From Studying Botany to Studying Bread-making

The evolution of American female science education from 1800-1900

Sedate Ann Kohler

EPS 412
Professor Adam Nelson
April 25, 2014

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Every few weeks a story is published highlighting the disparity of women in the STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields in the United States. Women are
less likely to be found in high paying engineering jobs, biological science careers, and tenured
STEM professors. According to a 2010 report by the National Science Foundation, women hold
approximately 1.5 million degrees in STEM fields to mens 3.9 million.1 Though some make the
argument that this gap is due to societys patriarchal tendencies, the actual root of this division
lies in the years after the Civil War and before the turn of the century. Prior to the mid 1800s,
women and girls were actually educated more in the sciences than boys and men, who were
encouraged to study the classics, like Latin and Greek. However, during the middle of the 19th
century, women abandoned their previous focus on science, but only in favor of better preparing
themselves for collegiate applications, and this shift continued to eventually focus on domestic
science.
PART ONE Girls as Scientists and Boys as Classicists
By the early 1800s, students still did not receive their education alongside members of
the opposite gender, and they definitely did not study the same things. Girls and boys were
educated in different subjects, quite contrary to the U.S. public education system today. Female
students learned about the sciences, including botany, chemistry, and astronomy. In fact, these
were among the ten subjects most frequently listed in the published courses of study of female
academies and seminaries.2 Boys, on the other hand, studied a classical curriculum including
Latin, Greek, and Geography. This was in part because the function and use of the classical
languages and studies were found mainly in the Church, where positions were almost always
1

National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Scientists and Engineers
Statistical Data System (SESTAT), 2010.
2
Woody, Thomas. A history of women's education in the United States. New York, NY: Octagon Books, 1966.

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held only by males. This difference in curriculum was not because girls were the fairer sex and
needed to study other subjects. Instead, they studied what was considered to be a more mentally
rigorous subject. In fact, educators at the time argued that girls needed to develop mental
discipline just like their male counterparts. This mental discipline should come from intellectual
exercise, such as curriculum in the solid branches of sciences rather than the merely
ornamental branches of drawing, painting, and needlework,3 which were the likely alternative
to science education.
Thankfully for the future of the American people, the standard U.S. secondary school
curriculum expanded greatly between the first half of the 19th century. The advertised courses of
study at various academies boasted of the vastness of classes available to their female students,
including Chemistry, Astronomy, Geography, Writing, and Arithmetic.4 This assortment of
courses also reached beyond the typical WASP (white Anglo-Saxon protestant) student of the
period. Catholic academies offered scientific studies such as botany alongside their traditional
study of sacred history. Also, female Native American students were instructed in the sciences as
well, with the hopes of elevating the female character in the Nation.5
In schools that offered courses for both genders, it was girls the dominated the sciences.
At New Yorks Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, an equal number of science courses were offered
to boys and girls (in separate departments, of course). However, girls were far more likely to
enroll in these courses. For example, 59% of the female population took classes in Natural

Mulhern, James. A history of secondary education in Pennsylvania. New York: Arno Press, 1969.
Tolley, Kimberley. The science education of American girls: a historical perspective. New York: RoutledgeFalmer,
2003. 38-39
5
Ibid. 41
4

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Philosophy, whereas only 28% of the males did.6 This trend continued through the first part of
the nineteenth century until the education of girls took a different turn.
PART TWO Want to go to college? Study the Classics
In the few decades before the turn of the century, the focus of female education greatly
shifted. Their previous focus on mental discipline and studying science subjects such as
astronomy, chemistry, and botany turned towards the classics. Was this the result of pressure
from society at the time; to turn women away from these subjects of the world and universe?
Surprisingly, it was not. As opportunities for higher education for women began to rise, schools
set their entrance exams to be similar to their male counterparts.7 Those in charge of the male
colleges argued that without these standards, these female colleges were colleges in name alone
and did not merit the prestige of a title such as college. In order to defend the college admission
policy, many schools began to change their entrance exams. As such, female applicants began to
be tested on the classical subjects which had been mainly studied by males. For example, when
Smith College opened in 1875, the admission requirements regarding classical literature and
language rivaled those of Amherst and Harvard, which were male-only at this point.8
As a result of this shift towards needing an understanding of Latin, Greek, and other
classical subjects, it is unsurprising that female secondary schools and academies turned their
focus to educating their students in these fields. In Pennsylvania this evolution was quite
obvious. From 1750 to 1829, just 3% of female academies offered Greek and 14% offered Latin.

Beadie, Nancy. "Emma Willard's Idea Put to the Test: The Consequences of State Support of Female Education in
New York, 1819-67" History of Education Quarterly 33: 543-62.
7
Ibid. 152
8
Woody, 170

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Between 1830 and 1889, this rose to 37% offering Greek and 72% offering Latin.9 The
discrepancy between offerings of Greek and Latin can be explained as during this time Greek
was seen only for the eventual study of ministry studies, which was a career path not offered to
women.
Because of the rise of instruction and emphasis on the classics for college admissions,
female students now needed to devote most of their time to practicing this new language
requirement. It is understandable that they would omit science in favor of this subject, which
they would actually need to gain entrance to college. At Connecticuts Hartford High School, the
school allowed students to drop etymology, the geography and history of the United States,
natural philosophy, chemistry, and philosophy and substitute for them the study of Latin.10
It is at this point that the study of science became unpopular to females. Whereas their
grandmothers had focused on the study of natural history and chemistry, women now turned to
the culture provided by the classics and the liberal arts.11 Since science and engineering were
becoming realities of the business world, more mechanics, miners, and engineers were needed in
the work force. These were not perceived to be jobs fit for women, so why would one want to
study something where they couldnt see themselves being successful? Furthermore, working
class families were sending their young men into these fields and the science courses only
required two or three years of study. This was not the desired collegiate experience for young
women of the time; they wanted the prestige of completing a four year course.12

Tolley, 153
m, P. A., and Frederica Rowan. The educational institutions of the United States, their character and organization.
London: J. Chapman, 1853.
11
Tolley, 155
12
Ibid.
10

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Frequently in history one hears of how when a certain group moves into a location or
field of management or study, another is pushed out. This generally results in animosity and
fighting between the two. Surprisingly, the transition to a greater female presence in the
previously male-dominated field of classics did not cause resistance or fighting. Rather, the
colleges were appeased, as the enrollment numbers in these subjects had been down, and the
influx of women brought them back to a reasonable level. In addition, the 1860s and 70s saw a
rise in the popularity of science among the general U.S. population. To the common citizen,
scientific works were even as popular as general literature during this time.13 With this rise in
interest, the focus of science advancement fell to boys and their education. In Popular Science
Monthly, an editorial column was critical of their science curriculum, stated, When a mother is
ambitious that her son shall have a liberal education, and commits him to the accredited
agencies, the question, is, What will become of him? It is notorious that a pupil can go through
a course of so-called liberal study and graduate with honor at the highest institutions, in complete
ignorance of science.14 It is obvious, at least, from this editors perspective that the only merit
of science education is in the minds of men. This focus on American males and science only
increased through the turn of the century, and left a growing gap between women and the
development of their science education.
PART THREE The ClassicalHomemaker?
By the 19th century, the tables were completely turned between male and females and the
focus on science and classical education. In 1910, the number and proportion of girls studying
the classical curriculum exceeded that of boys, and the number and proportion of boys enrolled

13
14

Ibid, 156
Tolley, 156

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in the scientific curriculum was four times greater than that of girls.15 This also applied to the
gender of the instructor. In 1914, Wisconsin High School Inspectors reported that the great
majority of Latin teachers in the state were women. All of the schools they visited that offered
Latin had female teachers in these classrooms.16 This mostly female representation of Latin
teachers would only make girls see themselves more strongly in the field and cause them to
continue their studies once in college. However, Latin and other classics did not stay in
secondary education curriculum. In reality, the only reason these studies were introduced for
girls was so that they could gain acceptance to similar prestigious colleges as their male
counterparts. Their significance to women was only in the fact that they led girls away from
science and directly to the liberal arts.
Though not directly under the current umbrella of a liberal art education, the next
subject emphasized for female study was that of Home Economics. It was around the beginning
of the 20th century that the perceptions of many Americans as to the value of domestic science
had changed, for reasons related to changing demographics in secondary schools, womens
increased presence in the labor markets, and rhetoric focused on gender differences in the
context of debates over suffrage.17 This marked the conceptualization of adapting school
curriculum to match student futures. For example, in a low-middle class town in the middle of
Kansas, was a boy going to grow up and have the means by which to go to college to become a
philosopher? No, he would grow up to work in the shop or mill that his father worked in, and he
would find a wife who would mother his children. Why teach these students, both male and
female, the classics and sciences that they would never encounter in their daily lives? Would
15

Ibid.
Department of the Office of the State Superintendent High School Inspection Reports [Wisconsin], Boxes 1-4,
Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison WI (hereafter designated WSHS).
17
Tolley, 159
16

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they ever need to know trigonometry and astronomy? Greek and Latin? It is likely they would
not. So why were they being taught them in school? Horace Greely, editor of the New York
Tribune, argued I ask, not whether such studies are not useful for some purposes and persons,
but whether this does not preclude or take place of what would be more useful, what they will
urgently need to know.18 So what was it exactly that these students urgently needed to know?
The suffragist movement at the beginning of the 20th century led to turmoil regarding the
role of both male and female citizens in society. To many, the womans place was in the home,
mothering children and managing the household. As such, a new subject came into school
curriculums, that of domestic science, which was based on the applications of scientific
principles to the routines and chores of the home19 Though some may scoff at this subject being
considered a science, it did, in fact, have a scientific basis at the time of its creation. Female
students were instructed how to get stains out of clothing, taught recipes based on the
macromolecule structure of the ingredients, and the life cycles of common household pests.20
With this turn from the harder sciences to the domestic sciences, there was a vacancy in the
traditional science curriculum, which was quickly filled by boys. At Englewood High School in
Chicago, IL, school administrators tracked enrollment numbers in their different science tracks.
Boys were enrolled in science courses which focused on experimentation and observation. Girls
were put into domestic science courses, which would have a direct application in the households
that they would one day run. After implementing different science education tracks for each
gender, Englewood HS reported that their male enrollment numbers in science increased to that

18

Woody, 115
Tolley 162
20
Wilson, Lucy Langdon Williams. Domestic science in grammar grades; a reader by L.L.W. Wilson.. New York:
Macmillan, 1900.
19

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of the girls.21 The uprising of the domestic sciences as a secondary school subject, and even a
collegiate major drew girls and women away from the other sciences that they had once pursued.
Unbeknownst to them, this trend away from science and STEM fields would remain in American
educational culture and haunt the female population still today.
By the 1920s, women were earning only around 10% or less of the doctorates awarded
for science subject such as zoology, medical sciences, chemistry, and physics, and these numbers
continued to fall within the 20th century. Today, those numbers are close to 30%.22 With the
acknowledgement of this disparity in gender representation, it is likely that this number will
continue to grow over time to reach a more equitable level. The female change in focus to the
classics was a noble one, as it was in response to seeking higher education, and was not them
being steered away from a more difficult curriculum. A womans place is, and has always been
in whatever subject she wishes. As educational policy makers and leaders, including teachers in
the classroom, think of the students they are serving, one would hope that they consider all
options available.

21
22

Tolley 163
NSF 2010

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Bibliography

Beadie, Nancy. "Emma Willard's Idea Put to the Test: The Consequences of State Support of
Female Education in New York, 1819-67" History of Education Quarterly 33: 543-62.
Department of the Office of the State Superintendent High School Inspection Reports
[Wisconsin], Boxes 1-4, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison WI (hereafter
designated WSHS).
m, P. A., and Frederica Rowan. The educational institutions of the United States, their character
and organization. London: J. Chapman, 1853.
Mulhern, James. A history of secondary education in Pennsylvania. New York: Arno Press,
1969.
National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Scientists
and Engineers Statistical Data System (SESTAT), 2010.
Tolley, Kimberley. The science education of American girls: a historical perspective. New York:
RoutledgeFalmer, 2003.
Wilson, Lucy Langdon Williams. Domestic science in grammar grades; a reader by L.L.W.
Wilson.. New York: Macmillan, 1900.
Woody, Thomas. A history of women's education in the United States. New York, NY: Octagon
Books, 1966.