College: For Men Only?

• Author: KELLEY, TIMOTHY
• Position: History of higher education for women

In the 1870s, some said too much education would hurt a woman's health

FEMALES KEEP OUT. That message might have been posted at colleges in this country's earliest years, had it not been thought too obvious to need saying. A woman's place was in the home, and higher education--like the vote--was the province of the male.

In the 19th century, however, colleges for women began to be established, and other new colleges opened their doors to both sexes. The change sparked an earnest public debate. One question in dispute--in an era when housework itself was brutal toil: How much study could female bodies bear without damage?

Arguments for educating women had been heard since the beginning of the Republic. "If we mean to have Heroes, Statesmen, and Philosophers, we should have learned women," wrote Abigail Adams, who would become the wife of one President and the mother of another, in 1776.

The early 1800s saw the rise of seminaries and academies for well-to-do young girls, modeled after English finishing schools. These institutions taught religion, etiquette, singing, drawing, and piano playing. But they focused on girls under 18, and at first many of them neglected "male" subjects such as math, science, history, and geography.

Emma Willard, a Connecticut teacher who had taught herself geometry at 13, wanted to establish a broader curriculum. In 1819, she asked the New York State Legislature for funds to start a school for girls. The Legislature said no, but the town council of Troy, New York, gave Willard $4,000 to start the Troy Female Seminary, which opened in 1821 with a full range of courses. The school brought its founder national renown.

Some historians call Troy the first college for women; others give that distinction to Mount Holyoke Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts, begun in 1836. Females marked another gain in 1837, when the new Oberlin College in Ohio became coeducational--that is, included both sexes. Women were excused from classes on Mondays to do laundry, and men did heavier chores.

At mid-century, however, Americans were still arguing over whether women belonged in college at all--at least college as men knew it.

A brewer named Matthew Vassar thought they did. He donated land in Poughkeepsie, New York, to found a women's college that, unlike Troy and Mount Holyoke, would be specifically modeled on the top male institutions. Opening its doors in 1865, Vassar College tried to reassure parents and forestall critics by...