Lone Voyagers: Academic Women in Coeducational Institutions, 1870-1937

ISBN 10: 0935312846 ISBN 13: 9780935312843

Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY, 1993

Synopsis

Using biography, autobiography, journals, and letters, Lone Voyagers offers portraits of seven women who were the first of their sex to work as faculty and deans at coeducational universities in the United States and Canada. Most historians of higher education have focused their attention on women's colleges. Here, thanks to the research of seven scholars, are the stories of pathbreakers, pioneers, and models of achievement—stories frequently marked by loneliness, isolation, and solitary triumph.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Contemporary scholars profile seven American and Canadian academics who helped transform popular notions of womanhood by pursuing careers beyond the confines of all-female colleges, although even in coeducational institutions some were slotted into roles like dean of women. Biographical studies are followed by revealing excerpts from letters, journals and scholarly works, out of which emerge the figures' triumphs and moments of despair. "It seems as soon as I get over one hurdle, the president of the college sets up another," wrote an exasperated Lucy Diggs Slowe, Dean of Women at Howard University in 1933. An examination of Grace Raymond Hebard, chair of the department of political history of the University of Wyoming, offers a forthright, insightful analysis of the importance of close bonds between professional women in the early 20th century. The varying degrees of politicization and feminist affiliation as well as the regional heterogeneity of the subjects here produce a welcome multiplicity of voices--albeit predominantly middle-class, white voices. However, the introduction by Clifford, a professor of education at Berkeley, is disappointing in its disregard for chronology. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"This volume presents seven female academics, pioneers in coeducational universities, whose struggles and triumphs emerge poignantly in personal and public writings. The individuality, dedication, and forcefulness of each defy stereotyping. Geraldine Clifford's superb scholarly overview provides essential historical context."
Barbara Miller Solomon, author of In the Company of Educated Women

"This volume presents seven female academics, pioneers in coeducational universities, whose struggles and triumphs emerge poignantly in personal and public writings. The individuality, dedication, and forcefulness of each defy stereotyping. Geraldine Clifford's superb scholarly overview provides essential historical context."
―Barbara Miller Solomon, author of In the Company of Educated Women

Edition details

• Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0935312846
• ISBN 13: 9780935312843
• Binding: Library Binding
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 336
• Editor: Clifford Geraldine Jonçich