“Resolved that we approve of the admission of young women to the classes of the university upon the same terms and conditions as young men…”
On June 23, 1869, the Board of Trustees recorded the decision to admit women to Northwestern. The path leading from that handwritten declaration to today was not simple nor immediate. The exhibition draws on records, photographs, and correspondence from University Archives to examine the 1869 decision and the twisty and tenuous path Northwestern took to educating college-age women.
This exhibit site is adapted from a printed catalog accompanying the exhibition On the Same Terms: The Beginnings of Women’s Education at Northwestern in Deering Library from October 2019 to June 2020, curated by Janet Olson. The exhibition in Deering Library was part of Northwestern University’s commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the resolution to admit women.
Greeting
by Sarah M. Pritchard, former Dean of Libraries
Collegiate coeducation—the threatening business of educating women alongside men—wasn’t unheard of in the United States in 1869, but it was not yet common or, to many, even acceptable. Today the Northwestern University community can be quite proud of how our forebears grappled with the idea of educating women so early in our history—but it wasn’t a given that their efforts would lead to the definitive realization of gender equality that we commemorate today.
Even with a newly hired president who favored coeducation, the University was at first on a path to follow the more conservative coordinate school model of women students’ attending certain classes but living in a separately administered, “homelike” environment—a veneer of equality, but without the worries of disrupting social norms or distracting impressionable young men. As you’ll read, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 changed this trajectory, leading to an 1873 merger that created one University administration for men and women. Even then, the structure of coeducation remained in flux in both academic and residential contexts for years; the national conversation about gender roles and equity on campuses continues to yield debate and study.
There has been as yet no comprehensive history of women at Northwestern. In fact, the anniversary of the resolution of June 23, 1869, to admit women has never been marked until now. True, Northwestern’s path to coeducation is a complicated one, affected by fires and funding, administrative changes and changing ideas. The story includes a large cast and reflects the vision of Evanston women and the determination and drive of the first women students. Fortunately, this complex history is well documented in the records amassed in University Archives and housed in Deering Library. From these reports, papers, letters, maps, photographs, and artifacts, the complete story is waiting to be told.
As a librarian with a background in women’s history who once administered the library at a women’s college—and as Northwestern’s first woman dean of libraries—I am pleased to present this publication, in conjunction with our archival exhibition, illustrating the early years of coeducation at Northwestern. With it, the Libraries set the stage for research toward a comprehensive historical analysis of women at Northwestern.