Women Stive For Higher Education In The Late 19th Century

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Women Strive for Higher Education in the late 19th Century
During the late nineteenth century the women’s labor force was increasing steadily in manufacturing occupations. This increase wasn’t due to an increasing degree of women’s knowledge, it was due to the “seek for excitement and independence or, more likely, to contribute to their families’ subsistence and their own self support, cultural and economic changes combined to create a new stage in the female life cycle” (Evans 133). Although this new stage of women’s work seemed like a great advantage, women still weren’t able to expand their mental abilities. Magazines such as Good Housekeeping tried to promote the perfection of women’s household and nurturing skills. Women who possessed such skills were considered educated and favorable. This was a huge contradiction because if women were to become experts in their arena, they would need more education than a women’s magazine could provide (Evans 139). This contradiction expanded on the thought of higher education for women.
Since the 1860’s colleges and universities, such as Smith College, were coeducational. The founder of Smith College, Sophia Smith, once said “It is not my design to render my sex any the less feminine, but to develop as fully as may be the powers of womanhood, and furnish women with the means of usefulness, happiness and honor, now withheld from them.” (Evans 139). In these learning facilities women were able to emphasize their mental capacities and their solidarity as women. Scientist continued to claim that women’s brains weren’t able to withstand the rigors of higher education and their childbearing capacities would be harmed by thinking too much (Scott 356).
Vassar College offered young women a liberal arts education equal to that of the best men's colleges at the time. Most colleges and universities didn’t accept the enrollment of women. Others admitted women but refused ...