It had to Start Somewhere

In a nation where approximately sixty percent of enrolled undergraduate students are female (Forbes), one can easily forget the inequality in education between genders that occurred for much of the United States’ history. The fight for equal education for women has been a major component of gender equality. As women gain more achievements, the understanding of early women’s education in America becomes a necessity. This blog will serve to explore the origins, purposes, and achievements in American women’s education.

Contextually Speaking

“Women in the 19th Century: Crash Course U.S. History #16,” Youtube video, 13:11, posted by “CrashCourse,” Published on May 23, 2013.

The nineteenth century not only hosted the fight for women’s education, but also many other movements championed by and for women. Women fought for suffrage, temperance, abolition, and education among many other causes. However, each cause did not mutually exclude the other causes; each movement crossed into and contributed to each other. Each movement served to redefine and challenge societal norms and the ideologies of the public versus private spheres and the cult of domesticity. Though all movements seemed to be extensions of the private women’s spheres, the empowerment and achievements of the women in the nineteenth century would inspire the social movements in the twentieth and twenty first century.