Women’s History Month: Educational Firsts for American Women

In 1837, Oberlin College in Ohio became the first higher education institution to admit women to its baccalaureate programs. In 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the Seneca Falls Convention, which would launch the women’s suffrage movement and outline the rights to which women were entitled. Among these was access to higher education. Over the next 40 years, more universities would go co-ed, and several of the country’s notable women’s colleges—Vassar, Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Smith, and Radcliffe—would open, increasing women’s access to education. (Well, increasing wealthy women’s access, but that’s a different blog.) 

Some naysayers posited that higher education would lead women away from traditional femininity and destroy the social constructs of marriage and family. Such opposition stemmed from deeply ingrained societal beliefs about women’s roles and abilities, with arguments ranging from religious and philosophical to medical and practical concern. Nonetheless, women’s rates of education would continue to rise, and by the 1970s, women undergraduates outnumbered their male counterparts. That has continued to climb, with women making up approximately 60% of all American undergraduates. 

Today’s educated women owe their statuses to the trailblazers before them. In honor of Women’s History Month, I’d like to highlight some of them:

1840 —Catherine Brewer becomes the first woman to earn a bachelor’s degree, graduating from Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia.

1849 —Elizabeth Blackwell becomes the first woman to graduate from medical school when she finishes at the top of her class at Geneva Medical School in Geneva, New York.

1862 —Oberlin College in Ohio awards the first bachelor’s degree to an African American woman, Mary Jane Patterson.

1870 —The first woman graduates from an accredited law school when Ada Kepley receives an LL.B. from Union College of Law in Chicago.

1877 —Helen Magill becomes the first woman to earn a Ph.D. when she finishes her graduate studies in Greek at Boston University.

1900—Otelia Cromwell becomes the first Black woman to graduate from Smith College.

1921—Sadie Tanner Mossell becomes the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in the U.S. (in economics from the University of Pennsylvania).

1945—Zora Neale Hurston becomes the first African-American woman to be admitted to Barnard College.

1965— Sister Mary Kenneth Keller becomes the first American woman to earn a Ph.D. in Computer Science (from the University of Wisconsin–Madison) with a thesis titled “Inductive Inference on Computer-Generated Patterns.”

1975— Lorene L. Rogers becomes the first woman named president of a major research university in the United States, the University of Texas.

1982— Judith Hauptman becomes the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in Talmud (from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York).

2001— Ruth Simmons becomes the eighteenth president of Brown University, making her the first Black woman to lead an Ivy League institution.

By 2006, more doctoral degrees were conferred on women than men in the United States. This educational gap has continued to increase in the U.S., especially for master’s degrees, where over 50% more degrees are conferred to women than men. Despite this, women remain underrepresented in positions of higher education leadership and in positions involving scientific research. One of the challenges is unconscious bias, which continues to hinder the advancement of women in higher education. Gender equity in the workforce in higher education works by addressing the inequalities and biases in traditional employment systems, particularly regarding access, retention, and success. 

To create an inclusive environment that fosters professional and personal success for all employees, regardless of gender, institutions are taking proactive measures. These measures include providing equal access to resources, facilities, and opportunities, promoting gender-inclusive policies and practices, and actively supporting programs and initiatives that help to break down gender-based barriers. We have come a long way, but much work still needs to be done.