History of the Education of Women

Women's freedom to attend college is a recent development.

Women today can have all the benefits of a full education, but even within living memory things were very different. Women did not attend college in equal numbers to men until 1980.

Early Years

In colonial times, only the wealthy could afford to educate their children, but as towns grew education became more widely available. Local women would teach small groups of children basic reading and spelling. Boys could move on to town schools. Iin all but a few cases, girls were banned from furthering their educations beyond the most basic level.

19th-Century Women's Education

In the 1800s, secondary education for women began to spread. Pioneering teachers like Catharine Beecher, Emma Willard and Mary Lyon aimed to give girls the same education as boys, but most working class women were still uneducated. By the 1860s, this began to change as most primary and secondary schools became coeducational.

Women's Education in the 20th Century

The 20th century saw a number of significant breakthroughs. Perhaps the most important took place in 1972, when an Amendment to the Civil Rights Act banned discrimination in the education system on the grounds of sex. The new rules allowed more women to enroll in college and effectively meant that single-sex educational institutions could no longer be funded by the state.

References

• National Women's History Museum: Introduction
• National Women's History Museum: Colonial Education
• National Women's History Museum: 1800s 1
• National Women's History Museum: 1800s 2
• National Women's History Museum: Supreme Court Decisions and Legislation