Orthodox medical education for women in the nineteenth century is examined to determine to what extent women's actual experience reflected their stated goals. It is contended that although women successfully founded some medical schools providing creditable, and in some cases outstanding, training to females, women physicians' ambivalence about…

The life story of Esther Burnett Horne records the memories and experiences of a Native woman born in 1909, who was both pupil and teacher in Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools. An introduction by Sally McBeth examines methodological and cultural concerns of collecting and co-authoring a life history. In Chapter 1, Essie begins with oral…

The social, cultural, and economic circumstances that have shaped the development of women's higher education are discussed. After considering colonial America when women were outsiders to liberal arts institutions, the creation of women's and co-educational colleges is traced and the process by which women of different ethnic, racial, religious,…

Bloomfield Academy was different from other American Indian boarding schools. The Chickasaws had not been relegated to a reservation and had achieved a much higher level of autonomy, self-sufficiency, and independence than most other tribal nations. The Chickasaw Nation founded Bloomfield in 1852 not because the government demanded it but because…