This study examines the development of women's secondary education in U.S. cities in the years between the Civil War and the Great Depression. Chapter 1 looks at the period between 1870 and 1900 when, through the coeducational high school, women came to share in the academic culture traditionally reserved for males. Chapter 2 looks at who went to schools and why and finds that most females attended school to better prepare themselves for marriage and the growing demands of family in the modern industrial social order. Chapter 3 considers labor force participation and education between 1890 and 1930 and argues that during this time broad contours of ethnic division of labor in women's work began to take shape. Chapter 4 describes women and the high school culture during 1890-1930 and shows that a strong vocational impulse shaped secondary education, that most changes were concerned with meeting local labor force demands, and that for the first time a distinctive "female" curriculum emerged. The final chapter compares developments in specific cities and describes how local economy and demand shaped educational policy and participation. Includes a statistical appendix on teenage school attendance in the late 19th century, notes for each chapter, and an index. (JB)