The Beginnings of Newnham College

Judith Sargent Murray’s On the Equality of the Sexes reveals the struggles women had in the 17th-18th centuries when it came to equal education opportunities. Women were expected to become people of domestication while men had many opportunities to expand their minds and be ambitious, and be leaders. Women were expected to focus on taking care of their family, not to have minds of their own. They wanted change.

During the second development phase (1980 to 1990), five more college buildings were constructed. These included the Administration Building, Student Centre, Arts & Sciences Building, Bermuda College Library, and a Faculty Office Building. At the end of this phase, construction and

After decades of coping with the doubt and the regulation that women could not be educated, a number of women began to revolt. The women felt they too should be highly educated just the same as the men. They protested against the fact that men could go to college and this was not allowed for them and wanted the right to learn (Westward Expansion 1). Women wanted to be educated to better and to prove themselves solid. Schools for women began to up rise and gain some admiration in the 1820’s (The American Pageant 327). 1818 a lady by the name of Emma Willard, made a request to the legislature of New York, to fund a education for women. She got support from President Thomas Jefferson and The Common Council, in which she received four thousand dollars to fund in a school she later opened in the 1820’s, called, Troy Female Seminary (Westward Expansion 1). Soon after many schools began to come up, and Oberlin College, in Ohio, became the first college to accept men and women (Westward Expansion 1). In the turn of the nineteenth century, more and more thoughts and ideas of education for women became topic of interest. Political ideals scoped support for the better education for women, because leaders of policies of education and political issues seemed to feel that there need to be citizens with a creditable history of

The original college was built in 1866-1867 and was named Western Maryland College, but had its name changed in 2002 to McDaniel College ("History”). There is a long process to name a building, it involves creating a proposal and taking it to the President’s Council and Board of Trustee’s to get approved. After a building receives a name there is also a long list of ways that the buildings get grouped into groups. For example, there are Art buildings; General Use buildings and many more that are available to the students on campus. A building has to be paid for by someone or in memory of someone, there are multiple ways a building can be classified, there are buildings on campus that are named after residents who had lived in them, in memory of people, and even named after presidents. One special building that I had the pleasure of researching was Elderdice Hall, which had been named after Hugh Latimer Elderdice Sr. Elderdice Hall is special to the college because it is made out of completely different brick than any other building on campus. The building houses many essential offices that allow the campus to function, such as the Registrar’s and Bursar’s Offices, and Alumni Relations offices. Mr. Elderdice himself was an interesting man he attended Western Maryland College and later became the President of the Westminister Theological Seminary. He stayed the president until the Westminister Theological Seminary moved to Washington D.C. and became Elderdice Hall. Overall McDaniel College carries a lot of history with each and every brick that was used to build all 70 buildings on the 160-acre campus ("World Ranking

Articles written during a specific period gives the future population an idea of the issues present during that time. Before the United States became independent, woman education was limited to the skill needed to be a good wife and proper mother. Particularly, upper-class woman were the only ones that had the resources to gain an education. Most middle and lower class focus primarily on the education of their males. European education influence Colonial America’s educational system. Since there weren’t any establish convents schools in the colonies, tutors were primarily hired and later on schools were incorporated. During the first years of schooling, new England girls went to a coed school called “dame school”. In the dame school, girls were thought to knit and sew. Many girls got the chance to go to the town school. However, some town school in new England prohibited girls from attending. In the south, girls got the

Contrary to belief, the independent young woman connected with post-World War I actually emerged in the early 1900’s. By 1930 481,000 women attended college, which is a significant increase compared to the 85,000 women who attended college

The novel Flatland refers to the Victorian era where at the time women were regarding as inferior to males and the family life was practically the only respectable career option for a woman. The man was the leader of the family and the wife was to teach the children and care for the house and her husband. Just before the time of the writing of Flatland girl’s schools were included under the Endowed Schools Act of 1869, but in comparison to their male counterparts Victorian females had extremely finite access to higher education. 1

An American pragmatist and feminist, Hull-House founder Jane Addams (1860-1935) came of age in time of increasing tensions and division between segments of the American society, a division that was reflected in debates about educational reform. In the midst of this diversity, Addams saw the profoundly interdependent nature of all social and political interaction, and she aligned her efforts to support, emphasize and increase this interdependence. Education was one of the ways she relied on to overcome class disparity, as well as to increase interaction between classes. Her theories about the interdependent nature of living in a democracy provided a backdrop for her educational theory. Education, she thought, needed to produce people who

“The subject of the Education of Women of the higher classes is one which has undergone singular fluctuations in public opinions” (Cobbe 79). Women have overcome tremendous obstacles throughout their lifetime, why should higher education stand in their way? In Frances Power Cobbe’s essay “The Education of Women,” she describes how poor women, single women, and childless wives, deserve to share a part of the human happiness. Women are in grave need of further improvements in their given condition. Cobbe suggests that a way to progress these improvements manifests in higher education, and that this will help further steps in advance. Cobbe goes on to say that the happiest home, most grateful husband, and the most devoted children came from a woman, Mary Sommerville, who surpassed men in science, and is still studying the wonders of God’s creations. Cobbe has many examples within her paper that shows the progression of women as a good thing, and how women still fulfill their duties despite the fact that they are educated. The acceptance of women will be allowed at the University of New England because women should be able to embrace their abilities and further their education for the benefit of their household, their lives, and their country.

After eight harsh year of war, reconstructing a normal life was found difficult. Poets, political leaders, and even educators began writing about the question of the role of the women known as the woman question. Before the war, women were seen as “both morally and mentally inferior to men”(151). This statement began to get rejected postwar. In 1787, the first academy for women was opened and allowed women to get an education called Philadelphia Young Ladies Academy. Before the revolution, women were not allowed an education, however, “ This revolution in education was so successful that, by the end of the eighteenth century, elite society frowned upon a poorly educated young woman”(153). Women were now able to take similar courses to what

The foundation of colleges for women as well as events at women’s rights conventions intellectually challenged society’s views on women’s traditional roles. As education became more of a public governmental service, the educational

The late 18th century can be known as the historical period of the Enlightenment. During this time, society was undergoing drastic changes that would impact people even today. These changes were known as “reforms,” and played a big role in politics and ruling during this time period. One of the bigger reforms of this time was that which would grant women a higher education and place them in a position closer to their male counterparts. The enlightenment authors, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Mary Wollstonecraft, took part in a debate in which they argued about the purpose and education of women. In an article recently written in The New York Times by Nicholas

When women were landless and unmarried, they had little to no political representation or influence. As the BBC stated, “when parliamentary reform was being debated in 1867, John Stuart Mill proposed an amendment that would have given the vote to women on the same terms as men but it was rejected by 194 votes to 73” (BBC 1). Not until much later would women get the right to vote, meaning that the sisters could not develop a career based on their speaking or intellectual abilities in Britain, which extended to academic positions, as, according to the Republic of Pemberley, “women did not usually have careers as such, and were not "citizens" in the sense of being directly involved in politics, there was little generally-perceived need for such higher education for them” (Republic of Pemberley 1). No institution of higher learning would accept women, so that kind of career would have been impossible at the time.

The year was 1912 in London, England. Women lived at the mercy of their fathers, brothers, husbands and bosses; clearly a patriarchal society. Women’s lives consisted of keeping house and raising children and caring for their families. Those who worked outside of the home were limited to menial labor, earned significantly less than men, and surrendered their earnings to their husbands. Any inheritance of real estate or money a woman may have received was given to her husband and, most often, she had nothing to say about how it was managed or spent. A woman could not vote or run for office, and received little support, should she desire an education other than a ‘finishing school.’ (Clearly,