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Social and Cultural Stratification in Women's Higher Education: Barnard College and Teachers College, 1898–1912

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Bette Weneck
Bette Weneck*
Affiliation:
Teachers College, Columbia University
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Extract

In the late years of the nineteenth century Barnard and Teachers College were formally incorporated as part of Columbia University. The addition of Barnard and Teachers College to the Columbia system figured within a broad plan to revitalize and transform Columbia from a small, provincial college into a prominent “metropolitan university.” The trend in higher education in the post-Civil War years was toward the development of the modern university; and Columbia rapidly moved in that direction under the leadership of Seth Low, who was president of the university from 1890 to 1901, and later under Nicholas Murray Butler, whose administration spanned the years 1901–45. By the early years of the twentieth century, Columbia had become a complex institution, supporting graduate research, professional education, specialized studies in the arts and sciences, and claiming under its auspices a number of affiliated colleges, and educational and cultural agencies.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , Spring 1991 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 by the History of Education Society 

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References

1. See Bender, Thomas, New York Intellect: A History of Intellectual Life in New York City, from 1750 to the Beginnings of Our Time (New York, 1987), ch. 7; and Lazerson, Marvin, “F. A. P. Barnard and Columbia College: Prologue to a University,” History of Education Quarterly 6 (Winter 1966): 49–64.Google Scholar

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6. See, for example, the papers read concerning college curricula for women at the 1898 annual meeting of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae in Publications of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae 3 (Dec. 1898): 1–39; see Frankfort, Roberta, Collegiate Women: Domesticity and Career in Turn-of-the-Century America (New York, 1977) for an account of the ACA (later the American Association of University Women) between the years 1881 and 1918. For a discussion of the changing views of women's education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries see Solomon, Barbara M., In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America (New Haven, Conn., 1985), ch. 6.Google Scholar

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30. Minutes of the University Council, “Report of Special Committee,” 23 Feb. 1892, in Fackenthal, , Columbia University, 46.Google Scholar

31. Teachers College, Dean's Report, 1900, 2, TCL.Google Scholar

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37. Smith, to Russell, , 26 Jan. 1898, Russell Papers.Google Scholar

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47. Butler, to Russell, , 4 Nov. 1903, and Gill, Laura to Russell, , 27 Nov. 1905, Russell Papers; Horowitz, , Alma Mater, 248 and 260.Google Scholar

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58. Liggett, to Plimpton, , 20 June 1906, Barnard College Archives.Google Scholar

59. Wechsler, Harold, The Qualified Student: A History of Selective College Admissions in America (New York, 1977), vii, 131–40; see also Synnott, Marcia Graham, The Half-Opened Door: Discrimination and Admissions at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, 1900–1970 (Westport, Conn., 1979), ch. 1.Google Scholar

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61. Russell, to Gill, , 25 Jan. 1906, Russell Papers. In his letter to Gill, Russell refers to the Associated Alumnae of Women's Colleges. I have assumed that Russell meant the ACA, particularly given the fact that Gill was closely associated with that organization during this period. Issues concerning membership eligibility in women's collegiate organizations were not isolated to Teachers College or its students, nor were they confined to the period under discussion. In later years, there was opposition, for instance, among the members of the American Association of University Women (AAUW), which developed from the ACA, to the admission of teachers colleges within that organization. The low academic standards of many of the teacher-training institutions made the AAUW reluctant to accept them as members. Apparently the association decided selectively to admit teachers colleges by imposing certain restrictions and setting rigorous academic standards. Related to this issue is correspondence between Russell and AAUW members, 1924–27, Russell PapersGoogle Scholar

62. Gill, to Russell, , 26 Jan. 1906, Russell Papers.Google Scholar

63. Teachers College, Dean's Report, 1906, 12, 13.Google Scholar

64. Ibid. Google Scholar

65. Ibid. Google Scholar

66. Warburg, Felix to Everit Macy, V., 31 Jan. 1907, Russell, to Warburg, , 7 Feb. 1907, Warburg, to Russell, , 29 Mar. 1907, and Gill, to Plimpton, , 27 Mar. 1907, Russell Papers.Google Scholar

67. See White, , A History of Barnard College, 61–67; see also Miller, and Myers, , Barnard College, ch. 5.Google Scholar

68. Russell, to Brewster, , 25 Mar. 1909, and Liggett, to Plimpton, , 13 Oct. 1910, Barnard College Archives.Google Scholar

69. See “Report to the Committee on Education on the Relations between Barnard College and Teachers College,” [1911?], Barnard College Archives.Google Scholar

70. Ibid.; see unsigned letter to Gildersleeve, Virginia, 11 May 1910, and “Report to the Committee on Instruction Concerning Teachers College Students in Barnard Courses,” 12 May 1912, Barnard College Archives.Google Scholar

71. “Report to the Committee on Education”; see also “Report to the Board of Trustees of Barnard College by Provost and Acting Dean,” 7 Dec. 1910, Barnard College Archives.Google Scholar

72. See Gordon, , “Annie Nathan Meyer and Barnard College,” 512–13; “Report to the Committee on Education.”Google Scholar

73. “Report to the Committee on Education”; and Gildersleeve, to Butler, , 23 Oct. 1911, President's Papers.Google Scholar

74. Gildersleeve, to Butler, , 23 Oct. 1911.Google Scholar

75. Russell, to Warburg, , 14 Dec. 1914, Russell Papers; “Registration of Teachers College Students in Barnard College,” 1915–16, and unsigned letter to Gildersleeve, 11 May 1910, Barnard College Archives.Google Scholar

76. See Teachers College, Dean's Report, 1912, 7–8.Google Scholar

77. Keppel, , Columbia, 131.Google Scholar

78. Horowitz, , Alma Mater, xvii.Google Scholar

79. See, for example, Solomon, , In the Company of Educated Women; Horowitz, , Alma Mater; Burke, Colin B., American Collegiate Populations: A Test of the Traditional View (New York, 1982); see also Herbst, , “Nineteenth-Century Normal Schools,” 219. Although Herbst does not directly discuss women's education, his article is important for the tension he addresses between the liberal arts and professional teacher training.Google Scholar