Women's access to higher education and legal careers in nineteenth-century America

Women in Higher Education -- 1785-1890

Higher educational opportunities for women in the U.S. were scarce in the late 18th century through the nineteenth century, and even into the 20th century as well. Women were expected to stay in the home, raise the children, cook and clean for the husband, not go out and get an advanced education. This paper reflects the few opportunities that were available to women and how those opportunities were seized upon by women eager to better themselves and pursue careers -- notwithstanding firm resistance by society and by colleges and universities run by men.

Women and Higher Education by 1860

In his book A History of American Higher Education, author John Thelin points out that by 1860, just before the Civil War, there were "…at lease forty-five institutions" that were offering college and university degrees to women (Thelin, 2012). Those higher education institutions were referred to as "college," "academy," "Literary institute" or "female seminary," Thelin explains, and the curricula that they offered included vocational training, finishing-school programs (liberal arts among other themes). However the author asserts that these schools that were open to women in that era were very "unpopular" with the American society, and indeed, twenty years earlier in America (1840) -- and from the late 18th century until 1840 -- it was very rare for a woman to have a chance to attend a college.

There were three schools that offered higher education opportunities for women in the 1850s were located in Oxford, Ohio, Thelin continues, and there were "normal" schools that were designed as places to prepare teachers, and as they expanded following the Civil War they offered a "license of instructions" -- not a bachelor's degree (Thelin, 2012). But these institutions were a boon to women because some were created specifically for women and in time the normal schools that were coeducational became schools with women as a majority.

Women as College Professors -- Another Higher Education Struggle

Scott Spillman explains that by 1890 the door had opened for women to teach in primary and secondary schools in certain sections of the U.S., but women were not given the chance to become college professors (Spillman, 2012). Spillman quotes scientist and mathematician Christine Ladd-Franklin, who explained (in 1890) that the ban on women (deemed "not worthy" to teach in college) hurt women who were teaching at lower levels because those women found it "impossible" to "receive equal pay with men in secondary schools" (Spillman, 196). However, in time, women were offered teaching positions at universities even though, at the turn of the century, the men who had believed in women's rights to teach at the university level harbored "…a strong prejudice against women's intellectual abilities" (Spillman, 220).

In conclusion, it took many years for women to be admitted into colleges, and even after finding the door open at some institutions for higher learning, women had to struggle to be allowed to practice law and to teach at the college and university level. Looking back on those years, it demonstrates the resilience and courage -- and resolve -- that women showed in carving out careers that previously only men had been allowed to enjoy.