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Where Coeds Were Coeducated: Normal Schools in Wisconsin, 1870–1920

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Christine A. Ogren
Christine A. Ogren*
Affiliation:
Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
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Extract

More than two decades of interest in the history of American women as college students have recently culminated in a trio of notable books. Barbara Miller Solomon's In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America, Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz's Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present, and Lynn D. Gordon's Gender and Higher Education in the Progressive Era all use a rich variety of sources to bring to life the experiences of generations of women undergraduate students, mainly at prestigious colleges and large state universities. While the authors have different emphases, they share a commitment to making sense of college experiences through alumnae memoirs, letters, yearbooks, and works of fiction, as well as more conventional sources. Their inquiries intersect in their analyses of life for women on coeducational campuses during the Progressive Era and earlier years. Together, Solomon, Horowitz, and Gordon present a cohesive picture of “coeds” whose lives were entirely controlled by the Victorian notion of separate gender spheres. The “outsiders” of the first generation espoused traditional values, studied hard, and remained on the sidelines during extracurricular activities. Beginning in the 1890s, women of the second generation proclaimed that, like men, they could devote themselves to “college” life; adhering to a separate spheres ideology, they created student government, clubs, and activity groups for women only. Solomon, Horowitz, and Gordon portray a form of education in which male and female students stayed entirely apart—education that did not warrant the prefix “co.”

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , Spring 1995 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by the History of Education Society 

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References

1 See Solomon, Barbara Miller, In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America (New Haven, Conn., 1985); Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz, Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Chicago, 1987); and Gordon, Lynn D., Gender and Higher Education in the Progressive Era (New Haven, Conn., 1990).Google Scholar

2 Altenbaugh, Richard J. and Underwood, Kathleen, “The Evolution of Normal Schools,” in Places Where Teachers Are Taught, ed. Goodlad, John I. et al. (San Francisco, 1990), 163; Burke, Colin B., American Collegiate Populations: A Test of the Traditional View (New York, 1982), 216, 222; Woody, Thomas, A History of Women's Education in the United States (New York, 1929), 1: 482–83.Google Scholar Several historians have argued that our understanding of the history of higher education is incomplete without including normal schools in the analysis. See Burke, , American Collegiate Populations; Clifford, Geraldine Jonçich, “No Shade in the Golden State: School and University in Nineteenth-Century California,” History of Higher Education Annual 12 (1992): 35–68; Herbst, Jurgen, “Nineteenth-Century Normal Schools in the United States: A Fresh Look,” History of Education 9 (Sep. 1980): 219–27; and Wasserman, Jeff, “Wisconsin Normal Schools and the Educational Hierarchy, 1860–1890,” Journal of the Midwest History of Education Society 7 (1979): 1–9.Google Scholar Historians of teacher education are responsible for much of the current research on the history of normal schools in the United States. While they have undoubtedly made important contributions, their focus has caused them to overlook the concerns of historians of higher education for women, such as coeducation. See Altenbaugh, and Underwood, , “The Evolution of Normal Schools”; Clifford, Geraldine Jonçich and Guthrie, James W., Ed School: A Brief for Professional Education (Chicago, 1988); Goodlad, John I., Teachers for Our Nation's Schools (San Francisco, 1990); and Herbst, Jurgen, And Sadly Teach: Teacher Education and Professionalization in American Culture (Madison, Wis., 1989).Google Scholar

3 Wisconsin established nine normal schools, named for their host cities, during these years: Platteville, (1866), Whitewater, (1868), Oshkosh, (1871), Falls, River (1875), Milwaukee, (1885), Stevens Point (1894), Superior (1896), Crosse, La (1909), and Claire, Eau (1916). Curti, Merle and Carstensen, Vernon, The University of Wisconsin: A History, 1848–1925 (Madison, Wis., 1949), 1: 364, 369; Herbst, , And Sadly Teach, 130; Hague, Amy, “‘What If the Power Does Lie Within Me?’ Women Students at the University of Wisconsin, 1875–1900,” History of Higher Education Annual 4 (1984): 78.Google Scholar

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19 Beach, , “The Literary Societies,” 91; The Quiver (Oshkosh, Wis., 1898), 69; The Normal Advance 2 (Mar.–Apr. 1896): 71–73 and 3 (Jan.–Feb. 1897): 61.Google Scholar

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36 The Meletean Annual (1915), 103.Google Scholar

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38 The Royal Purple 11 (Nov. 1911): 7.Google Scholar

39 The Quiver (1920), 139.Google Scholar

40 Smith, , “Athletics in the Wisconsin State University System,” 16–17.Google Scholar

41 On coeducation in the high schools, see Tyack, David and Hansot, Elisabeth, Learning Together: A History of Coeducation in American Schools (New Haven, Conn., 1990); and Rury, John L., Education and Women's Work: Female Schooling and the Division of Labor in Urban America, 1870–1930 (Albany, N.Y., 1991).Google Scholar