Opening in 1837, Wesleyan Female Seminary became by 1855 one of the small number of colleges for women in the United States. The question is to what extent Wesleyan was a true college as that word was understood at the time, along with the wider issue of what constituted a college as the concept became transformed during the nineteenth century. In…

African American women hold a unique position as members of two groups that have been treated in a peripheral manner by postsecondary education (Moses, 1989). Membership in both marginalized groups often makes African American women invisible in colleges and universities. Given the complex intersection of race and gender, more attention should be…