Category: Women in Education

Sarah Elizabeth Doyle
Feminists, First Women, Women in Education

Sarah Elizabeth Doyle

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Pioneer in Women’s Education A thirty-six-year-old Rhode Island high school teacher and principal, Sarah Elizabeth Doyle was a founder of the coeducational Rhode Island School of Design (1877). In the mid-1890s, she became a leader of the Rhode Island Society for the Collegiate Education of Women, which sponsored the establishment of The Women’s College at Brown University. This feminist and education reformer also ardently supported women’s suffrage. Early Years Sarah Elizabeth Doyle entered Providence High School during its initial enrollment in 1843. One of seven siblings, she completed her formal education in 1846 when she graduated from that school, and she dedicated the rest of her life to the advancement of higher education for women. A Life in Teaching Doyle…

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First Women, Women in Education

Romantic Friendship

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Women Living Happily With Women A romantic friendship is a very close but non-sexual relationship between same-sex friends who often shared a degree of physical closeness like kissing, hugging, holding hands, and sharing a bed. Such friendships offered emotional support and companionship in a society where women had few freedoms. Many of these women later left the romantic friendship and married men. Women in romantic friendships usually lived together, in a world where women had few choices as to where they must live. As long as they remained single and had no other arrangements, they were forced to live with a male family member – father, brother, uncle, nephew, cousin. As they aged, they were often shuttled from household to…

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Famous Wives, Poets and Writers, Women in Education

Mary Peabody Mann

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Activist, Educator, and Wife of Horace Mann Mary Peabody Mann was a teacher, author, and wife of education reformer Horace Mann. Mary carried a passion for education, especially of young children, in her breast from her youngest days. She was well educated by her mother and role model Eliza Palmer Peabody, who ran a school from their home and was an early advocate of women’s rights. Early Years Mary Tyler Peabody was born November 16, 1806 in Cambridge and grew up in Salem, both in Massachusetts. Her parents, Nathaniel and Elizabeth Peabody were schoolteachers when they married; after the wedding, they reserved one room in their home as a classroom.
Women in Education, Women Settled the West

Tabitha Moffatt Brown

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Pioneer, Educator and Founder of Early Oregon Schools Tabitha Moffatt Brown was an early pioneer on a treachorus journey by wagon train along the Oregon Trail in 1846. She settled with her family in Oregon Country, where she and two reverends founded Tualatin Academy in 1849, and eventually Pacific University in Forest Grove in 1854. In the Oregon State Capitol, 158 names are inscribed in the legislative chambers; only six are women. One of those is Tabitha Moffat Brown. Early Years Tabitha Moffatt was born May 1, 1780 in Brimfield, Massachusetts, the daughter of Dr. Joseph Moffatt and Lois Haynes Moffatt. Nothing is known of her childhood. Tabitha married Reverend Clark Brown December 1, 1799, and they had four children…

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First Women, Women in Education

Mary Easton Sibley

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Pioneer in Education in Early Missouri Mary Easton Sibley was an early American pioneer and educator. In 1830, she and her husband founded a girls’ school in St. Charles, Missouri that would become the Lindenwood College for Women, the first women’s college west of the Mississippi River. Today, Lindenwood University is a major coeducational institution that continues to honor Sibley and her dedication to education for women. Image: Map of the Louisiana Purchase Including exploration routes of the early 1800s Early life Mary Easton was born January 24, 1800 in Rome New York, the first of eleven children born to Rufus Easton and Alby Smith Easton. In 1804, President Thomas Jefferson appointed Rufus Easton territorial judge of the Louisiana Territory,…

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Abolitionists, Feminists, Women in Education

Betsy Mix Cowles

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Abolitionist and Educator from Ohio Betsey Mix Cowles was an educator, and an early leader in the abolitionist and women’s rights movement in the pre-Civil War era, advocating women’s access to education, equal rights, and independence. She dedicated her life to fighting slavery and improving the status of women. Her circle of friends included like-minded individuals like Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison and Abby Kelley. Early Years Betsy Mix Cowles was born February 9, 1810 in Bristol, Connecticut, the eighth child of Giles Hooker Cowles and Sally White Cowles. In 1811, the Cowles family settled in the town of Austinburg in Ashtabula, the most northeastern county in Ohio, where her father was a minister and where Betsy began her teaching…

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Women in Education, Women in Religion

Charlotte Digges Moon

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Southern Baptist Missionary to China Charlotte Digges “Lottie” Moon (1840–1912) was a Southern Baptist missionary to China with the Foreign Mission Board who spent nearly forty years living and working there. As a teacher and evangelist, she made many trips into China’s interior to share the gospel with women and girls. Image: Charlotte Digges “Lottie” Moon (1840–1912) Early Years Charlotte Digges Moon was born December 12, 1840 to affluent parents who were staunch Baptists, Anna Maria Barclay and Edward Harris Moon. She was fourth in a family of five girls and two boys. She grew up on her family’s 1,500-acre tobacco plantation called Viewmont, near Scottsville, Virginia. When Moon was thirteen, her father died in a riverboat accident.
Feminists, First Women, Women in Education

Sarah Jane Woodson Early

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Pioneer in Education for African American Women Sarah Jane Woodson Early was an African American educator, author and feminist. For 30 years Early was a teacher and school principal in Ohio, and in the South after the Civil War. In 1866 she became the first African American woman professor when she was hired by Wilberforce University to teach Latin and English. Image: Young Sarah Woodson Early Years Sarah Jane Woodson, fifth daughter and youngest child of eleven of Jemima (Riddle) and Thomas Woodson (1790–1879), was born free in Chillicothe, Ohio November 15, 1825. Her parents had moved to the free state of Ohio about 1821 from Virginia, where they had been freed from slavery. They lived for some years in…

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Philanthropists, Women in Education

Jane Stanford

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A Founder of Stanford University Jane Lathrop Stanford, together with her husband Leland, founded Stanford University in 1891. The university was created as a memorial to their only child, Leland Stanford Jr., who died of typhoid fever at age 15. After her husband’s death in 1893, she operated the university until her death in 1905. Image: Leland, Jane and Leland, Jr. in 1880 Early Years Jane Elizabeth Lathrop was born August 25, 1828 in Albany, New York, to Dyer and Jane Ann Shields Lathrop, the third of six children. She was educated at home, and briefly attended the Albany Female Academy. Jane married lawyer Leland Stanford September 30, 1850, and moved to Port Washington, Wisconsin, where Leland had established a…

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Abolitionists, Feminists, Social Reformers, Women in Education

Lucy Colman

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Educator, Writer and Freethinker Lucy Colman was an educator, writer and prolific social reformer who was actively involved in the abolitionist, women’s suffrage and Freethought movements. She also worked for racial justice and for the education of African Americans, accompanied Sojourner Truth on a visit to President Abraham Lincoln. Early Years Lucy Newhall Danforth was born July 26, 1817 in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, a descendant of John and Priscilla Alden [link] on her mother’s side. In her autobiography, she reported that from an early age, about six, she was horrified to learn of the existence of slavery, and bothered her mother with many questions about it. In 1824, Lucy’s mother died, and her mother’s sister Lois took over mothering tasks. Lois…

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