The role of the women's rights press in reporting on and advancing coeducation in the United States is considered. The women's rights press was linked to the women's rights movement and articulated the goal that women should enjoy full participation in all aspects of U.S. life, including higher education. This analysis is based on 12 of the most…

The origin and development of two women's colleges, Mount Holyoke of Massachusetts and Meredith College of North Carolina, are compared, illustrating some of the early chapters of American higher education, when religious purposes for schools were common, but when schools for women were not. The social, historical, and religious contexts of the…

Organizational change at Wells College, New York, is traced from 1876-1905 in relation to women's role in higher education. This excerpt of a larger study indicates how women worked within a female college that had male authority figures at a time in which there were strong notions about proper feminine behavior. The college was intended to train…

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,…