Women’s Higher Education in the United States

Abstract

A look at the people and events that paved the way for women's access to higher education in the United States from the 1790s through 1900. Keywords: women's education, history Women's access to higher education in the United States is taken for granted today. This right, however, was a hard won one that belies a struggle that took nearly two centuries to accomplish. In this paper, I briefly trace this history of women's rights. I highlight the work of specific women and men who advocated for them. Such history is vitally important to the field of adult education as much can be gleaned from a look at the adult educators who paved the way for women's education. Women's access to higher education in the United States is taken for granted today. This right, however, was a hard won one that belies a struggle that took nearly two centuries to accomplish. In this paper, I briefly trace this history of women's rights. I highlight the work of specific women and men who advocated for them. Such history is vitally important to the field of adult education as much can be gleaned from a look at the adult educators who paved the way for women's education. It's important to note that the life patterns of women were altered in many ways by their access to education in general (Solomon (1985). The period between girlhood and marriage was lengthened by the advent of girls' secondary and college education. Early on, young women of means were the only ones to pursue academic study. Women with limited financial means could seek out and obtain employment. Academic educated women could pursue their studies or take jobs as teachers while other women could find work in mills, or other factories. Sometimes young women took jobs in mills or factories to save money for their education. Marriage, for most, was still the ultimate goal. These varied courses of action, however, prolonged the period of youth and the marriage patterns of women changed during this time. Academy women tended to marry later than others and the number of single, never-married is related to the access to education among them. Reforms in a New Nation Social reforms for women in education can be traced from the 17 th and early 18 th centuries when arguments for reform in women's education were first launched in the aftermath of Revolutionary War. Most of this support concerned the need for women's basic education while attempts to secure education for women in high schools or in universities were less audible. Demands for equal educational opportunities for women, in general, were quite revolutionary for the new nation and greatly challenged the status of women's existing place in the domestic sphere (Solomon, 1985). Some women believed that getting an education would do more to better women's standing in society than the right to vote. Women such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright and Margaret Fuller were radical pioneers that advocated for women's rights to the same educational opportunities as men. In her short life, Mary Wollstonecraft, a British author of the late 18 th