Emma Willard, 1787-1870

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Educator and women’s education rights activist. Founded the first school for women’s higher education in the US.

Emma Hart Willard was born in Berlin, Connecticut. At this time in history, girls did not receive a formal education. Still, her father recognized her interest in learning. He taught her to read and write, as well as encouraged her to learn independently everything that she wants, including politics, philosophy, and mathematics. At 15, Willard enrolled in school for the first time. She progressed rapidly, and after two years, she became one of the teachers. At 19, she became the school’s principal.

In 1807, 20-year-old Willard was offered a principal position at the Middlebury Female Seminary in Middlebury, Vermont. There, she met her first husband, John Willard, the seminar’s physician who was 28 years older. Her husband’s nephew lived with them as a student at Middlebury College. She used to study from his textbooks, realizing the difference in education between men and women and the lack of opportunities women have in furthering their education. Believing that women, as much as men, can master any field, in 1814, she opened a school for women in her house, teaching those disciplines.

In 1819, after proving her theory for a few years, Willard presented her ideas to members of the New York Legislature in a pamphlet called A Plan for Improving Female Education, requesting public funds for a women’s seminar, same as men’s schools. Her only supporter was New York’s governor, DeWitt Clinton, and in that same year, she opened a school for women in Waterford, New York. Two years later, the school relocated to Troy and was named Troy Female Seminary, becoming the first school in the US to offer women high education. The school’s curriculum consisted of all the regular subjects. Some were deprived of women so far, such as science, history, geography, philosophy, and mathematics. On its opening day, the seminar had 61 boarding students and 29-day students, and within ten years, it had more than 300 enrolled students. Most of the students were from wealthy families, and though the most of them eventually became housewives, they spread Willard’s agenda of women’s education rights.

Willard’s husband died in 1825, and in 1838 at the age of 51, she remarried and left the school. They separated after nine months, and she went traveling through the US and Europe, publishing articles and promoting women’s education. Willard died at the age of 83 in her home in Troy.

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“If we are to rear the human plant to its utmost perfection, then we must be ready to fertilize the soil on which it grows.”

“If we are to rear the human plant to its utmost perfection, then we must be ready to fertilize the soil on which it grows.”

Fun Facts

  • She was the sixteenth of seventeen children from her father.
  • She was not a supporter of the women’s suffrage movement.
  • She had one son.
  • She published more than 8 books, including textbooks, travel books, and a poetry book titled The Fulfilment of a Promise. In those books, she emphasized the status of women as a criterion for civilized society. They were translated into several languages and printed in Europe and Asia.
  • She donated money to found a school for women in Athens, Greece.
  • In 1854 she represented the US at the World’s Educational Convention in London.
  • The suffragist and social activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of her students.
  • Her bust is on display at the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in NYC.
  • Her school, Troy Female Seminary, was renamed the Emma Willard School in her honor.
  • A statue honoring her services in promoting higher education for women stands in Troy, New York.
  • An Emma Willard Memorial stands in Middlebury, VT.

Awards

  • Inducted into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans (1905)
  • Inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame (2013)

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Category: Academy & Education
Tags: Educator

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Activism & Feminism

Adelina Otero-Warren, 1881-1965

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During her long and productive career, Rich published more than 30 books of poetry and essays. In her writing, she explored issues of gender, racism, consumerism, class privilege, and politics. She was considered a radical figure in Second Wave Feminism, yet she was accepted by the institutions, won many awards, and is now considered a classic. The first one was for the collection of poetry, which she published at 22. The same year she graduated from Radcliffe College. Adrienne Cecile Rich was born in Baltimore, MD, and over the years she taught English, poetry, and creative writing at several institutions, including Swarthmore College, Columbia University, City College of New York, and Scripps College in Claremont. Among her most influential works, were two texts that dissected heterosexuality and motherhood as socially constructed institutions. In both cases, she provided a critical perspective toward every woman’s freedom to choose. In the case of Compulsory Heterosexuality, for example, she presented the notion of Lesbian Continuum as an alternative way of thinking about the variety of relationships between women. Both in her poetry and her non-fiction writing, the honestly spoke of taboos, like that of motherhood. In her book “Of Woman Born”, she points out to the difference between motherhood as an experience and an imposed political institution. Her mother was a concert pianist who put her career aside to raise her family, while her father developed his career as an academic. Rich embodied the feeling that she was the benefactor of her mother’s sacrifice. When awarded the 1973 National Book Award, she declared that she accepted it on behalf of all women and shared it with her fellow nominees, Alice Walker and Audre Lorde. In 1997 she refused the National Medal of Arts, she did so to express her critique of the Clinton administration. Her famous quote from the refusal letter stated: “art means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage”. By her thirties, she was married and had three children. After her husband’s suicide, she had a relationship with novelist and poet Michelle Cliff. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
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Politics & Leaders

Agnes Macphail, 1890-1954

A Canadian politician. The first woman elected to the House of Commons of Canada.

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Alice-Dunbar-Nelson-WWP
Literature & Poetry

Alice Dunbar Nelson, 1875-1935

A poet, journalist, playwright, and political activist. Associated with the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

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