World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 gave impetus to home economics in several ways. The National Household Economics Association, which aimed to promote more scientific knowledge of foods, fuel and sanitation, as well as organizing schools of household science and service, grew out of the W o m a n ' s Congress at this world's fair. This Association worked primarily through women's clubs and in 1903 was merged into the General Federation of W o m e n ' s Clubs. At the Exposition, the Rumford Kitchen Exhibit of the state of Massachusetts under the direction of 'Ellen H. Richards, The Cost of Living as Modified by Sanitary Science. 3rd ed. (New York: John Wiley, 1905), pp. 13, 143-44. *The Chemistry of Cooking and Cleaning (Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1894), p. vii; Mary H. Abel, " M r s . Richards and the Home Economics Movement," Journal of Home Economics. 3 (Oct. 1911), 343. ' " D o m e s t i c Economy Conference," p. 22; Alice Peloubet Norton, Food and Dietetics (Chicago: American School of Home Economics, 1907), p. 4.

EDUCATION

Ellen Richards demonstrated how a working man and his family could live on an income of $500 a year. Juliet Corson was in charge of cooking demonstrations that were part of the New York exhibit. A "corn kitchen" aimed at popularizing and showing the many uses of this staple grain was presided over by Philadelphia's Sarah Tyson Rorer. Under the auspices of the National Columbian Household Economics Association, organized by the fair's Board of Lady Managers, Emma P. Ewing, head of the Chautauqua School of Cookery, lectured on her specialty. Emily Huntington of New York, originator of the kitchen garden method of teaching housekeeping to children, was available for consultation. 1 0 By the turn of the century, home economics was making its presence known in American education. Departments of home economics had been established in 30 colleges. The urban cooking schools had added courses for teacher training to their curricula. Household arts courses had been introduced into many public and private schools. The drive for self improvement that characterized the nineties helped promote home economics in adult education. Women interested in learning of better diet, improved cooking and sewing methods, and more efficient home management eagerly read magazine articles, attended cooking schools and flocked to Chautauqua and lyceum sessions on these topics." The field, however, lacked a body of literature about its aims and philosophy. A consensus concerning the proper place of home economics in the overall educational system did not exist. Furthermore, there was little opportunity for home economists to meet for discussion of their mutual concerns. Indeed, semantics was a problem, for home economics courses were given under varying names such as domestic science, home science, household administration, household economics, household management, domestic economy and other variations on this same theme. Clearly the time was ripe for a conference of leaders to discuss the problems, progress, philosophy and future of this emerging discipline, and those in the field expressed interest in such a meeting. 12 The wheels were set in motion in the summer of 1898 when Ellen Richards visited the Lake Placid Club in Morningside, Essex County, New 10 Bevier, pp. 144-46; Frederik F e r n a l d , " H o u s e h o l d A r t s ai the W o r l d ' s F a i r , " Popular Science Monthly, 43 (Oct. 1893), 804, 805-11; H u n t , pp. 221-23. "Bevier, pp. 128, 141-42; Craig, pp. 7 - 8 ; " C o o k i n g Classes in the Public S c h o o l s , " American Kitchen Magazine. 13 (July 1900), 147-50; (Aug. 1900), 189-92; F r a n k L u t h e r Mott, " T h e M a g a z i n e Revolution a n d Popular Ideas in the Nineties," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society. 64 ( A p r . 1954), 195; " D o m e s t i c Science at C h a u t a u q u a , " American Kitchen Magazine. 14 (Oct. 1900), 33-34; J. C. F u r n a s , The Americans: A Social History of the United States 1587-1914 (New York: P u l n a m s , 1969), p. 901. l2 S o p h o n i s b a P. Breckenridge, Women in the Twentieth Century: A Study of Their Political. Social and Economic Activities ( N e w York: M c G r a w - H i l l , 1933), p. 198; First Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics Proceedings, p. 3; " H o m e Economics: T h e L a k e Placid C o n f e r e n c e , " American Kitchen Magazine, 12 ( N o v . 1899), 65.

403

404

HISTORY O F W O M E N IN T H E U N I T E D STATES

Y o r k t o give a talk on t h e d o m e s t i c service q u e s t i o n , a p r o b l e m plagiting m a n y h o u s e h o l d s . T h i s A d i r o n d a c k a r e a c l u b was the s u m m e r h o m e of Melvil Dewey (Secretary of the University of the State of N e w York, D i r e c t o r of the N e w Y o r k S t a t e Library a n d developer of the Dewey D e c i m a l System) a n d his wife, A n n i e G o d f r e y Dewey. While M r s . Richa r d s was at L a k e Placid, D e w e y c o n s u l t e d with her a b o u t h o m e economics q u e s t i o n s suitable for the N e w Y o r k State Regents' college entrance e x a m i n a t i o n s . D u r i n g this visit the idea of h o l d i n g a conference on home e c o n o m i c s at L a k e Placid the following year was conceived. 1 3 T o insure that the L a k e Placid C l u b would not be c r o w d e d with summer guests, S e p t e m b e r was chosen as the m o n t h of the meeting. Invitations went o u t t h r o u g h M r s . R i c h a r d s a n d the Deweys to leaders in the field of h o m e e c o n o m i c s living within r e a s o n a b l e traveling distance of Lake Placid. T h o s e invited were polled in a d v a n c e a b o u t possible topics for discussion a n d m a n y suggestions were received: a c o m p i l a t i o n of the experience a n d results of teaching d o m e s t i c e c o n o m y in this c o u n t r y and E u r o p e , p r e p a r a t i o n of a n n o t a t e d bibliographies on domestic economy which might be published a n d distributed by the g o v e r n m e n t , preparation of a classification of h o u s e h o l d e c o n o m i c s , f o u n d i n g of chairs of h o u s e h o l d e c o n o m i c s in state universities, discussing technical details in the c o n d u c t of the h o m e which m i g h t lead to a g r e e m e n t on approved m e t h o d s , a n d m a n y more. 1 4 O n S e p t e m b e r 19, 1899, eleven p e o p l e g a t h e r e d in the open air library a b o v e the b o a t h o u s e of the L a k e Placid C l u b . In addition to Ellen Richards, a c k n o w l e d g e d leader of the c o n f e r e n c e , and the hosts Dewey, there were M a r i a P a r l o a , the pioneer teacher of cookery; M a r i a Daniell, a lecturer on f o o d s f r o m Boston w h o was especially interested in institutional a d m i n i s t r a t i o n ; Emily H u n t i n g t o n of kitchen g a r d e n fame; A n n a Barrows, an editor of the B o s t o n - b a s e d American Kitchen Magazine and experienced in w o r k i n g with rural w o m e n t h r o u g h grange g r o u p s and f a r m e r s ' institutes; Alice Peloubet N o r t o n , supervisor of domestic science in the Brookline, M a s s a c h u s e t t s , schools, s o o n to b e c o m e head of the D e p a r t m e n t of H o u s e h o l d Science at the University of C h i c a g o . Louisa A . N i c h o l a s s h a d o r g a n i z e d courses in h o u s e h o l d a r t s at the F r a m i n g h a m ( M a s s a c h u s e t t s ) State N o r m a l School; M r s . William V. Kellen h a d introd u c e d the school lunch p r o g r a m in B o s t o n . T h e h o m e m a k e r was represented by M r s . William G . Shailer, president of the N e w Y o r k H o u s e h o l d E c o n o m i c s A s s o c i a t i o n , an affiliate of t h e N a t i o n a l H o u s e h o l d Economics Association. 1 5 iJHuni, pp. 261-62. 14

I b i d „ p. 265; First Conf. Proc.. pp. 3 - 4 . 15First Conf. Proc.. p p . 8 - 9 ; H u m , pp. 263-65.

EDUCATION

Letters expressing interest in a n d s u p p o r t of t h e c o n f e r e n c e , b u t regret at being u n a b l e t o a t t e n d were received f r o m M a r y H i n m a n A b e l of Baltim o r e , an associate of Ellen R i c h a r d s a n d w i n n e r of t h e 1888 L o m b Essay Award on " P r a c t i c a l S a n i t a r y a n d E c o n o m i c C o o k i n g A d a p t e d to P e r s o n s of M o d e r a t e a n d Small M e a n s " ; Helen K i n n e , P r o f e s s o r of D o m e s t i c Science at T e a c h e r s College, C o l u m b i a U n i v e r s i t y ; M a r i o n T a l b o t , A s s o c i a t e Professor of S a n i t a r y Science at the U n i v e r s i t y of C h i c a g o ; W i l b u r O . Atwater, P r o f e s s o r of C h e m i s t r y at W e s l e y a n U n i v e r s i t y a n d f o u n d e r a n d chief of the Office of E x p e r i m e n t S t a t i o n s of t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s D e p a r t ment of A g r i c u l t u r e ; E m m a E w i n g a n d o t h e r s . 1 6 Melvil Dewey delivered a w e l c o m i n g speech o n b e h a l f of t h e c l u b trustees. In it he " g a v e m a n y i n s t a n c e s d r a w n f r o m his o w n e x p e r i e n c e of t h e benefits to be derived f r o m t h e c o - o p e r a t i o n a n d o r g a n i z a t i o n of t h o s e who are engaged in parallel lines of w o r k . " H e a f f i r m e d his belief t h a t "Those w h o can m a k e t h e h o m e all it s h o u l d be will get n e a r e r t h e f o u n dations of life t h a n even t h e t e a c h e r s , m i n i s t e r s a n d e d i t o r s . " 1 7 Since the c o n f e r e n c e leaders h a d earlier decided t h a t it w o u l d be best t o work t h r o u g h existing agencies r a t h e r t h a n f o r m an e l a b o r a t e o r g a n i z a tion, no time w a s spent on p r e p a r i n g a c o n s t i t u t i o n o r b y l a w s . Ellen Richards a n d A n n a B a r r o w s were elected c h a i r m a n a n d s e c r e t a r y respectively. 18 T h e first o r d e r of business w a s c h o o s i n g a n a m e " s i m p l e yet c o m p r e hensive e n o u g h to cover s a n i t a t i o n , c o o k e r y a n d k i n d r e d h o u s e h o l d a r t s , and instruction in the art o r science of living f r o m t h e k i n d e r g a r t e n t o t h e college." A f t e r c o n s i d e r a b l e d i s c u s s i o n , t h e n a m e home economics was chosen as t h e p r e f e r a b l e title with t h e intent of c o n s i d e r i n g it as a distinct part of the larger field of e c o n o m i c s . In this way t h e discipline c o u l d find a logical place in a college o r university c u r r i c u l u m , a p o s i t i o n t h e c o n ference m e m b e r s agreed w o u l d never be a f f o r d e d to m e r e " h o u s e h o l d arts." While home economics w a s t o be used as a g e n e r a l t e r m , o t h e r designations m i g h t be used at d i f f e r e n t levels, such as domestic economy for younger pupils, domestic science in high s c h o o l s w h e r e scientific m e t h o d s might be a p p l i e d , a n d household o r home economics f o r college c o u r s e s . " During t h e discussion t h e need f o r p u b l i c i z i n g a n d p o p u l a r i z i n g t h e whole m o v e m e n t w a s e m p h a s i z e d . S o m e t h o u g h t it w a s u n f o r t u n a t e t h a t cooking as such h a d been t a u g h t in p u b l i c s c h o o l s , for t h e p u b l i c viewed it " M a r y H i n m a n Abel. Practica/ Sanitary and Economic Cooking Adapted to Persons of Moderate and Small Means ( R o c h e s t e r , N.Y.: A m e r i c a n Public Health Assn.. 1889); First Conf. Proc.. p. 4. " I b i d . , p. 4. " I b i d . , p. 4. " " H o m e Economics: The Lake Placid C o n f e r e n c e , " p. 66.

405

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

406

merely as a skill. W o u l d it n o t h a v e been better to teach t h e principles of c o o k i n g u n d e r t h e n a t u r a l sciences? O t h e r s d i s a g r e e d , p o i n t i n g out the difficulty of h a v i n g p u p i l s m a k e a p r a c t i c a l a p p l i c a t i o n of principles; act u a l a c c o m p l i s h m e n t of s o m e t h i n g t a n g i b l e such a s f o o d p r e p a r a t i o n had g r e a t e r a p p e a l t o t h e g e n e r a l public. 2 0 A day w a s given t o discussion of t r a i n i n g of y o u n g w o m e n f o r leadership in t h e field. S o m e existing c o u r s e s of s t u d y were d e s c r i b e d , a n d from the r e p o r t s it w a s evident t h a t p r e p a r a t i o n w a s b e c o m i n g m o r e t h o r o u g h t h a n p r e v i o u s l y . T h e p r a c t i c e in s o m e colleges of h a v i n g r o u t i n e housek e e p i n g p e r f o r m e d by s t u d e n t s , it was c o n c e d e d , h a d rarely been carried o u t in such a m a n n e r as to h a v e a n y e d u c a t i o n a l value a n d h a d fallen into d i s f a v o r . U n d e r Melvil D e w e y ' s l e a d e r s h i p , a session w a s d e v o t e d to the library classification of h o m e e c o n o m i c s l i t e r a t u r e . A g r e e m e n t was r e a c h e d to c a t a l o g u e f u t u r e h o m e e c o n o m i c s p u b l i c a t i o n s as a section of sociology u n d e r t h e n u m b e r 339. W h i l e p a u p e r i s m w a s a l r e a d y assigned t h a t n u m b e r n o p r o b l e m w a s a n t i c i p a t e d , f o r p a u p e r i s m resulted from t h e lack of a t t e n t i o n t o h o m e e c o n o m i c s ! 2 1 O t h e r sessions i n c l u d e d M a r i a P a r l o a ' s talk on " H o w C a n Domestic Science H e l p t h e W o m a n W h o D o e s H e r O w n W o r k ? " , A n n a Barrows' r e p o r t on " D o m e s t i c Science at F a r m e r s ' I n s t i t u t e s " a n d an e x p l a n a t i o n of " T h e K i t c h e n G a r d e n a n d t h e K i n d e r g a r t e n " by Emily H u n t i n g t o n . M r s . William G . Shailer t o l d of t h e e f f o r t s of the N e w Y o r k b r a n c h of the H o u s e h o l d E c o n o m i c s A s s o c i a t i o n in p r o v i d i n g lessons for w o m e n in city t e n e m e n t s . Ellen R i c h a r d s c a p p e d t h e c o n f e r e n c e with a talk on " S t a n d a r d s of L i v i n g " in which she called for r a t i o n a l division of i n c o m e and b a l a n c e in t h e cost of living. 2 2 C o m m i t t e e s were a p p o i n t e d t o p r e p a r e r e p o r t s on t o p i c s such as househ o l d a r t s in t h e p u b l i c s c h o o l s , d o m e s t i c science in high s c h o o l s , h o m e e c o n o m i c s c o u r s e s in colleges a n d universities, t r a i n i n g of t e a c h e r s and simplified m e t h o d s of h o u s e k e e p i n g . P a r t i c i p a n t s a g r e e d u n a n i m o u s l y to meet t h e f o l l o w i n g year to h e a r c o m m i t t e e r e p o r t s a n d c o n t i n u e discussion of the present s t a t e a n d the f u t u r e of their c h o s e n field.23 In all, ten a n n u a l m e e t i n g s were to be held. W h i l e a l w a y s k n o w n as " L a k e Placid C o n f e r e n c e s , " t w o were a c t u a l l y held e l s e w h e r e . T h e fifth c o n f e r e n c e in 1903 t o o k place in B o s t o n in c o n n e c t i o n with t h e N a t i o n a l E d u c a t i o n A s s o c i a t i o n m e e t i n g a n d t h e t e n t h a n d last c o n f e r e n c e of 1908 met by special i n v i t a t i o n at C h a u t a u q u a , N e w Y o r k . Ellen R i c h a r d s presided e a c h year e x c e p t 1903 w h e n she was t a k i n g a t r i p t h r o u g h t h e West. 20

lbid.. 2'lbid , "Ibid., »Ibid.,

p. 66 pp. 67-68. pp. 68 -69. pp. 69-70.

EDUCATION

On that occasion the c h a i r m a n was A b b y M a r l a t t of the M a n u a l T r a i n i n g High School in Providence, R h o d e Island, who later was to have a long and distinguished career as director of the h o m e economics d e p a r t m e n t at the University of Wisconsin. 2 4 Conference attendance grew and by the third meeting in 1901, almost five times as many were present as at the first meeting. M o r e states were represented as years passed, although the leadership and majority of the members continued to come from the N o r t h e a s t e r n part of the United States. Beginning with the second conference, there were always delegates from C a n a d a , and frequently English visitors were present. N a m e s of both pioneer home economists and women who were later to become well known in the field a p p e a r on the rolls. M a r y Lincoln, one of the first teachers at the Boston C o o k i n g School attended, as did F a n n i e Merritt Farmer, the school's fourth and best-known principal. Isabel Bevier, w h o developed the d e p a r t m e n t of home economics at the University of Illinois, became active in the conferences, as did Caroline H u n t of the University of Wisconsin who later served on the staff of the Office and Bureau of Home Economics of the United States D e p a r t m e n t of Agriculture a n d who became the biographer of Ellen Richards. M a r y Davies Swartz (Rose) who was to become the country's first professor of nutrition at Columbia University attended in 1906 along with Frances Stern who later established the Boston Dispensary F o o d Clinic. A 1907 m e m b e r was Lenna Cooper, a dietitian from the Battle Creek Sanitarium, w h o was in 1917 to issue the call for a meeting of dietitians that led to the f o u n d i n g of the American Dietetic Association. 2 5 Not only home economists attended. A l t h o u g h he couldn't be present at the first conference, W . O. Atwater did c o m e to some subsequent meetings as did Charles F. Langworthy, Chief of N u t r i t i o n Investigations, Office of Experiment Stations, U.S. D e p a r t m e n t of Agriculture. Henry C. Sherman, Professor of Chemistry at C o l u m b i a University a n d pioneer nutrition researcher who later became chief of the Bureau of H u m a n Nutrition a n d H o m e Economics of the U.S. D e p a r t m e n t of Agriculture also attended. 2 6 The conferences ran from three to seven days each and included even14 Fifth Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics Proceedings, pp. 6, 7; Tenth Lake Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics Proceedings, p. 8. 2i Third Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics Proceedings, pp 50, 119; Eighth Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics Proceedings, p. 128; Second Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics Proceedings, p. 45; Ninth Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics Proceedings, p. 160; Mary I. Barber, ed., History of the American Dietetic Association: 19171959 (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1959), p. 19. 26 Third Conf Proc.. p. 118; Seventh Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics Proceedings. pp. 140-51; Ninth Conf. Proc.. p. 163.

407

408

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

ing as well as daytime sessions. Formal presentation of papers was followed by questions and comments; there were also some round table discussion sessions. Recreation was not neglected, for conference programs list activities such as a drive to John Brown's grave, a steamer trip around Lake Placid, a drive to Cascade Lakes and a trip to Adirondack Lodge. 27 Some topics were reported on annually; home economics teaching at various levels was a perennial favorite. Courses in the grade school were of especial interest because, as was reported at the second conference, more than half the school population left on or before completing fifth grade and only 5 per cent reached high school. At the same conference Ellen Richards emphasized the need for fundamental work that would touch the lives of all people. She felt the only place where this could be done was in the grade school, and the aim should be to develop in the child power to be used over his own environment, food, clothing and shelter. A paper at the third conference reported introduction of such courses into increasing numbers of schools; they were then known to be offered in some fifty elementary schools in the United States. 2 * Committee members felt that through such training: . . . t h e children gain i n c r e a s e d m u s c l e c o n t r o l a n d p o w e r of m u s c u l a r expression; they find a variety of o c c u p a t i o n s t h a t a r e useful in daily life while as p l e a s a n t as play; t h a t redeem t h e m f r o m idleness, m a k e t h e m self-reliant and u s e f u l to o t h e r s , a n d place t h e m w h e r e they can r e n d e r the m a x i m u m a n d dem a n d t h e m i n i m u m of service. O n t h e t h o u g h t side, t h e subject a f f o r d s peculiar o p p o r t u n i t y t o d e v e l o p t h e r e l a t i n g p o w e r , in t r a c i n g c a u s e a n d effect, in seeing h o w successful p r a c t i c e d e p e n d s u p o n a firm g r a s p of u n d e r l y i n g principles. P r a c t i c a l j u d g m e n t is g a i n e d in selecting m a t e r i a l s a n d d e c i d i n g on right ways of d o i n g . P e r s o n a l r e s p o n s i b i l i t y is d e v e l o p e d in t h e c o n t r o l of m a t e r i a l s and n a t u r a l forces, as t h e p u p i l d i s c o v e r s t h a t her will a n d m u s c l e s a r e p o t e n t and r e s p o n s i b l e f a c t o r s in o b t a i n i n g a desired result, a n d t h a t luck is a m y t h . 2 9 In t h e lower g r a d e s t h e child is interested in t h e m e r e d o i n g , t h e play element e n t e r i n g largely i n t o his activities; t h e r e f o r e in these g r a d e s t h e a r t side alone is given. T h e p u r p o s e is to f a m i l i a r i z e the child with m a n y p r o c e s s e s , particularly in their r e l a t i o n t o social life, r a t h e r t h a n to d e v e l o p c o m p l e t e l y e a c h kind of activity a n d its u n d e r l y i n g p r i n c i p l e s in a s e p a r a t e c o u r s e . S u c h processes as sewing, w e a v i n g , b a s k e t r y , c o o k i n g , m a y be used as f o r m s of e x p r e s s i o n or illust r a t i o n in c o n n e c t i o n with a s t u d y of p r i m i t i v e life, o r of n a t u r e s t u d y . . . . In the u p p e r e l e m e n t a r y t h e activities a r e given in c o n t i n u o u s c o u r s e s , as sewing, cooking, cleaning, a n d t a k e m o r e definite f o r m as w o r k . T h e r e a s o n s w h y are well d e v e l o p e d , a n d p r i n c i p l e s a r e e s t a b l i s h e d , a n d t h u s the scientific a s p e c t is intro27

Second Conf. Proc.. pp. 11-13; Third Conf. Proc.. pp. 47 50 Second Conf. Proc.. p. 29; Third Conf. Proc.. appendix, p. I Third Conf. Proc.. p. 3.

28 N

EDUCATION

duced. T h e e c o n o m i c a s p e c t is a l s o i n v o l v e d in q u e s t i o n i n g a s t o t h e best m a t e rial to select f o r a given p u r p o s e ; o r in d e c i d i n g u p o n t h e best w a y t o c a r r y o n a process in o r d e r t o s a v e t i m e o r s t r e n g t h , all o t h e r t h i n g s b e i n g e q u a l . 3 0

The committee did not consider its p u r p o s e " t o offer ideal courses of study, but to study conditions, examine work as it is at present conducted and to suggest lines of future d e v e l o p m e n t . " A speaker at the sixth conference raised the question, " S h o u l d not the activities of the household arts be emphasized in the elementary school at the age when they are most pleasurable and when habits of industry and efficiency are forming, leaving to the high-school the full development of the e c o n o m i c and scientific aspects?" 31 Later a committee report suggested: In the e l e m e n t a r y s c h o o l m a n y o b j e c t s m u s t be p r e s e n t e d for s t u d y by o b s e r v a tion a n d t h r u m o t o r activity in a c t u a l w o r k with m a t e r i a l u n d e r d i s c u s s i o n . The m a t t e r in h a n d m u s t be t h a t w h i c h is m o r e o r less f a m i l i a r in d a i l y e x p e rience a n d t h e a p p e a l is c o n s t a n t l y m a d e t o k n o w l e d g e a l r e a d y in t h e m i n d , " a p p e r c e p t i v e g r o u p s " a s a b a s i s f o r p r e s e n t a t i o n of t h e n e w . T r a i n i n g t o use the muscles c o r r e c t l y , t h e r e b y i n h i b i t i n g useless m o t i o n s a n d c o n s e r v i n g e n e r g y while d e v e l o p i n g t h e will, b e l o n g s in t h e g r a d e s . T h e e d u c a t i o n of t h e n e r v o u s system in its p o w e r t o c o n t r o l a n d utilize h u m a n e n e r g y e c o n o m i c a l l y c a n n o t begin t o o e a r l y in life. 3 2

In high school there should be less emphasis on h a n d w o r k and more on the relation of science to h o m e economics. As a special committee on Home Economics in Elementary and Secondary Schools reported in 1901, "Thus, if we look at the subject as a whole, from the p r i m a r y grades through the high school, it is seen to develop from the concrete doing, through the scientific to the economic, but with no sharp dividing lines." The committee admitted a difference of opinion a b o u t the role of practical work. Some members thought that h a n d w o r k belonged exclusively in the elementary grades; others felt that while the e c o n o m i c and scientific aspects should be developed and emphasized in high school, some m a n u a l work should be retained. 3 3 At the fourth conference a d e m a n d for more h a n d w o r k along the lines of home industries was reported and the committee concluded that the most important current issues in secondary school h o m e economics were I) the kind and a m o u n t of h a n d w o r k desirable and 2) the connection of w

Ibid., p. 5. Fourth Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics Proceedings, p. 8; Sixth Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics Proceedings, p. 14. i2 Seventh Conf. Proc., p. 20. Beginning with the fifth conference, simplified forms of spelling frequently appeared in the Proceedings. i} Third Conf. Proc.. appendix, pp. 6, 7. 31

409

410

HISTORY O F WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

h a n d w o r k with art, science a n d economics. Accordingly, a committee was appointed to study the problem and report the next year. Questionnaires were sent to high schools offering h o m e economics; only 15 per cent of those replying required n o h a n d w o r k . T h e committee then suggested that sewing, weaving, millinery, dressmaking, leather, clay, wood and metalwork might be a p p r o p r i a t e m a n u a l activities for the high school girl. When questioned a b o u t the omission of cooking, the committee replied that while cooking might be taught as a skill in the elementary grades, it should be considered an applied science in high school. The hand training potential in cookery was very small. 14 A committee at the sixth conference recommended that solid high school courses in domestic science be given credit toward college admission. Later the observation was made that the requirement of some states that a high school h o m e economics teacher have a college degree was an excellent wedge toward making a place in colleges for home economics. In 1904 the increasing n u m b e r of high schools including home economics, especially in the Midwest but also in some Eastern states, was reported. A survey presented the following year seemed to confirm this statement; in addition the subject was being rapidly introduced into larger schools in the West. 35 Conference members considered the role of home economics in the schools so important that at the second conference a resolution was adopted and sent to the National Education Association requesting that it create a home economics section. As a result a round table discussion on h o m e economics, chaired by Abby Marlatt, was held at the next Ν Ε Α meeting. Miss Marlatt m a d e a plea for offering the subject in the schools since, "In consequence of changed social and industrial conditions and increased complexity in domestic life, the old fashioned home training has become a thing of the p a s t . " T h e following year another r o u n d table session was held in cooperation with the manual training section of Ν Ε Α . Here two central issues in the teaching of home economics at the elementary and secondary levels were raised: the role of handwork and the correlation of science to h o m e economics. 1 6 In 1903, when the Lake Placid Conference met with Ν Ε Α in Boston, a joint session was again held with the manual training section. Once more, the proper place of h a n d w o r k in h o m e economics received considerable attention. Its value at the elementary level was undisputed; there was less certainty about how much was suitable in the secondary schools. As an outgrowth of this discussion, the Eastern Manual Training Association 34

Fourth Conf. Proc.. p. 9; Fifth Conf. Proc.. pp. 13, 15, 20-21. »Sixth Conf. Proc.. p. 39; Ninth Conf. Proc.. p. 22; Sixth Conf. Proc.. p. 9; Seventh Conf. Proc.. pp. 8-9. 36 Second Conf. Proc. ρ 43; Third Conf. Proc . p. 115; Fourth Conf. Proc., p. 16.

411

EDUCATION

devoted an entire session to d o m e s t i c science w h e n it met the following July, and the role of h a n d w o r k was c e n t r a l t o the discussions. M e m b e r s of the m a n u a l training g r o u p predictably f a v o r e d h a n d training in h o m e economics." A teacher training section was a u t h o r i z e d at the eighth conference a n d this g r o u p c o n t i n u e d to wrestle with the p r o b l e m of h a n d w o r k a n d scientific e m p h a s i s a n d how m u c h of each was a p p r o p r i a t e at elementary a n d secondary levels. At the last c o n f e r e n c e this section reached the tentative conclusion that in the g r a d e school h a n d w o r k s h o u l d be emphasized a n d pupils should be given the "scientific h a b i t " but n o t t a u g h t chemistry or biology as such. In high school where the scientific a n d e c o n o m i c aspects were to be developed, h a n d w o r k still h a d a place, for t h r o u g h it the principles involved became vital to the pupil. 3 8 As evidenced by the rationale b e h i n d the initial choice of the n a m e home economics, acceptance of courses in colleges a n d universities was of vital interest to conference m e m b e r s . A c o m m i t t e e a p p o i n t e d at the first conference c o n d u c t e d a survey of college offerings in domestic science, personal hygiene, sanitation, nursing, b a c t e r i o l o g y , d o m e s t i c architecture, etc. Of 71 institutions replying, 12 offered d o m e s t i c science courses, 58 reported offerings in o n e or m o r e of the areas listed a n d 13 had n o courses in any of these subjects. 3 9 This c o m m i t t e e prepared a s t a t e m e n t which was a d o p t e d by the f o u r t h conference: T h e Lake Placid C o n f e r e n c e o n H o m e E c o n o m i c s c o n s i d e r s that the t i m e h a s c o m e w h e n subjects related t o the h o m e a n d its interests s h o u l d h a v e larger r e c o g n i t i o n in o u r c o l l e g e s a n d u n i v e r s i t i e s . T h i s m a y be d o n e either by t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t o f n e w d e p a r t m e n t s or by t h e e x t e n s i o n o f c o u r s e s a l r e a d y ofTered. History, s o c i o l o g y a n d e c o n o m i c s deal

with

fundamental

problems

of

the

family a n d the h o m e . B i o l o g y , c h e m i s t r y a n d p h y s i c s h a v e i m p o r t a n t a p p l i c a tions in the h o u s e h o l d . T h i s has been a l r e a d y r e c o g n i z e d t o s o m e extent by leading universities a n d their c u r r i c u l u m i n c l u d e s s u c h c o u r s e s as " T h e f a m i l y " , " T h e citizen or h o u s e h o l d e r " , " T h e e v o l u t i o n o f the h o u s e " , " S a n i t a r y c h e m i s try", " F o o d and n u t r i t i o n " , " B a c t e r i o l o g y " , b e s i d e s w o r k in s a n i t a t i o n , physio l o g y and h y g i e n e . T h e m e m b e r s of this c o n f e r e n c e believe that an e x t e n s i o n o f s u c h w o r k w h e r e it is already e s t a b l i s h e d a n d its i n t r o d u c t i o n in o t h e r i n s t i t u t i o n s w o u l d c o n tribute t o the s o l u t i o n o f s o m e o f the m o s t i m p o r t a n t s o c i a l p r o b l e m s o f t o d a y . 4 0 37

Fifth Conf Proc., pp. 6, 12-23; Sixth Conf. Proc.. p. 9. Eighth Conf. Proc., p. 123; Ninth Conf. Proc., pp. 32-37; Tenth 53,55. 39 Second Conf. Proc.. p. 25. 40 Fourth Conf Proc.. p. 70. 38

Conf.

Proc.,

pp.

412

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

T h e c o m m i t t e e labored to p r o d u c e guidelines for college offerings which w o u l d still p e r m i t flexibility. T h r e e e m p h a s e s s e e m e d p o s s i b l e a n d t h e o n e o r o n e s c h o s e n s h o u l d be d e t e r m i n e d by t h e i n t e r e s t s a n d s t r e n g t h s of t h e i n d i v i d u a l c o l l e g e o r u n i v e r s i t y . C o u r s e s m i g h t be a b r a n c h of e c o n o m i c s , d e a l i n g w i t h v a l u e s of h o u s e h o l d m a n a g e m e n t , f o o d s , textiles, a d m i n i s t r a tion a n d o r g a n i z a t i o n . A college with a s t r o n g sociologic bent might opt f o r s t u d y of t h e f a m i l y , its n e e d s a n d its i n t e r a c t i o n s w i t h s o c i e t y . I n s t i t u t i o n s with s t r e n g t h in t h e s c i e n c e s c o u l d e m p h a s i z e t h e s c i e n c e of n u t r i t i o n a n d t h e c h e m i s t r y of f o o d s . 4 ' T h e f o l l o w i n g y e a r t h e c o m m i t t e e e x p a n d e d t h e s e s u g g e s t i o n s by prop o s i n g t h a t a f o u r t h a p p r o a c h m i g h t be t h r o u g h h i s t o r y . Its r e c o m m e n d a tions began with the s o m e w h a t caustic c o m m e n t : " O n e would think the chief b u s i n e s s of t h e c o l l e g e s w a s t o t r a i n d i p l o m a t s a n d s u p r e m e c o u r t j u d g e s , so m u c h s t r e s s is laid o n t h e s t u d y of t h e d i p l o m a t i c a n d legal a s p e c t s o f h i s t o r y , t o t h e n e g l e c t of t h e i n f l u e n c e of scientific d i s c o v e r y a n d e c o n o m i c c h a n g e s o n t h e c o u r s e of t h e h i s t o r y of n a t i o n s . F e w c o u r s e s t r e a t of life later t h a n t h e m i d d l e a g e s . " T h e r e p o r t w e n t o n t o s u g g e s t a n a p p r o a c h t o h o m e e c o n o m i c s t h r o u g h h i s t o r y as it relates to t h e e v o l u t i o n of p e o p l e a n d p r e s e n t - d a y c o n d i t i o n s . 4 2 A t t h e e i g h t h c o n f e r e n c e t h e c o m m i t t e e c a m e t o g r i p s with t h e q u e s t i o n of t h e p l a c e o f p r a c t i c a l skills in t h e c o l l e g e h o m e e c o n o m i c s c u r r i c u l u m . T h e belief t h a t s u c h skills w e r e n o l o n g e r a c q u i r e d in t h e h o m e w a s rep e a t e d . D i d p r a c t i c a l w o r k h a v e a p l a c e in t h e c o l l e g e c u r r i c u l u m or s h o u l d e m p h a s i s be strictly o n a p p l i c a t i o n o f a r t a n d science? N o definite conclusions were drawn.43 T h e s a m e y e a r c o n f e r e n c e m e m b e r s w e r e g r e a t l y d i s t r e s s e d by the app a r e n t low b l o w d e a l t t o t h e m by t h e C o m m i t t e e o n C o l l e g i a t e A d m i n i s tration*of t h e A s s o c i a t i o n of C o l l e g i a t e A l u m n a e . A t a J u n e 1905 m e e t i n g the Association had passed a resolution: We believe that home economics belongs in a professional course which should fit pupils for practical life, and that such a course taken after leaving college in connection with practical housekeeping will be of much greater value. We believe that as an applied science it has not the same educational value as courses that give liberal training and that our future home makers should have the broadest liberal training upon which to base technical knowledge. Therefore Resolved that it is the opinion of those present at this meeting that home economics as such has no place in a college course for women. 4 4 T h i s a c t i o n s e e m e d like a n e s p e c i a l Fifth Conf. Proc . pp. 26-28, 66 71 «Sixth Conf. Proc . pp. 36-45, 78 84 43 Eighth Conf Proc . pp. 36-37.

"Ibid., pp. 38, 120.

affront to

Ellen

Richards

and

EDUCATION Marion Talbot who were not only leaders in the Lake Placid conferences, but who had been co-founders of the Association of Collegiate A l u m n a e (later the American Association of University W o m e n ) as well. A letter requesting clarification of the resolution was drafted and sent to A C A , which replied offhandedly that the resolution merely represented the view of the few members present at the meeting. M a r i o n Talbot later wrote somewhat tartly in her History of the American Association of University Women, " T h o s e present at this meeting included trustees from Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Vassar, and Wellesley Colleges and Cornell University, and no one seemed to take any exception to the introduction into the college curriculum of the subject-matter of h o m e economics, provided it was given another n a m e . " 4 5 Teacher training was considered as early as the second conference, where the necessity of a well-rounded college course was stressed. This theme was returned to in the seventh conference when the question was posed: "In view of the trend of educational policy is it not time to d e m a n d a college education or its equivalent in the study of history, of modern languages, the sciences, esthetics, economics, and sociology as prerequisites in our normal courses for domestic science?" 4 6 On recommendation of the C o m m i t t e e on the Training of Teachers, a set of resolutions was approved at the eighth conference. The Proceedings noted: "This action is the most i m p o r t a n t and must inevitably prove the most far reaching of any yet taken by the C o n f e r e n c e . " "Resolved: That in the opinion of this Conference the schools which have sent out insufficiently prepared teachers have done great harm to the cause of sound education in general and to this movement in particular." R e c o m m e n d a t i o n s included the publication of minimum s t a n d a r d s of training for h o m e economics teachers, school laws in each state to certify h o m e economics teachers, and requirement of h o m e economics as part of the general education offering in all schools training elementary and secondary school teachers. 47 Study of home economics at many other levels and through various media was reported on and discussed at the conferences. Vacation schools, extension courses, rural school programs, trade schools, correspondence courses, study courses for w o m e n ' s clubs, mission work, and 45 1 bid.; Ninth Conf. Proc . p. 7; M a r i o n T a l b o l a n d L o i s K i m b a l l M a t h e w s R o s e n b e r r y . The History of ihn American Association of University Women 1881-1931 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), p. 198. M a r i o n T a l b o t a n d Ellen R i c h a r d s in 1881 h a d t o g e t h e r c a l l e d a m e e t i n g at M I T o f a r e a c o l l e g e w o m e n ; f r o m t h i s t h e A s s o c i a t i o n o f C o l l e g i a t e A l u m n a e d e veloped. M i s s T a l b o t a n d M r s . R i c h a r d s w e r e a m o n g t h e first o f f i c e r s o f t h e A s s o c i a t i o n . See Talbot and Rosenberry, p p 9-11. 46

Second 'Eighth

4

Conf Conf.

Proc , p . 24; Seventh Proc., p p . 1 2 3 - 2 4 .

Conf.

Proc..

p . 26.

413

414

HISTORY O F W O M E N IN THE UNITED STATES

farmers' wives' clubs were covered. T h e M a r y Lowell Stone Exhibit, intended to explain the meaning of h o m e economics, was first shown at the Boston Branch of the Association of Collegiate A l u m n a e in 1902. Later it appeared at the A C A meeting in W a s h i n g t o n , toured to Baltimore, Philadelphia, T r e n t o n , New York and Chicago, and in 1904 was displayed at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. T h e exhibit attempted to depict how h o m e economics applied to shelter, food and clothing. Information about instruction in h o m e economics at various levels, household management, farm m a n a g e m e n t and h o m e economics in institutions was included. It was reported that a Division of Income chart attracted the most attention of any item displayed and that J a n e A d d a m s planned to use this chart in her work at Hull House. Viewers of the exhibit received a card with the following definition of h o m e economics: HOME ECONOMICS STANDS

FOR

T h e ideal h o m e life for to-day u n h a m p e r e d by the traditions of the past. T h e utilization o f all the resources of m o d e r n science to i m p r o v e the h o m e life. T h e freedom of the h o m e from the d o m i n a n c e of things and their due subordination to ideals. T h e simplicity in material s u r r o u n d i n g s which will m o s t free the spirit for the m o r e i m p o r t a n t and p e r m a n e n t interests of the h o m e and of s o c i e t y . 4 8

Conference sessions were devoted to other aspects of h o m e economics. Simplified m e t h o d s of housekeeping were discussed on several occasions. At the second conference M a r i a Parloa stressed both a need to simplify cooking methods and to have the interior of the h o m e arranged to facilitate the work being d o n e there. Mary H i n m a n Abel took the latter idea a step further when she advocated that the architect should serve as butler, cook and c h a m b e r m a i d for a year to be properly trained for his work. She also admitted that going out for one meal a day might produce a distinct gain for family life. 49 At the fifth conference Mrs. Abel r e c o m m e n d e d using outside helps such as bakeries, laundries and cleaning companies, a n d the establishment of a household labor bureau to provide needed services to the homemaker. She also advocated h o m e economics courses for all women so they could both perform household duties and supervise household help. At other conferences the need for establishing systematic and hygienic methods of doing housework was emphasized, as was the great assistance that could be provided by mechanical appliances in the home. T h e possibil48 Firs ι Conf. Proc., p. 6; Second Conf. Proc., pp. 11, 40, 43; Third Conf. Proc., p. 49; Fourth Conf. Proc.. p. 87; Sixth Conf. Proc.. p. 5; Seventh Conf. Proc., p. 3; Fifth Conf Proc.. p. 58; Sixth Conf Proc.. pp. 30-31. 49 Second Conf. Proc.. p. 25.

EDUCATION

ities of co-operative stores and purchasing were explored at the tenth conference, although co-operative housekeeping was dismissed as a disastrous failure.50 C. F. Langworthy became a fixture at later conferences, summarizing the results of nutrition investigations and experiments conducted during the preceding year. The colorful John Harvey Kellogg of Battle Creek and Horace Fletcher, popular nutrition writer and lecturer who advocated chewing each mouthful of food 32 times, came to present their own theories of proper diet. In 1905 William Stillman of Albany, New York, who attributed most of man's ills to a surfeit of uric acid in the body which could be corrected by a low protein diet, held forth. (Ellen Richards preceded Stillman's report and a discussion of Fletcher's regimen with a tactful paper entitled " F o o d Fads.") 5 1 A question of semantics periodically plagued conference members and from time to time the problem of nomenclature arose. At the third conference after a general discussion, it was decided that no change in names seemed advisable. The topic was raised the next year by a letter from Mrs. Abel asking if the name home economics was to stand and should be adopted for an encyclopedia article. Atwater objected to this name, favoring home science. He felt that "economics related the work of the conference to a too material basis and left out the soul, which was the most important element of homemaking." The council voted to retain home economics. 52 At the sixth conference the name household administration was suggested and Chairman Richards remarked that the question of name change would not keep coming up if everyone were satisfied with home economics. She had once suggested ecology, but botanists had already appropriated this word. She then mentioned the new word eugenics, coined by Francis Galton to express a better race and suggested that euthenics or better living, might be used to designate the field in higher education. The following terminology was then approved: hand work in elementary schools, domestic science in secondary schools, economics in normal and professional schools and euthenics in colleges and universities. A paper on nomenclature was presented three years later; discussion was inconclusive and the terminology adopted by the sixth conference stood. While Ellen Richards and a few others used the word euthenics in subsequent reports ™ Fifth Conf. Proc.. pp. 34-35; Sixth Conf. Proc., p. 26; Eighth Con/. Proc., p. 88; Tenth Conf. Proc., pp. 161-63. 51 Seventh Conf. Proc., pp. 140-51; Eighth Conf. Proc., pp. 60-64; Ninth Conf. Proc., pp. 104-12; Tenth Conf. Proc.. pp. 125-37, 192-96; Ninth Conf. Proc., pp. 112-14. 118-24; Tenth Conf. Proc . pp. 170-81; Seventh Conf Proc.. pp. 110-13, 114, 117-24. 52 Third Conf Proc.. p. 70; Fourth Conf Proc.. p. 84.

415

416

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

and writings, the name never became popular and home economics continued to be the most commonly used expression. 53 By the time the tenth conference was being planned, leaders concurred in the opinion that the work of the group had progressed to such a stage that broader organization was desirable. It was recommended that appropriate steps be taken during the coming year. A preliminary committee on national organization was appointed, which prepared the following resolutions: 1. Believing that a broader organization of those interested in home economics is desirable the committee recommends that steps be taken for national organization which shall take into consideration the Lake Placid conference and any similar bodies with the idea that the new organization may profit by their experience, counsel and guidance. 2. It is recommended that home economics groups be started in different states to work for the cause in order that the organization may grow rapidly. 3. It is recommended that each member pay annual dues to the organization and that the organization publish a journal, the question of the amount of such dues, the cost of the journal and related matters being settled later. 4. The organization particularly desires the help of teachers and it is recommended that an effort be made to enroll as many teachers as possible who are interested in the various subjects which are included in home economics. 5. A name which is national in character is needed for the organization and such a name as American home economics association or National home economics association is recommended.

The resolutions were adopted and the name American Home Economics Association chosen. 54 A meeting was scheduled for December 31, 1908-January 2, 1909 in Washington, D.C. and on December 31, A H E A was formed with Ellen Richards as its first president. The ten Lake Placid conferences had provided a means of bringing together leaders in the evolving field, a forum to discuss the progress and problems in home economics while giving some direction to its development, and a springboard for the professionalization of the home economist through the founding of the American Home Economics Association. 55 "Sixth Conf. Proc.. p p . 63-64; Ninth Conf. Proc.. p. 125. 54 Tenth Conf. Proc.. p p . 188-90. " H u n t , p. 280; K e t u r a h E. Baldwin, The AHEA Saga E c o n o m i c s Assn., 1949), p. 21.

( W a s h i n g t o n : A m e r i c a n Home

Copyright Information Clinton, Catherine. "Equally Their Due: The Education of the Planter Daughter in the Early Republic." Journal of the Early Republic 2:1 (April 1982): 39-60. ©1982 Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. Melder, Keith. "Mask of Oppression: The Female Seminary Movement in the United States." New York History 55 (July 1974): 260-279. ©New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown, NY, USA. Reprinted with permission of the Association and the author. Scott, Anne Firor. "What, Then, Is the American: This New Woman?" The Journal of American History 65:3 (December 1978): 679-703. ©Organization of American Historians, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA. Scott, Anne Firor. "The Ever Widening Circle: The Diffusion of Feminist Values from the Troy Female Seminary, 1822-1872." History of Education Quarterly 19 (Spring 1979): 3-25. ©Professor Ann Firor Scott, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA. Park, Roberta J. "'Embodied Selves': The Rise and Development of Concern for Physical Education, Active Games and Recreation for American Women, 17761865." Journal of Sport History 5:2 (Summer 1978): 5-41. ©North American Society for Sport History, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsyvania, USA. Hogeland, Ronald W. "Coeducation of the Sexes at Oberlin College: A Study of Social Ideas in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America "Journal ofSocial History 6:2 (Winter 1972-73): 160-176. ©Camegie-Mellon University Press, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Perkins,Linda M. "The Impact of the 'Cult of True Womanhood' on the Education of Black Women.'Vowr/ia/ of Social Issues 39:3 (Fall 1983): 17-28. ©The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.

417

418

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Neverdon-Morton, Cynthia. "Self-Help Programs As Educative Activities of Black Women in the South, 1895-1925: Focus on Four Key Areas." The Journal of Negro Education 51:3 (Summer 1982): 207-221. ©1982, Howard University, Washington, D.C., USA. Reprinted with permission of the Journal and the author. Brenzel, Barbara. "Domestication As Reform: A Study of the Socialization of Wayward Girls, 1856-1905." Harvard Educational Review 50:2 (May 1980): 196213. "Copyright © 1980 by President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved," Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Trecker, Janice Law. "Sex, Science and Education." American Quarterly 26:4 (October 1974): 352-366. "© 1973, 1985,1986, 1965,1966, 1981, 1982,1980, 1979, 1967, 1974, American Studies Association, Washington, D. C., USA." Reprinted with permission of the Association and the author. Barlow, William, and David O. Powell. "Homeopathy and Sexual Equality: The Controversy over Coeducation at Cincinnati's Pulte Medical College, 18731 8 7 9 O h i o History 90:2 (Spring 1981): 101-113. "'Homeopathy and Sexual Equality: the Controversy over Coeducation at Cincinnati's Pulte Medical College, 1873-1879,' by William Barlow and David O. Powell [Ohio History, Volume 90/Spring 1981/Number2,pp. 101-113]. Courtesy of the Ohio Historical Society," Columbus, Ohio, USA. Graham, Patricia Albjerg. "Expansion and Exclusion: A History of Women in American Higher Education." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 3:4 (Summer 1978): 759-773. "©1977,1978 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved." Chicago, Illinois, USA. Trennert, Robert A. "Educating Indian Girls at Nonreservation Boarding Schools, 1878-1920." Western Historical Quarterly 13:3 (July 1982): 271-290. ©Western Historical Quarterly, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, USA. Collier-Thomas, Bettye. "Guest Editorial: The Impact of Black Women in Education: An Historical Overview." Journal of Negro Education 51:3 (1982): 173-180. Copyright ©1982, Howard University, Washington, D.C., USA. Reprinted with permission of the Journal and the author. Sedlak, Michael W. "Young Women and the City: Adolescent Deviance and the Transformation of Educational Policy, 1870-1960." History of Education Quarterly 23:1 (Spring 1983): 1-28. ©Professor Michael W. Sedlak, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA.

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

419

Rossiter, Margaret W. "Doctorates for American Women, 1868-1907." History of Education Quarterly 22 (Summer 1982): 159-183. ©Professor Margaret Rossiter, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA. Palmieri, Patricia A. "Here Was Fellowship: A Social Portrait of Academic Women at Wellesley College, 1895-1920." History of Education Quarterly 23:2 (1983): 195-214. ©Professor Patricia Palmieri, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, USA. Wein, Roberta. "Women's Colleges and Domesticity, 1875-1918." History of Education Quarterly 13:4 (Spring 1974): 31-47. ©Roberta Wein Frankford, Tenafly, New Jersey, USA. Antler, Joyce. "'After College, What?': New Graduates and the Family Claim." American Quarterly 32:4 (Fall 1980): 409-434. "©1973,1985,1986,1965,1966, 1981,1982,1980,1979,1967,1974, American Studies Association, Washington, D. G , USA." Reprinted with permission of the Association and the author. Hine, Darlene Clark. "Opportunity and Fulfillment: Sex, Race, and Class in Health Care Education." Sage: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women 2:2 (Fall 1985): 14-19. ©Sage: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women, Sage Women's Educational Press, Inc., Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Guy-Sheftall, Beverly. "Black Women and Higher Education: Spelman and Bennett Colleges Revisited." Journal of Negro Education 51:3 (Summer 1982): 278-287. Copyright ©1982, Howard University, Washington, D.C., USA. Reprinted with permission of the Journal and the author. Weigley, Emma Seifrit. "It Might Have Been Euthenics: The Lake Placid Conferences and the Home Economics Movement." American Quarterly 26:1 (March 1974), 79-96. "© 1973,1985,1986,1965,1966,1981,1982,1980,1979, 1967,1974, American Studies Association, Washington, DC., USA." Reprinted with permission of the Association and the author.

Index Abel, Mary Hinman, 402,405,414-15 Academic women at Wellesley College, 1895-1920,314-33 familial support of, 317,318 Academies, for women, 9-13,17,24,27,47 Adair, Thelma Davidson, 392 Adams Abigail, 93,121(note) Adams, Charles, MD., 212-13 Adams, John, 53,93 Adams Female Academy (New Hampshire), 30,100 Addams, Jane, 27,320,325,414 on family claim to women, 351,354-55 post-college crisis of, 353-54,355-56,360,362,369-70 Adolescent deviant girls, educational policy for, 261-88 Adoption policies, in delinquent female refuges, 271,272,278,279,282 Adult education programs, 232 African Americans as physicans, 377,386 at Lancaster reform school, 179-80 at Oberlin College, 19th century, 130,148 economic picture for, 1895-1925,158 lack of adoption of, 281 medical schools for, 387(table) African-American men as teachers, 255,256 racial discrimination against, 18th century, 129 suffrage as issue for, 1868,115 African-American women acknowledgment as females, 14647 as nurses, 378,383 as physicians, 377,378,379-80,388(note) as teachers, 255,256 as unwed mothers, 1920s, 281-82,288(note) as wage earners, 158 colleges headed by, 390(note), 392

421

422

INDEX

education of, 145-56,245-57,267,378-79 bibliography on, 394-98 role of Spelman and Bennett colleges in, 389-98 sexism and, 152-54,254,377,378-79 health-care education for, 377-88 impact on education, 253-60 self-help programs of, 157-71,258 Afro-American Ledger, 170 Afro-American Women's Collection, at Spelman College, 393 After College, What?, advice to women graduates in, 360-61 Albuquerque (NM), Indian school at, 240-41 Alcott, William Α., books on health and physical education by, 111, 113-14,119, 122(note), 126(note) Akuin: A Dialogue, as first writing on women'srights,94,118 Aldis, Miranda, 54(note), 81 Allen, Grant, 1% Ambition, in 19th century women, 48-49,68-69 American Annals of Education,,97,113,118,122(note) American Association for the Advancement of Science, 81 American Association of University Women, Association of Collegiate Alumnae as forerunner of, 353,413 American Baptist Home Mission Society, 258 American Dietetic Association, 407 American Equal Rights Association, 115,119 American Farmer, 98-99,118 American Historical Association, 231 American Home Economics Association, 416 American Institute, lecture on health at, 1830,113 American Institute of Education (Boston, MA), 114 American Journal of Education, 47 articles on women's physical education in, 95-96,97,98,110,115,118,122(note) American Kitchen Magazine, 404 American Ladies Book, 118 American Ladies Magazine, 47,103 American Learned Society, exclusion of African-American women from, 152 American Manual Training Association, 401 American Medical Association, 205 American Medical Intelligencer, 111 American Missionary Association, 258 American Monthly Magazine, 98,118 American Philosophical Association, first woman president of, 303,327 American Psychological Association, first woman president of, 303,312(note), 327

INDEX

423

Ames, Marcus, 182,186 Amherst College, 221 Anderson, Margaret, 351 (note), 357-358 Andrews, John, MD., 97 Andrews, Ludie Clay, 167,391 Annual Report of the State Board of Charities (MA), on Lancaster reform school, 179,181,186 Annual Tuskegee Negro Conference of 1910,161 Antebellum period, cult of true womanhood in, 145 Anthony, Susan B., 124(note) Antioch College, coeducation development at, 144(note) Armstrong, Samuel C., 235,236,237,238 Association for Family Living (Chicago), 279 Association of American Medical Colleges, 381,386 Association of Collegiate Alumnae as forerunner of American Association of University Women, 353,413 as group for educated women, 202(note), 298-99,310(note), 334,335,336,353, 367,413 European Fellowship of, 298,299,300,301,310(note) support of women graduate students by, 289 views on home economics, 412-13,414 Association of Teachers, organization by Emma Willard, 87 Associations, voluntary. See Voluntary associations Atlanta, African-American self-help programs of, 157,160,166-69,171 Atlanta Anti-Tuberculosis Association, 168 Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, first African-American nursing school at, 384 Atlanta Health Campaign, 166-67 Atlanta Tuberculosis Association, 166 Atlanta Urban League, 168 Atlantic Monthly, 298

Atwater, Wilbur O., 405,407 Auditors, graduate women as, in German universities 299-300 Autoeroticism, obsession with, 19th century, 138,143(note) Balch, Emily Greene as Wellesley professor, 314,318(table), 323,326,328 at Bryn Mawr, 319 familial support of, 317,318,331(note) Baldwin, Maria L , 258 Baltimore, African-American self-help programs of, 157,160,169-71 Bancroft, Jane, 292 Banister, Zilpah P. Grant See Grant, Zilpah P.

424

INDEX

Banks, Anna De Costa, 385 Barber-Scotia, as African-American college for women, 390,391 BartaamviDe Collegiate Institute (SC), Emma Willard's influence on, 62,77,87 Barnard, Henry, 78 as editor of American Journal ofEducation, 98,115,118 as Emma Willard's second husband, 65-66,67 Barnard College, 223,231,413 women students and faculty at, 1870-1970,226(note) Barnes, Mary Sheldon, 310(note) Barrett, Janie, 164 Barrows, Anna, 404,405,406 Bartehne, Mary, 265-66 Bascom, Florence, 304,312(note) Bates, Elizabeth, Mi)., 81,305 Bates, Katharine Lee as WeUesley professor, 314,318(table), 319,323,326,327,331(note), 363,364 familial support of, 319 friendship with Caroline Hazard, 325,332(note) friendship with Katharine Coman, 324-25,327,374 relationship with mother, 374 Battle Creek Sanitarium, 407,415 Beckwitta, Seth I t , M.D, 208,209,210-11,212,213,217 Becraft, Maria, 258 Beecher, Catharine Esther, 29(note), 76 as female education reformer, 27,39,62,69,95,101,102,103,119 on women as homemakers, 29-30 on women's exercise, 96,97-98,101,123(note) role in home economics movement, 399-400,401 Beecher, Henry Ward, 142(note), 143(note) on benefits of coeducation, 133 Beecher, Lyman, 46,56 Behavior codes, of female seminaries, 28 Bell, John, M.D., 112-13 Bennett, Joseph, 306 Bennett College African-American women's collection at, 393 history of, 390 role in education of African-American women, 257,389-98 Benthamite ideology, reformers and, 178 Bethany Home (Minneapolis, MN), 286(note) Bethel AJV1.E. Church (Baltimore, MD), 170 Bethune, Mary McLeod, 253,259,390(note)

INDEX

425

Bethune-Cookman College, 259,390 Bevier, Isabel, as pioneer home economist, 407 Bible studies, importance in southern women's education, 3,5,12,13,16,18,24 Birth rate, amoung female graduate students, 20th century, 231 Black Presbyterians United, 392 Blacks. See African-American men; African Americans; African-American women Blackwell, Anna W„ 380 Blackwell, Elizabeth, MX), as first female physician, 108-109,119 on women's health and exercise, 109,119 Bledstein, Burton, 320 Bloomer, Amelia as The Lily publisher, 107 "bloomers" advocated by, 108,115 Bloomers, originator and introduction of, 1851,108,115,125(note) Boarding schools for Native-American women, 233-52 for plantation daughters, 10,19 Board of Visitors of the Ladies' Academy of Philadelphia, 93 Boards of education, teachers provided for delinquent female refuges by, 269-70 Boas, Louise Shutz, 389 Booth, Mattie, 258 Boston Cooking School, 400,407 Boston Dispensary Food Clinic, 407 Boston Female Monitorial School, 96 Boston Female Seminary, 110 Boston Health Journal and Advocate ofPhysiological Reform, 113 Boston High School for Girls, 96 Boston Journal of Health, 111 "Boston Marriages", "Wellesley Marriages" compared to, 324 Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 97-98,110-11 The Boston Medical Intelligencer, 96,110,118,122(note) Boston University early female doctorates from, 292,297(table) medical school of, 208,212,382 post-college life of early graduate of, 352-53 women graduate students at, 1870s, 289 Bowen, Cornelia, 259 Bowen, Emily, 239 Boys, first state reform school for (Westborough, MA), 176 Bradshaw, Susannah, 259

426

INDEX

Brains men's and women's compared, 197,198,200 of women, intellectual activity effects on, 194-95 Brauel, Barbara, 266 Blight's disease, among African Americans, 1915,158 Brooks, W. K„ 199 Brown, Alice Van Vechten, 318(taWe), 321 Brown, Charles Brockden as first writer on women's rights, 1798,94,118 on women's education, 47 Brown, Charlotte Hawkins, 259,263 Brown, Dorothy, M.D„ 391 Brown University, admission of graduate women by, 1890-92,294,295,297(table) Bryn Mawr College, 41,302,304,310(note), 319,339,344,359,360,413 description of life and students at, 336-39,347 elitism at, 339,341,344 entrance examinations for, 336-37,348(note) graduate school of, 293,308(note) marriage and children of early graduates of, 340-41,342,347,349(note) Wellesley College compared to, 341-42,344,345,347,348 women doctorates from, pre-1900,297(table) women presidents of, 23 l(note), 293,338-40 Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers, 360 Buck, John D., MD. as proponent of medical coeducation, 208,209,210,211,214,215,216,217 libel suit against, 214 Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools established by, 233,244,247-48 employment of Native-American women by, 249-50 Burke, P. F„ 24041 Burren, Ellen, 318(table), 320,322,331(note) Burroughs, Nannie Helen, 253,259 BushneD, Horace, 133-34,137 Butler, Selena Sloan, 391 Caldwell, Charles, M.D„ 111,112 Caldwell, J. M., 63 Calisthenics. See Physical exercise for women Calkins, Mary Whiton, 293,317 as Wellesley professor, 314,318(note), 321,322,327,331(note), 332(note) career as psychologist, 303,312(note), 327 denial of Harvard graduate degree, 303,305,317,329

INDEX

Calkins, Wokott, 317 Cambridge University, 338 early women students at, 299,302 Campbell, David, 3,24 Campbell, Maria, 3,21-22,24 Careers for women, in home economics, 399 of women college graduates, 361 Carleton College, early women doctoratesfrom,297(table) Carlisle Indian School (PA), 237-39 Carnegie, M. Elizabeth, as African-American educator, 385-86 Carnegie Foundation, 326 Carter, Alice, as early woman doctorate, 292 Carver, George Washington, 162 Cary, Mary Shadd, 150 Case, Mary Alice, 318(table), 321,328,332(note) Case workers,rolein profess ionalization of welfare agencies, 274 Catholics, at Lancaster reform school, 179,180 Cattell, James M., 325,332(note) Central Tennessee College, 381 Charities Endorsement Committee of Baltimore, 170 Chastity cult, southern creation of, 23 Chattanooga Medical College, 387(table) Chautauqua, home economics conference at, 1908,406 Chautauqua School of Cookery, 403 Chesnut, Mary Boykin, 10-11 Cheyenne River Indian Agency, enlistment of Native Americans at, 236 Chicago Evening Post, 358 Chicago, federated charities movement in, 273-75 Chicago Home for Girls, education program at, 270-71,280 Chicago Homeopathic College, coeducation at, 212 Chicago Hospital College of Medicine, 382 ChDdbearing patterns, of Troy Female Seminary graduates, 82,83(table), 84, 85(table) Child-rearing, training at seminaries for, 37 Children African-American, poor health of, 158,166 of early Bryn Mawr graduates, 34041,342 of early Wellesley graduates, 341-42 Children's Defense Fund, 391 Chisholm, Grace, 300 Christianbui^g Industrial School (VA), 165

428

INDEX

Christian values, Indian school promotion of, 246 Chronicle (MN), 81 Cincinnati Hospital, early female medical students barred at, 211 Civil War African-American education after, 149-52 effect on women's rights movement, 92,115,119 Emma Willard's petition against, 67-68 Oapp, Cornelia, 292,295 Clarke, Edward H„ Μ J), as opponent of coeducation, 194,195,206-207,212,217 Sex in Education, 116-17,190,194,202,207,335 Clark University, women graduate student denial at, 296,309(note) Clergymen role in seminary movement, 41-42 training at Oberlin College, 133,134,139 Cleveland Homeopathic College, 208,212 Clinical programs, for adolescent deviant girls, 1918-1960s, 263 Clinton, DeWitt, Emma Willard and, 52,53,73,100 Clothing,restrictive,worn by 19th century women, 107-108,111,112,113,114, 117,121(note), 124(note), 125(note) Clouston, T., 194,195 Coeducation in 19th century medical schools, 207. See also under Medical schools at early midwestem colleges, 144(note) at Oberlin College, 128-44 "evils" of,reportedin Oberlin College report, 1945,138 Fairchild's argument for, 132,136 Henry Beecher's argument for, 133 in homeopathic schools, 205-217 Co-education of the Sexes as Pursued in Oberlin College, as address by FairchiW, 1867,131-32 Collin, John G, M.D, 110,122(note) Cole, Rebecca, M.D., 379 Coleridge, Samuel, 178 College girl, description of, 1962,229 College graduates, women's lives as, 351-76 College presidents. See also Palmer, Alice Freeman; Thomas, Μ Carey African-American women as, 390(note) women as, 231 Colleges for African Americans, 256,257 for African-American women, 389-98

INDEX

for women. See Women's colleges and individual college names College Settlement Association, 364 Collegiate African-American nursing schools, 385-86 Collegiate Women (Frankfort), 315 Collier, John, 251 Colonial period freedom of women in, 121 (note) male-female relationships in, 129 women's education in, 4-5,119(note) Colonial women, as waking women, 146 Colored Department of Grady Hospital (Atlanta, GA), 167 Colored Department of the Atlanta Anti-Tuberculosis Association, 167 Colored Empty Stocking (Baltimore, MD), 169,170 Colored Ladies Sanitary Commission of Boston, 150 Colored Y.W.CA. (Baltimore, MD), 169,170 Columbian Exposition of 1893, role in home economics movement, 402 Columbia University, 222,223,298,309(note), 327,405,407 admission of graduate women by, 1890-92,294,296,297 women faculty at, 227 Coman, Katharine, 317,374 as Wellesley professor, 314,318(table), 323,33 l(note), 364 friendship with Katharine Lee Bates, 324-25,327,374 Combe, Andrew,M.D, 110, 111, 112 Combe, George, 47,76 Commercial (Cincinnati, OH), articles on Pulte Medical College controversy 214 Committee of Investigation of the Schools (Atlanta, G A), 166 Committee on Corrective Institutions (Chicago, IL), 262 Committee mi Illegitimacy, of Chicago Council of Social Agencies, 281 Common School Journal, 98 Common schools Emma Willard's interest in, 64,66,69,73,78,87,90(note) reformers' interest in, 175,176,185 Community colleges, development of, 222 Community Fund (Chicago, IL), as welfare-agency fund source, 275,276 Companions of the Holy Cross, academic women as members of, 320 Congregationalism, 130,133 Congress of Mothers, as forerunner of Parent-Teacher Association, 66(note) Connelly, Mark T., 264 Consciousness-raising, of seminary students, 42-43 Consumers' League, 369

430

INDEX

Continuing education, 232 Emma Willatd's interest in, 86-87 Contraband Relief Association of Washington (1862), 150 Converse, Florence, 369,374 as Wellesley professor, 325 friendship with Vida Scudder, 324,328,358,374 Cook, Blanche, on lesbians, 324 Cook, Helen, MD., 206 Cook, Ο. Ε., 292 Cooking, as education subject for African Americans, 162 Cooking schoob, in cities, 400,403 Coolidge, Calvin, 326 Cooper, Anna Julia, 153,390(note) on sexism andracism,151,153,154 "race uplift" goal of, 149-50 Cooper, Lenna, 407 Coppin, Fanny Jackson, 152 as African-American educator, 253,259 as second African-American women college graduate, 148,259 goals of, 149 CorneD University, 299,356,413 early women doctorates from, 292,295,296,297(table), 299 Cornhifl School for Young Ladies (Boston, MA), 103 Corson, Juliet, 400,403 Coser, Rose, 226 Coulter, John Merle, 309(note) Council for Foreign University Work, for European graduate studies 301, Councils of social agencies, of federated charities, 274,275-76 Cowles, Alice, 144(note) Cowles, Henry, 131 Cowles, Minerva, 135 Cowperthwait, A. C„ M.D, 194,195,196,212,213 Coxe, Margaret, 95,105-106 Criminalsreformschool girlsregardedas, 183 Crow, Martha Foote, 292 Cult of true womanhood, 132,137,14648,149,150,218 effect on education of African-American women, 145-56 Ciimmings Ida Α., 170 Curry, Margaret Nabrit, 392(note), 393 Curry Collection on Women, at Spelman College, 393 Dancing, as healthful activity for women, 93,100

INDEX

431

Daniell, Maria, 404 Darwin, Charles, 198-99 Darwin, Erasmus, 13 Darwinism applied to birth rate of upper classes, 196 Women Question and, 190 Dascomb, James, 131 Dascomb, Marianne, 135 Das Rauhe Haus (Germany), as model for Lancasterreformschool, 175 Datty, Madame Julia, 10,11,19 Daughters of the American Revolution, 279,365 Davies, Paulina Wright, 106,111 Davis, Ann, 161 Davis, Paulina Wright, 111 Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School, as forerunner of BethuneCookman College, 259 Deane, Jennie, 259 Declaration of Independence lack of equality for women in, 93,117 paraphrasing of, by Elizabeth Stanton, 106 Declaration of Principles, of Seneca Falls Convention of 1848,108 Deinstitutionalization, of delinquent children, 189 Delinquent girls educational policy for, 1870-1960,261-288 reform schools for, 19th century, 172-189 Democratic National Committee, 369 DeMontie, Louise, 150 Denison House Settlement (Boston, MA), 323,324,364 De Pairw University, early women doctoratesfrom,297(table) Depression of the 1930s effect on African-American hospital and nursing school movement, 385 effect on welfare agencies, 274,275 Der Verein, 365 Dewees, William P., Μ J)., 111 Dewey, Annie Godfrey, 404 Dewey, John, 303 Dewey, Melvil, 404,405,406 Dewson, Mary, 369-70 Dicket, Sarah Α., 263 Dickson, Leonard EL, women Ph.D. students of, 309(note) Diet, supposed role in sexualrepression,138 Dillard University, African-American nursing school at, 386,387(table)

432

INDEX

Discipline, at early academies and female seminaries, 17-18,33-35,40,42,76 Discrimination, of women teachers, 42 Diseases, in African-Americans, 1915,158 District of Columbia Teachers Colleges-Miner Branch, for African-American women, 389-90 Dixie Hospital, as early African-American nursing school, 384,385,387(table) Doctoral degree(s) Troy Female Seminary graduate as holder of, 81 women recipients, 1868-1907,289-313,357 women recipients, 1870-1976,223,225(table), 230,231 Domestication, as feminine virtue, 20th century, 229,231 Domesticity as reform for delinquent girls, 172-89 as requirement for true womanhood, 172(note), 226,331(note) reformers' view of, 173 women's colleges and, 1875-1918,334-350 Domestic science, 405,410,411,415. See also Home economics Domestic servants Native-American women trained as, 233-234,235,237,238,239,241,243,244, 249,251 reform school girls trained as, 178-179,185,186 training for, at delinquent female refuges, 268,269,277,278,279 unwed mothers among, 19th century, 266,285(note) Domestic tasks as exercise for women, 100,103 of women at Oberiin College, 135-136 women's skill in, 135 Dorchester, Merial, 246 Dorr, Rheta, 351(note), 357,362 Double education standard, for men and women, 29,44 Double moral standard, for men and women, 29 Douglas, Ann, 116 Douglass, Frederick, 152 Douglass, Sarah Mapp, 259 Drachm an, Virginia G., 383 DuBois, W. Ε. B., 149,151,153 Duffin, E. W , MD., 112 Dugas, Madame, 11 Dukes, Carrie, 167 Dumas, Rhetaugh Graves, 154 Durant, Henry, 291,315,316 Durant, Pauline, 315

INDEX

DweUe Infirmary, 391 Dwight, Timothy, 294-95,306 Eastern Manual Training Association, 410-11 Eaton, Amos, 55,56,74 Ecole Agricole (France), as model for Lancaster reform school, 175 Edelman, Marian Wright, 391 Edinger, TiOy, 311 (note) Education African-American women's impact on, 253-260 double standard for, 19th century, 29 equality in, 41 for adolescent deviant girls, 1870-1960,261-88 of reform school girls, 176-177 of women. See Education of women sex, science, and, 190-204 Educational Amendment of 1972, Title IX of, 91,92,284 Education of women adolescent deviant girls, 1870-1960,261-88 African-American women, 145-56,253-60,377-98 after colonial period, 6 at female seminaries, 25-44,47,70-90 at Troy Female Seminary, 70-90 coeducation at Oberlin College, 128-144 cult of true womanhood role in, 145-46 early 19th century articles on, 96 effect on lives of college graduates, 351-76 Emma Willard's influence on, 45-69 family disruption caused by, 20,21 higher education, 218-32,289-313,377-98 history of, 47(note) in colonial period, 93 in medicine. See Physicians), Medical education male support of, 295,299,302 national interest in, 19th century, 47 PhD. recipients, 1868-1907,289-313 plantation daughters, 3-24 scientists' approach to, 19th century, 192-93 sex and science effects on, 190-204 Eells, Walter Crosby, data on woman doctorates of, 292,295,296,297(table) Eighteenth century, women'srightsin, 92-93 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 222-23

434

INDEX

Eliot, Charles W., 221,348(note) Elizabeth Academy (Mississippi), 12,13 Elliott, William, 11 Elfe, Havelock, 197,198 Efanira College, founding of, 1855,40-41 Emerson, Joseph, 30,32 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 105 "Emma Willard and the Troy Fanale Seminary," as address at Chicago World's Fair, 1893,80 Emotional maladjustment, among adolescents, 282-83 Employment of early Bryn Mawr graduates, 347 of early Troy Female Academy graduates, 85 of early Wellesley graduates, 367-70,372-75 England as model for female education, 6-7,13 attitudes toward women in, 19th century, 120(note) Emma Willard in, 58 Enlightenment of 18th century, 93 feminism and, 120(note) Enlightenment theories, role in early education, 3-4 Enquirer (Cincinnati, OH), articles on Pulte Medical College controversy in, 214, 216-17 Equal Rights Ammendment of 1972, women's education and, 120(note) Equal rights for women, in New England colonies, 91 Eroticisim vs. professionalism, in 20th century women, 230 Erring Woman's Refuge (Chicago, IL), 261,269,271,286(note) Euphradian Academy (Rockingham, NC), 17 Europe reform schools of, as model for Lancaster reform school, 175 women graduate students in, 211-12,289 European fellowships of Association of Collegiate Alumnae, 298,299,300,301,310(note) of Bryn Mawr College, 310(note) of Women's Education Association of Boston, 310(note) Evangelical residential homes, for adolescent deviant girls, 19th century to 1920s, 263,268,271,281,286(note) Evangelism maternal bond and, 1870-1930,263-72 women in, 19th century, 130,141 (note), 143(note) Evelyn College, 223

INDEX

435

Evolutionists, views of women, 199,200 Ewing, Emma P., 403,405 Exclusionary policies, of schools, against delinquent girls, 283,284 Exercise, physical. See Physical exercise for women Faculty homes, of early Wellesley professors, 323 Faderman, Lillian, 324 FairchOd, James Harris as student and instructor at Oberlin College, 142(note) on autoerotic activities among male students, 136,137 on benefits of coeducation, 131-32,134,137,138,143(note) on necessity for women at Oberlin, 136,142(note), 143(note) Familial relationships, of after-college lives of educated women, 351-76 Familial support, of Wellesley professors, 317,319,33 l(note), 374 Family atmosphere, of early femalereformschool, 173,178,181,185,187,188 Family daim, women college graduates and, 351 -76 Fanner, Fannie Merritt, 417 Fathers, college graduates' relationships with, 368 Fay Commission, reform school plans of, 174(note) Federal government, services provided adolescent deviant girls by, 263,283, 288(note) Federated charities movement, role in services provided to adolescent deviant girls, 263,273-284,287(note) Female Association for the Common Schools, 66 Female delinquency. See Delinquent girls Female Department (Oberlin College), as source of clergymen's wives, 135 Female Literary Association of Philadelphia, 147 Female seminaries, 25-44,53. See also Troy Female Seminary aims of, 25-26,37-38 Catharine Beecher's criticism of, 101 physical education in, 119 Female seminary movement, 25-44,47 effect on women's status and education, 43-44 Feminine ideal, 19th-century definition of, 129 Feminine ideal,, 20th-century definition of, 229 Feminism, 4 ambivalence of 19th century women toward, 71-72,76,88(note) definition of, 44 development and spread in 19th century, 70 Emma Willard on, 75 history of, 120(note) opposition to, in universities, 19th century, 289-90

436

INDEX

seminary movement and, 44 women's education as force in, 87 Feminists of early 19th century, 95,99,118 views on conflicts of women's frailty and strength, 123(note) Feminist values in 19th century, 87(note) definition of, 87(note) diffusion by Troy Female Seminary, 1822-1872,70-90 in a continuum, 71 Ferguson, Katy, 260 Ferguson, Margaret, 314,318(table), 332(note) Fertility, supposed effect of female education on, 197 Field, James, MJ)., 110 Finney, Charles Grandison, 130,134,135,141(note) positive attitude toward women of, 130,131,142(note) Finney, Elizabeth, 135 Finneyites on coeducation, 137,138,139 on role of women in evangelism, 130,131 Fisk University, 160 Fltzbutkr, Sarah Helen McCurdy, Μ J)., 380 Fletcher, Horace, 415 Fletcher, Robert S., 135 Fletcher, Samuel, 138-39 Flexner, Abraham, 382,386 Flexner, Helen Thomas, 340 Flint-Coolidge Hospital and School of Nursing of DOlard University, 387(table) Flint Medical College, 380,387(table) Florence C ritten ton Anchorage, 266 admission of African-American adolescents by, 282,286(note), 288(note) adoption policy at, 272,278,279 professionalization of services at, 274-275,278,287(note) Florida A & M, African-American nursing school at, 386 Foote, Martha, 292 Fort Berthold, enlistment of Native Americans at, 236 Foster, Sarah It, 63,78 Fourteenth amendment of 1870, sexism and, 151 -52 Fowle, William B„ 96,110,119 Fowler, Henry, 45 Framingham State Normal School, 404 Frankfort, Roberta, 315

INDEX

437

Frankfurt University, 31 l(note) Franklin, Eleanor Isoo, MX)., 391-92 Franklin, Fabian, 299,308(note) Freedman's Aid, 258 Freedman's Hospital and Nursing School, 384,387(table) Freedmen's Bureau, founding of public schools for African-Americans by, 151 Freeman, Alice. See also Palmer, Alice Freeman as Wellesley president, 315,316,317 Frelinghuysen University, 390(note) French, as education subject, 12,15,19,135 French, Clara, 358 Fresh Air Circle (Baltimore, MD), 169,170 Friendships among early Wellesley professors, 322-323,324-325,327,328,373,374 of early (1897) Wellesley alumnae, 373 Frontier women, physical demands on, 94 Fuller, Margaret as women'srightsadvocate, 19th century, 104-105,124(note) on women's exercise, 118,126(note) Furner, Mary, 329 Gage, Frances, 108 Games, for women, 1776-1865,91-127 Garrett, Mary, 305,306,313(note) Gastzuhörerinnen(auditors), graduate women as, in German universities, 299-300 General Federation of Women's Clubs, 402 General-interest magazines, 19th century, female education articles in, 121(note) General Relief Association of Troy Women,, 68 Genesis, as source of 19th-century ideas on women's education, 203 Genetic traits, Darwin's ideas on origin of, 198-99 Geneva College, Elizabeth Blackwell as graduate of, 108 Genlis, Mme de, as French educator, 103 Genoa (Nebraska), Indian school at, 240,241 Genth, Frederick Α., 291 Gentry, Ruth, 299 Geography, as education subject, 8,11,12,14,19,32,54,56,73 George W. Hubbard Hospital and School of Nursing, 387(table) George Washington University, early women doctoratesfrom,297(table) Georgia Female College, 86,90(note) Germany German women graduate students in, 302,31 l(note)

438

INDEX

women graduate students in, 19th century, 289,291,292,296,298,299,300-301, 302,306,309(note), 310(note), 31 l(note), 338,357 Gettysburg College, early women doctorates from, 297(taUe) Gibbon, Edward, 57 Gilbert, Artishia, Mi)., 380 Gilchrist, J. G„ MIX, 212,213 Gildersleeve, Basil, 292 Giles, Harriet, 390 Gilkes, Cheryl Townsend, 154 GiDis, John R, 266 Gifanan, Daniel Coit, 291-92,303,304,305 Girls' club movement, as part of African-American self-help programs, 164 Godey, Louis, 103 Godey's Lady's Book articles on women's health in, 103,104,118 Bryn Mawr woman depiction in, 341 Godwin, William, 93 Golden Rule (Akott), 111 Good Housekeeping magazine, 357 GoodseD, WUlystine, 314 Governesses, early southern women as, 9 Government Home Demonstration Agents, 166 Graduate school(s) in 19th century, 293 Bryn Mawr graduates' attendance of, 340,342,347-348 male professors' interest in women in, 230-231 Wellesley graduates' attendance of, 342,348 women's attendance of, 230,297(table) Graham, Sylvester on women's health and exercise, 111,118 views on diet-related eroticism, 138 Graham Journal, 138 Graham system, for improvement of health, 111 Grant, Zilpah P. as female education reformer, 30-31,32,33,34,35,39,100 on formation of female character, 35-36 G ratten, Thomas Colley, 124(note) Greece, Emma Willard's work on behalf of, 59-60,64 Greek, as education subject, 16,36,82,135,192,195,221 Greeley, Horace, 46 Greenfield High School for Young Ladies, 103-104,119 Gregg, Annie D., MD., 381

INDEX

439

Grimke sisters as early feminists, 95 GrmneU College, "lady principal" of, 292 Gulliver, Julia, 292 Gymnastics attire for, 98 first U.S. school for, 114-115 for women, 96 Hadley, Arthur, 294-295 Hadley, Helen Harrison, 295 Hahnemann Medical College (Chicago, IL), coeducation at, 212 Haines Normal and Industrial Institute (Augusta, G A), 260 Haitian refugees, as founders of early academies, 10-11 Hale, Sarah Josepha, 59 as editor of American Ladies Magazine of, 47,103-104 as editor of Godey's Lady's Book, 103,104,124(note) on women's exercise and health, 104,122(note), 124(notes) Hall, G. Stanley, 190-91,194,199-200,201,309(note) Hall, William Gardener, 295 Hamilton, Alice, 224,31 l(note) Hamilton, Gustavus, 97,122(note) Hampton Institute, 164,165,260 Hampton Institute Nursing School, 384 Hampton Leaflets series, African-American self-help program guide in, 164 Hampton Negro Conference of 1899,159 Hampton Normal Institute African Americans educated at, 235,236,237,259,260 Native Americans educated at, 19th century, 235,236-37,238,239,24042,244, 245,248 Hampton (Virginia), African-American self-help program of, 157,160,164 Harper Brothers Home Library, health book in, 112 Harris, Blanche V., 148 Harrison, Cornelia Clare, 81 Hart, Emma, 46,49,50-51. See also Willaid, Emma Hart, Sophie, 318(table), 364 Hartford Consumer's League, 365 Hartford Seminary, 86,101,102 Hartford Wellesley Club, 365 Harvard Corporation, 303,304,317 Harvard Medical School, 114 female applicants to, 290 segregated education at, 207

440

INDEX

women faculty at, 224 Harvard University, 221,222,223,314,315,325,345,348(note) attendance at, 1636-1945,219 women faculty at, 226,227 women graduate students at, 291,302,303 women graduate students denied access to, 296,299,303,305,317,329 Haskdl Institute (Kansas), program for Native-American women at, 241 Haverford College, 336 Hawkins, Hugh, 291,330 Hayes, Ellen as Wellesley professor, 318(table), 332(note), 364 familial support of, 318,322 Hayt, Ezra A^ 236 Hazard, Caroline as Wellesley president, 316,333(note) friendship with Katharine Lee Bates, 325,332(note) Health as concern of African-American self-help programs, 166,167,168,169 medical profession's interest in, 19th century, 109-16 of women, interest in, 1776-1865,117-18 Health-care education, for African-American women, 377-88 Health Journal and Advocate of Physiological Reform, 111, 118 Health problems, of African Americans, 1915,158 Hearst, Phoebe Apperson, 299,300,310(note), 31 l(note) Herberg, Will, 229 Hereditarianism, in reformers' ideology, 181-82,184 Higher education for African-American women, 377-398 for women, 12844,205-17,289-398 shifts in, 218 women in, 218-32 High schools, for African-Americans, 256 Hin, John and Frances, as Greek missionaries, 59 Hispanic Americans, as physicians, 386 History as education subject, 12,14-15,56,74 of South, neglect of women in, 5(note) Hollingsworth, Leta, 198 Home economics careers for women in, 399 founding of professional association for, 416 in eariy college curriculum, 40-41,408-10,411,412-13

INDEX

usage of term and definitions of, 405,411,414,415-16 views on, of Association of Collegiate Alumnae, 412-13 Home Economics in Elementary and Secondary Schools, (1901 repent), 409 Home economics movement, 399-416 Home instruction, in post-revolutionary period, 8-9 Homemakers, women as, seminary role in, 29-30 Homeopathic Inter-Collegiate Conference, 1878, as pro coeducation, 212 Homeopathy, sexual equality and, 205-17 Hooker, Henrietta, 292 Hope, Lugenia, 166,167 Hopi Indian, recollection of Indian school by, 247,248 Hopkins, Mark, 57 Hospital and Nursing School of Charleston, 385,387(note) Hospitals, for African Americans, 383-84 Household Economics Association, 406 Household Words, 97 Housing, effects on poor adolescent women, 285(note) Howard University, 150,153 Howard University Medical School, 382,387(table), 392 African-American women graduates of, 379,380,381 Howard University School of Nursing, 386,387(table) Howe, Fannie Quincy, 266 Howe, Samuel Gridley, 185 Howe Sanborn Report, on Lancaster reform school, 179,181 Hoyne,T.S.,M.D,212 Hudson, Sarah Lucretia, 65 Hughes, Bishop (New York City), 179 Hull House, 414 Hume, Mary, 3 Humphrey, Heman, 134 Hunt, Caroline, 407 Huntington, Emily, 403,404,406 Huston-TQIotson, as African-American college for women, 390,391 Hutchinson, Anne, 91,128 Hyde, Ma, 300-301,310(note) Ideal woman. See also Cult of true womanhood as goal of female education, 19th century, 146 ID health, among Wellesley postgraduates, 366-67 Illinois Industrial School for Girls (Evanston), 275 Illinois Industrial University, home economics courses at, 400 Illinois Rockford Female Seminary, 353,355

441

442

INDEX

Indenture system, at Lancaster femalereformschool, 178-79,185-86 Independents, Wellesley graduates (1897) as, 372-76 Indians. See Native-American women Individuality, women's sacrifice of, 19th century, 202,203 Industrial arts as education subjects for African Americans, 162,164 as education subjects for Native Americans, 238(note) Industrial cottage program, of Indian boarding schools, 245 Inequality of the sexes, seminarians' advocacy of, 29,30 Inferior status of antebellum southern women, 5 of women, 7 In loco parentis, as basis for seminary discipline, 35 Institute for Colored Youth (Philadelphia, PA), 152-153 Institute for Juvenile Research (Chicago, DL), 277 Instructors, women as, 223,225 Intergene rational conflict, between educated women and families, 355 Internships, for African-American women doctors, 382-83 Iowa State Agricultural College, home economics courses at, 400 Ipswich Female Seminary (MassachusettsX role in seminary movement, 30-31,32, 33-34,36,38,39,135 Irish Americans, at Lancaster reform school, 179 Irish potato famine, 1845,179 Ivy League Colleges, 222,226 James, Janet Wilson, 130 James, William, 299,302,303,317 Janney, Frances, M.D., 208 Jefferson, Thomas Emma Willard and, 53 on education, 16 university founded by, 46,55 Jefferson Medical CoDege, 381 Jenkins, Lizzie Α., 164-66,171 JerroU's Magazine, 111 Jewett, Sophie, 318(table), 321,322,323 Jews admitted to early nursing school, 383 anglicized names of, 228 on college faculties, 227 Johns Hopkins Medical School, 304 women admitted to, 1893,305

INDEX

443

Johns Hopkins University, 298,299,330,338 early women doctorates from, 297(table), 304-305,313(note) women as "special student" at, 290,299,303,304 women graduate students denied access to, 291-92,296,299,303,312(note), 356 Johnson, AJvin, 339 Jones, Faustine C„ 253 Jordoo, Winthrop, 129,140(note) Josiah Macy Foundation, 377

Journal of Health, 104, 111 Journal of Health and Longevity, 111,118

Journal ofNegro Education female editor of, 253 1982 issue on African-American women, 154,253 Judeo-Christian tradition, double standard for men and women in, 29 Julius Rosenwald Fund, 258,386 Kaestle, Carl F., 179,265 Kansas Agricultural College, home economics courses at, 400 Kansas City General Hospital No. 2 School of Nursing, 387(table) Katz, Michael B., 176,180(note) Kauflman, Reginald Wright, 265 Keckley, Elizabeth, 150 Kellen, Mrs. William V, 404 Keller, Suzanne, 226 Kellogg, John Harvey, 415 Kendall, Elizabeth as Wellesley professor, 318(table), 324,328,331(note) relationship with mother, 374 Kendrick, Lida, 317 Kennard, Lucretia, as African-American educator, 260 Kensington (CT), Emma Willard in, 66,78,79 King's Daughters, as Indian school service organization, 246 Kinne, Helen, 405 Kitchen garden method, of teaching housekeeping to children, 403,404,406 Kekule, August, 298 Klein, Felix, 299-300,301,310(note) KnoxviDe Medical College, 387(table) Kuhne, WQIy, 301 Ladd-Franklin, Christine as leader in women graduate-student movement, 290,298,299,301,302, 304, 308(note), 310(note), 313(note)

444

INDEX

as "special Student" at Johns Hopkins, 290,299,303,304 overdue doctorate awardedfromJohns Hopkins to, 304-305,310 Ladies' Board of Managers, at Oberiin College, 139 Ladies Department, at early Oberiin College, 132 Ladies' magazines, 19th century, female education and, 121(note) Ladies of leisure, Wellesley (1897) alumnae as, 365-67 Ladies Physiological Reform Societies, formation in 19th century, 111 Lafayette, Marquis de, 58 La Grace, as early calisthenic exercise, 101,123(note) Lake Erie Seminary,, 39 Lake Placid Conferences, role in home economics movement, 399-416 Lancaster (MA), State Industrial School for Girls at, 172-189,266 Lane Seminary (Cincinnati, OH), 142 (note) Laney, Lucy C. as African-American educator, 253,260 on educated African-Americans, 154,159 Lange, Helene, 293-94,31 l(note) Längsten, Senator John Mercer, 153 languages, in Troy Female Seminary Curriculum, 74 Langworthy, Charles F„ 407,415 Lasch, Christopher, 345 Latin, as education subject, 12,15-16,36,73,82,135,192,195 Latin grammar academies, African-Americans' attendance of, 255 Laughlin, Clara Α., 357 Lawrence Strike of 1912,326 Lawyers, African-American women as, 391,392 League of nations, Emma Willard's proposal for, 54 Lee, Rebecca, M.D., 379 Leonard Medical School, 380,387(table) Lerner, Gerda, 128,129 Lesbianism, 324 Leupp, Francis E. (Indian Commissioner, 1905), 250-51 Lewis, Diodesian, M.D„ 98,114-15 The Liberator, as early feminist publication, 124(note), 147 Life Cycle Table, for Troy Female Seminary graduates, 82,83(table), 84 The LMy, 107,108,124(note) Amelia Bloomer as founder of, 107,115 women's dress reform advocated by, 118,125(note) Lincoln, Abraham, 51 Lincoln, Almira Hart (Emma Willard's sister). See also Phelphs, Almira Lincoln as educator and textbook writer, 55-57,63,75,78,80 Lincoln, Mary, 407

INDEX

Lincoln, Mary Todd, 150 Lincoln Hospital and Nurse Training School, 387(table) Lincolnton Academy (North Carolina), discipline at, 17-18 Lincoln University (Pennsylvania), as African-American college, 257 Literary Fund, Troy seminary appropriations from, 53,54,69,84(table) Livy, Caroline, 63,77 Locke, Adelaide, 318(table), 331(note), 374 Locke, John, 16,54 Lomb Essay Award of 1888, Mary Abel as winner of, 405 Lord, John, 53,90(note) Loretta Academy (Kentucky), 10 Louisiana Purchase Exhibition (1904), home economics display at, 414 Louisville National Medical College, 380 Love, between women, 19th century, 324,374(note) Lovejoy, Arthur O., 304 Lowell, Abbott Lawrence, 305 Lower-class women, education of, 1750-1869,10(note) Lucy Flower Technical High School, Chicago Home for Girls as part of, 270 Lyman, Miss 13 Lyon, Mary, 35,50(note), 135 as female education reformer, 27,30,31,33,34,38,39,40,69,100,103,119 on women's calisthenics, 100-101 Maddison, Isabel, 301-302 Magdelen Home (Philadelphia, PA), 269 Magill, Helen, 292 Mahan, Asa, 142(note) Mahoney, Mary E , 383 Make-work tasks, for 19th-century upper-class women, 129,141 (note) Male African-Americans. See African-American men Male children, tutors for, 18th century, 8-9 Male-female relationships, in mid-19th century, 128,194 Maltby, Margaret, 300,301 Manassas Industrial School (Virginia), 165,259 Mann, Horace on common schools, 176,185 on women's and children's exercise, 98,111 Manual training, 135-36,401 Manual Training High School (Providence, RI), 407 Marks, Elias and Julia Pierpont, 62,77,90(note) Marlatt, Abby, 407,410

446

INDEX

Marriage as escape route for post-graduate depression, 361 importance in antebellum southern society, 5-6,23 of early Bryn Mawr graduates, 34041,342,347,349(note) of early Oberiin students, 139,144(note) of early Wellesley graduates, 34142,347,348,370-372 role of education in male and female options for, 134-35,148-49,229-30,335,338 Martmeau, Harriet, 94 Maryland Geological Survey, 304 Mary Lowell Stone Exhibit, as early home economics display, 1902,414 Massachusetts Industrial School for Girls, 369 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 298,400 female applicants to, 290,291 Massachusetts Magazine, female education articles in, 1789,93 Massachusetts Teacher, articles on women's exercise in, 1849-56,97,114,118 Masturbation, concern with, 19th century, 136,137,143(note), 144(note) Maternity homes and shelters, for unwed mothers, 19th century, 262-84,286(note), 287(note) Mathematics, 11,56,74,192,195,203,204 Mather, Hannah Crocker, 94-95 Mathews, Donald G., 28 Maudsley, Henry, M.D., 194,195 Mayo, Josephine, 241 McCaughey, Robert, 226(note), 329 McClennan, Alonzo Clifton, Μ J)., 385 McKendree College, early women doctorates from, 297(table) Medical education for African-American women, 377-82,386 for women, 124(note), 192,207,212,213,307,373(note), 386 Medical profession. See also Midwives; Nurses; Physician(s) Medical profession, interest in women's health, 19th century, 109-16 Medical schools and institutions in 19th century, 110 admission of women by, 305,307(note) coeducation controversy at,1873-79,205-17 for African Americans, 378,379,387(table) women excluded from, 192,193 Medico-Educational Campaign (Atlanta, GA), 167,168 Meharry Medical College, 382,387(table) African-American women graduates of, 379,381,391 Mehner, Lise, 302

INDEX

447

Men. See also African-American men aggression of, as purported reason for 19th century female deliquency, 265 as tutors, 18th century, 8-9 at Oberlin College, female students as servants to, 135-36 colleges for, development, 19th century, 48(note) dominance of, in North and South, 22 lack offomilyclaim to, 354 role in early women's education, 41-42 variability of, early 20th century views on, 197,198,199 Menstruation, supposed effects on women's intellect, 194,207,213 Mercy Hospital and School of Nursing, for African-American women, 387(table) Meriam Report, reform of Indian schools based on, 1928,251 Michael, Helen Abbott, 298,309(note) MiddJebury College, 50 Middlebury School, Emma Willard as principal of, 50,62,73 Middle-class women, education of, 1750-1869,10(note) Mid-Way Carnival Week (Atlanta), Medico-Educational Campaign during, 1919, 167-68 Midwives, early 19th-century women as, 192 Miller, Elizabeth Smith, 125(note) Miller, Rita E., 385,386 Mills Seminary (California), 40 Mind-body linkage, supposed effects on women's intellectual activity, 194 Miner, Myrtilla, 389-90 Miner, Thomas, 49,50 Miner Normal School, 260,389 Ministerial Association (Atlanta, GA), 168 Ministers. See Clergymen Miss Gibbon's School (New York), 337 Missionaries, seminary preparation of, 38 Mitchell, Maria, 290,291 Monroe, James, 53,131 Monson Almshouse, 183(note) MontkeDo Fanale Seminary, 39 Moore, Anna, 243,247 Moore, Gary, 167 Moravians, 9,47 More, Hannah, 6,7 Morehouse College, 167 Morgan, John, 131 Morgan, Thomas J., 242,243 Morrill Act of 1862, state universities made possible by, 221,400

448

INDEX

Moseley School, unwed African-American women at, 282 Motea, Lucy £ , 2 6 0 Motherhood as goal of women's education, 201 Beecher's views of, 29(note) training at delinquent female refuges for, 268 training at seminaries for, 37,41,42,43,79,84 Mothers as support for academic daughters, 317,319,331(note), 353,358,369,376 deprivation suffered in separation from daughters, 20,21 Emma Willard's associations of, 66 role in children's education, 18th century, 7-8 Mothers' meetings, of Tuskegee African-Americans, 161-62,163 Mott, Lucretia, 106 Mount Holyoke College, 3 l(note), 23 l(note), 292 Mount Holyoke Seminary, 33-34,36,38,41 importance in seminary movement, 31,33,36,39,40 Mary Lyon as founder of, 100,103 ML Meigs Institute, as rural school to African-American children, 259,260 ML Zioo Academy (Georgia), 20(note) Mrs. Emma WUJard and Her Pupils, 80,88(note), 90(note) Μ Street School (Washington, DC), 152-53 Müller, G. EL, 299 MuDer, Margarethe, 318(table), 326 Münsterberg, Hugo, 302,303 Murray, Judith Sargent, 93,118 Museum of Comparative Zoology (Harvard), 329 Myrtflla Miner Academy for Girls, African-American women at, 257 Nashoba communitarian settlement, 99 The Nation, 293,304 National American Woman Suffrage Association, 342 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 391 National Association of Colored Women, "racial uplift" goal of, 153 National Center for Education Statistics, 231 National Columbian Household Economics Association, 403 National Congress of Colored Parents and Teachers, 391 National Council of Negro Women, Mary Bethune as founder of, 259 National Dress Reform Association, 108 National Education Association, 406,410 The National Freedmen, 150-51 National Freedmen Relief Society, 150

INDEX

449

National Household Economics Association, 402,404 National Negro Business League, 158 National Training School for Women and Girls, 259 National Women's Rights Convention (1850), 124(note) National Women's Rights Convention (1885), women's education issues of, 108 Native-American women as student labor at Indian schools, 240 boarding schools for, 1878-1920,233-52 Nazareth Academy (Kentucky), 10 Negro History, as education subject for African-Americans, 162 Negro National Health Week (Atlanta, GA, 1921), 168 Neighborhood Union (Atlanta, GA), 160,166,167,168,171 Networks created by Emma Willard, 59,62,63,79,86 created by women, 19th century, 45 of early Wellesley professors, 314-33 Newcomer, Mabel, 389 New England, academies and seminaries in, 9,47 New England Farmer, 111 New England Female Medical College, 379 New England Hospital,refusalof internship to woman by, 383 New England Hospital for Women and Children School of Nursing, 383 New England Transcendentalists, 105 New Harmony Gazette, 99 New Harmony settlement, 122(note) New Lebanon Conference of 1827,141 New Orleans, first African-American hospital and nursing school in, 384-85 "New Women" early Wellesley professors as, 321 of 19th century, 45,72,81-82 New York Colonization Society, 292 New York Cooking School, 400 New York, federated charities movement in, 273 New York Free Enquirer, 98,99 New York Herald Tribune, 105 New York Household Economics Association, 404 New York Infirmary, Elizabeth Blackwell as founder of, 1851,109 New York Medical and Physical Journal, 111 New York Medical College for Women and Children, 379 New York School of Social Work, 359 New York Sun, 111 New York Times, 68,229

450

INDEX

New York University, 309(note) early women doctorates of, 295,296,297(table) Nicholas, Louisa A^ 404 Nicoison, Marjorie, 224,226 Nineteenth century education of African-American women in, 145-56 higher-education changes in, 220 physical education for women in, 94-99 Noble, Jeanne L., 154,389(note) Noether, Emmy, 302 Normal Institute for Physical Education, 114-15 Normal schools development of, 220-21 Emma Willard's interest in, 67,69 The North, early female education in, 4 The Northeast, early teachers from, 9,11 Northwestern University, early women doctorates from, 292,297(table) Norton, Alice Peloubet, 402,404 Nott, Eliphalet, 57,77 Nurses, African-American women as, 378,383 Nursing schools early African-American women graduates of, 383-86,387(table) first American, 383 Oberlin College, 39,135,149 African-Americans' admission to, 130,148,149,150,256,259 coeducation at, 128-44,223 male-femalerestrictionsat, 139 Oberiin Evangelist, 139 Oberlin Institute, Finney's arrival at, 1835,130 Observations on the Real Rights of Women (Mather), 94-95 Obstetrics and gynecology, women in, early 19th century, 192 Ohio, coeducation controversy in, 1873-1879,205-17 Ohio Convention of 1851, as women's rights meeting, 108 Ohio State Teachers Association, Fairchild's address to, 1852,132 Ohio State University, early women doctorates from, 297(table) Ohio Superintendent of Common Schools, on wages for female teachers, 38 O'Neill, William, 43 Ophthahnalic Clinic, of Thomas P. Wilson, MD., 208 Oppression, of women in seminaries, 25-44 Outing system, of Indian boarding schools, 245,249

INDEX

Owens, William, MD. as proponent of medical coeducation, 211,215 libel suit against, 214 Oxford University, 338,358 early women students at, 299 Packard, Sophia, 390 Paine, Thomas, 6,93,121(note) Palmer, Alice Freeman. See also Freeman, Alice as early women's educator, 295,310(note), 316,336,343 as Wellesley president, 316,342,343,344,345,349 education of, 343 marriage of, 316,345-46 views on domesticity of women, 342,343-44,345 Palmer, George Herbert, 302,359 marriage to Alice Freeman, 316,345-46 Palmer Memorial Institute, 259 Parent's Friend, 96 Parent-Teacher Association Congress of Mothers as forerunner of, 66(note) first African-American, 391 Paris universities, medical coeducation at, 211 Park Ridge School for Girls (Evanston), 275-77,287(note) Parloa, Maria, 400,401,404,406,414 Patapsco Female Institute (Maryland), 63,78,87 Paternalism, effect on African-American women, 154 Patterson, Mary Jane, 148,390(note) Patton, Georgia E. L., M.D., 381 Payne, Daniel, 148 Payne-Gaposhkin, Cecelia, 226 Peake, Mary, 260 Pearson, Karl, 198 Peck, Harry Thurston, 309(note) Peirce, Benjamin,, 291 Peirce, Bradford, 172,182 Pennsylvania Magazine, women'srightsarticle in, 1775,93 Pennsylvania, schools modeled after Troy Fanale Seminary in, 78 People's School (Alabama), 260 Pestalozzi, Johann, 54,55,75 Ph.D. degrees. See Doctoral degrees Phelps, Almira Lincoln 48(note), 62(note), 63,78,90(note) Phelps, John, marriage to Almira Hart Lincoln, 63

451

452

INDEX

Phdps-Stokes Funds, 258 Philadelphia Cooking School, 400 Philadelphia Institute for Colored Youth, 257,259 Philanthropy, "coercive," 305,306 Phillis Wheatley Club, 384 PhiDis Wheatley Sanitarium and Nurse Training School, 387(table) Philosophy, women excluded from study of, 181 Phoenix Indian School (Arizona), 241,243,245 Physical Education and the Preservation of Health, 113 Physical education, definitions of, 120(note) Physical education for women 1776-1865,91-127 women's efforts for, 99-109 Physical exercise for women, 96,100-101,102,114,125(note) at Wellesley, 344 lade of, at Bryn Mawr, 339-40,344 Physicians) African Americans as, 377,378-383 African-American women as, 377,378,379-80,381,386,388(note), 391 Elizabeth Blackwell as first female, 108,119 relations with patients, 19th century, 192(note) Troy Female Seminary graduates as, 81 women as, 19th century, 205,307 women's health and, 19th century, 116,119 Physiology, female destiny and, as early notion in education, 25 Pickering, Edward C„ 291 Pierpont, Julia, 62,77 Piety, as requirement for True Womanhood, 172(note), 226,331(note) Pima Indian,recollectionof Indian school by, 243,247 Pinzer, Maimie, 266,269 Pivar, David J., 264 Plantation, African-American school at, 1897,161 Plantation society of early South, 5 restrictions applied to women by, 23 young women's education in, early republic, 3-24 Player, Willa, 390,392-93 Political rights of women Catharine Beecher as nonsupporter of, 101 Emma Willard as nonsupporter of, 100 Polk, James K.,63

INDEX

453

Poor girls at Lancaster reform school, 179,180,187(note), 188 attitude toward, 19th century, 173 Popular Science Monthly, 294 Postgraduate crisis, of 19th century college women, 352 Postgraduate education, for women, 198 Potter, Mary Etta, M.D, 380 Pratt, Caroline D., 164 Pratt, Richard Henry, role in education of Native Americans, 19th century, 235, 236,237,238,239,242 Pregnancy. See also Unwed mothers among adolescents, educational policy for, 1870-1960,261-88 Preston, May, 292 Princeton University, 130,133,222,223,336 admission of women by, 1969,226 women graduate students at, 1870s, 289 Principles of Physiology Applied to ~ Health and the Improvement of Physical and Mental Education, 110 Professkmalization, of social welfare and educational services, 273-84 Professional vs. home life, of women, 231 -32 Professions African-American men in, 19th century, 255 exclusion of women from, 19th century, 108,118-19 women in, 19th century, 223-24 Professors female 1870-1976,225(table), 226,231 African-American, 257,392 at WeUesley, 314-33 salaries, 224-25 humorous depictions of, 219 male, interest in female graduate students, 230-31 role in graduate women's education, 291-92 salaries for, 219 Prostitution, causes of, 19th century, 266 Protestants at Lancaster reform school, 179,180 female seminaries viewed as nunneries of, 36 Provident Hospital and Nurse Training School (Chicago), 384,387 Prudential Committee Report (1857), on women's education at Oberiin, 131 Public schools African-Americans' attendance of, 141,255

454

INDEX

African-American teachers in, 256 Puffer, Ethel, 303,312(note), 318(table), 332(note) Pulte, Joseph R , M.D„ 211 Pulte Medical College (Cincinnati, OH), coeducation controversy at, 1873-79, 205-17 Purity, as requirement for True Womanhood, 172(note), 226,331(note) Purity sodetie, 19th century, 263-64,265,269 Putnam, Glendora McDwain, 392 Pyschological counseling, of delinquent females, 280 Quakers academic women as, 320 asfoundersof Bryn Mawr, 338 Quartes Library (Spetanan College), 393 Quarterly Journal ofScience, articles on "Woman Question" in, 190,201 Queens College, 392 Race uplift,rolein African-American women's education, 145,146,149,150, 153,154 Racism Anna Cooper's views on, 151 effect on African-American women in medicine and nursing, 377-78,383,384, 385,386 effect on female African-American educators, 254,256 in 19th century, 194 Raddiffe College, 223,231 graduate school of, 293,303,312(note) Raleigh Academy, 11 Randolph, John, 15 Read, Florence, 391 Reconstruction, African-American education following, 151 Recreation, for women, 1776-1865,91-127 Reel, Esther, 244 Reform at eariy WeUesley College, 325-326 of women's high»- education, 322 Reformers goal of, 19th century, 172,173 role in establishment ofrefugesfor delinquent women, 263-264,267 Reform schooKs) for boys, 1847,176 State Industrial School for Girls (Massachusetts), 172-89

INDEX

Reform societies, women in, 19th century, 130 Refuges, for delinquent women, 19th century, 263-64,266,267-69,272 Rehabilitation programs, for adolescent deviant girls, 1870-1960,261-88 Reichstag Ministry of Education, 300 Religion, as source of inequality of sexes, 29,30 Religion, in female seminaries, 27,28 Remond, Sarah Parker, MD., 379 Remson, Ira, 304 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institue, 55,75 Reproduction, female, misinformation on, 19th century, 116 Republican motherhood, as concept in early republic, 3-4,23 Research, importance in university programs, 222,223,227-28,232 Residencies, for African-American women doctors, 382-83 Rhoads, James, 338 Rich, Wellington, 241 Richards, Ellen H., role in home economics movement, 400-402,403-404,405, 406407,408,412-13,415,416 Richards, Ellen Swallow as leader in women graduate student movement, 290,298,301,310(note) as rejected applicant to MIT, 290 Rockefeller, John D., 323,384 Rockefeller Foundation, 386 Rockford College, early women president of, 292 Rockford Female Seminary, history of, 27,3940 Roman Catholic Church, 227 academies and colleges of, 10,221,226 Rome Female Academy, Willard pupil as principal of, 63,77 Rooks, Georgia Dwelle, 391 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 222,369 Rorer, Sarah Tyson, 400 Rossiter, Margaret, 329 Rothman, Sheila, 314-15 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 191,193 Rowland, Henry Α., 304 Royal Philanthropic (England), as model for Lancasterreformschool, 175 Royce, Josiah, 302,312(note), 317 Rumford Kitchen Exhibit, at Columbian Exposition of 1893,402-403 Runaways, delinquent females as, 280 Rural schools, African-American teachers in, 256 Rush, Benjamin, MD., 47,93-94,121(note), 148 Ruskin,John, 358 RusseD, William, 95-96,97,110,118,121(note)

455

456

INDEX

Russell Plantation, African-American school established at, 1897,161 Russian women, as foreign graduate students, 310(note) S. Weir MitcheD's Hospital of Orthopedic and Nervous Diseases, 355 Sabbath school, African-Americans' attendance of, 255 Sabin, Florence, 305 St Agnes Hospital and Nursing Training School, 387(table) St Francis Academy, for African-American women, 256,258 St Paul (disciple), 191,203 St Paul School (Virginia), role in African-American self-help program, 165 Salaries of African-American women teachers, 256 of men and women teachers, inequality of, 38,52 of professors, 219 of women faculty, 224-25 Salem Academy (North Carolina), 3,9,20(note) Sanders, J. R-, M.D., 212 Santo Domingo refugees, as founders of early academies, 10 The Saturday Visiter, 107 School administrators and founders, Troy Female Academy graduates as, 77-78 School for Colored Nurses at Grady Memorial Hospital, 391 School lunch program (Boston, MA), 404 Schools, exercise programs in, 19th century, 113 Schoolteachers. See Teacher(s) Schurz, Carl, on Native-American women, 234-35 Science as education subject, 12,16,56,74-75,192 as masculine sphere, 192,201 early female doctorates in, 292 sex, education, and, 190-204 women excluded from study of, 191,193,201,204 women in, 325,332(note), 333(note) Science departments, at early Wellesley College, 325 Science Service, 292 Scotia Academy, for African-American women, 257 Scott, Anne Firor, 4,147-48 Scott, Patricia Bell, 389 Scudder, Vida Dutton, 351( note), 360,369 as Wellesley professor, 314,318(table), 321,323,325,326,327,329,331(note), 358,359,364 friendship with Florence Converse, 324,328,358,374 relationship with mother, 358,359,369-70,374

INDEX

Second Great Awakening, 28,33 Seif Government Association, of Bryn Mawr College, 340 Self-help programs, of southern African-American women, 157-71 Self-respect, of women, Emma Willard's contribution to, 80 Seminary movement in United States, 25-44 Tory Female Seminary role, 1822-72,70-90 Seneca Falls Convention of 1848,92,106,117.118 Seven Sisters Colleges, women presidents of, 231 Seward, William, 57 Sex bias, in modem female education, 204 Sex education, for unwed mothers, 267,279,285(note) Sexism in 19th century, 194 Anna Cooper's views on, 151 education of African-American women and, 152-54,377,378,380,386 effect on female African-American educators, 254,256 Sex roles, for men and women, polarization of, 29,202 Sexual behavior in 19th century, 265 codes governing, at early women's refuges, 267 of women in "Wellesley Marriages," 324 Sexual equality, at Oberiin College, 129 Shackford, Martha Hale, 318(table), 328 Shailer, Mrs. William G„ 404,406 Shelley, Mary, 123(note) Sherborn Reformatory for Women (Massachusetts), 184,186 Sherman, Henry C., 407 Sherman Institute (California), as Indian boarding school, 244 Sherrill, Elizabeth, network, 77 Sherwood, Margaret Pollock, 323 as Wellesley professor, 319(table), 321,328,364 Shinn, Millicent, 295 Shryock, Richard H„ 110 Siblings, role in children's education, 18th century, 8 Sigourney, Lydia, 59,60 on women's health and exercise, 103,118,122(note), 124(note) on women's restrictive clothing, 97,111 SOI, Anna Peck, 40 Single women doctoralrecipientsas, 230 early Wellesley professors as, 316

457

458

INDEX

educated women as, 361,373,374 Troy Female Seminary graduates as, 82,83(table) Skinner, John Stuart, 98-99 Slater Fund, 258 Slaves, laws prohibiting education of, 147 Slosson, Ε. E., 292 Stosson, M. Λ , M.D, 208,210,214,215 Slowe, Lucy D., 153-54 Smith, Hilda Wortfaington, 351(note) relationship with mother, 359-60,369-70 Smith, Mary Roberts, 335 Smith, Marine Atkins, 391 Smith, Page, 129,143(note), 400 Smith College, 231,257,299,303,355,359 early women doctoratesfrom,292,297(table) Social activism at eariy Welles ley College, 325-26 of M. Carey Thomas, 347 Social daim, to educated women, 351,353 Social control,reformschoolrolein, 176,180,188 Social service programs, of southern African-American women, 157-71 Society for the Education of Females, 38 Sons of Temperance, 114 The South. See also entries beginning African-American...; Southern women academy movement in, 9-13 African-American nursing schools in, 384-86 African-American self-help programs in, 157-71 antebellum, women's education in, 3-24 female seminaries and academies in, 9-13,47 influence of Troy Female Seminary on education in, 77,90(note) South Carolina Collegiate Institute, Emma Willard's influence on, 62,77 Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, 393 Special students, women graduate students as, 289,290-91,293,2%, 303, 317 Spehnan College, 167,384,392,393 history of, 390-91 role in higher education of African-American women, 257,389-98 Spetman Seminary Nurse Training Department, 384,387(table) Sports, for women, 1776-1865,91-127 Spring, Gardiner, 133,134 Spruill, Julia Cherry, 4-5 The Standard, as eariy feminist publication, 124(note)

INDEX

Stanford University, 222,335 admission of graduate women by, 1891-92,294,297 women faculty at, 227 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 50(note), 106 as women's rights activist, 115,118,124(note), 125(note) at Troy Female Seminary, 57,58,125(note) on Emma Willard, 58,75,90(note) on women's exercise, 107,115 Stanton, Henry B„ 57 Starr, Ellen, 356 State colleges, development of, 221 State Industrial School for Girls (Lancaster, MA), 172-89 State legislature, role in academy survival, 12 State Primary School (Monson, MA), 183 State teachers colleges, development of, 221 State universities, development of, 221 Steel, Joel D, 234,235 Stein, Gertrude, 313(note) Steiner School (Salem, NC)„ 20(note) Stepping Off the Pedestal, 390 Stereotypes. See Cult of true womanhood Stern, Frances, 407 Steward, Susan M. Smith McKinney, Mi)., 379 Stewart, Donald, 392(note), 394 Stflhnan, William, 415 Stone, Lucy, 135-36,140 Student labor, Native-American women as, in Indian schools, 240-41 Submissiveness, asrequirementfor True Womanhood, 172(note), 226,331(note) Subordination of women, scientific theories and, 191 Suflragjsm, opposition to, 88(note) Support networks, among early Wellesley professors, 314-33 Swallow, Ellen. See Richards, Ellen Swallow Swartz, Mary Davies, 407 Swisshelm, Jane G, 107 Sylvester, J. J., 292 Syracuse University, 294 early women doctorates from, 292,293,295,297(table) medical school of, African-American women at, 382 Talbot, Marion, 295,302,31 l(note), 351(note), 405,413 post-college life of, 352-53 Talvanne, Madame, 10

459

460

INDEX

Tappan Brothers, "Free Church Movement" of, 143(note) Taylor, Archibald Α. IL, 293 Taylor University, eariy women doctorates from, 297(table) Teacber