women’shistoryofhighereducationintheamericansouth（25页）.docVIP

The Push towards Collegiate Coeducation: National Collegiate Coeducation Development and the Distinct Southern Resistance— 1830 through the Progressive Era Introduction The push for women’s integration into colleges and universities from 1830 to 1920 was a fluctuating struggle that claimed influences as diverse as World Wars to infertility hypotheses. After the Civil War, collegiate coeducation came reasonably quickly to the North, Midwest and West, but the South remained immune to many national influences and lagged significantly behind. The purpose of this paper is threefold: 1) to explore college coeducation development nationwide 2) to identify why college coeducation was slower to be adopted in the South than anywhere else in the country and 3) what this legacy of stalled advancement translated into for women who attended public and private Southern colleges and universities. For the purposes of this paper, the South encompasses the “Old South” (all Southeastern states), Arkansas, and Texas. The following account is not only a history of coeducation adoption in the country, but also a history of women’s collegiate education in the South and how men and women interacted in this region. Influences on Coeducation Adoption in the U.S. An exploration of the pace and path of gender desegregation in higher education cannot begin without Oberlin College’s story. Founded on September 6, 1833, Oberlin Collegiate Institute in Oberlin, Ohio became the first college in the United States to grant degrees to both men and women. Later renamed Oberlin College, the institute’s mission was to train teachers and preachers to fan the flames of the Second Great Awakening in what was then the American West. Oberlin became a model for coeducation, and, after a decision in 1835 to accept students of color, an avid proponent of racial egalitarianism. The first African-American woman granted a college degree in the U.S. graduated from