Sarah Peter

Born this day in 1800: Sarah Anne Worthington King Peter (1800–1877), philanthropist who founded the Philadelphia School of Design for Women

Now the Moore College of Art and Design, the Philadelphia School of Design for Women was the first and only women’s visual arts college in the nation. Due to her wealth and position, Peter was able to acquire her own education, spoke several languages, and was well-respected for her intellect. She believed that all women, however, should have greater access to learning. The school’s original purpose reflected Peter’s lifelong concern with women’s education, the arts, and the less fortunate. The school first formed to provide single and widowed women with skills to support themselves financially.  Students were taught to design articles such as patterns for wall-paper, carpet, calico, and woodwork moldings—all of which were popular domestic items at the time. Peter’s other charitable work included ministering to Civil War soldiers, POWs, and children orphaned by the Civil War and to women’s prisons. She conducted many of her charitable activities  through the Catholic Church.

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M. Carey Thomas

 “Women while in college ought to have the broadest possible education. This college education should be the same as men’s, not only because there is but one best education, but because men’s and women’s effectiveness and happiness and the welfare of the generation to come after them will be vastly increased if their college education has given them the same intellectual training and the same scholarly and moral ideals.”

—M. Carey Thomas, 1901

Born this day in 1857: M. Carey Thomas (1857–1935), feminist and educator who raised the standard of women’s higher education

Martha Carey Thomas was born into a devout Quaker family in Baltimore, Maryland, and educated in Quaker schools. In 1872 she began studying at Howland Institute, a Quaker boarding school in New York State. After graduating from Howland, she entered Cornell University as a junior in 1875. After earning an AB degree in 1877, Thomas set out to pursue graduate level work. Johns Hopkins University allowed her to enroll, but not to attend classes with male students. She resigned the following year. She next went to Germany, studying philology at the University of Leipzig, but was refused a degree because—say it with me, people—she was a woman. She then transferred to the University of Zurich and in 1882 received a doctoral degree, summa cum laude. She spent an additional year in Europe, studying at the Sorbonne.

In 1884 Thomas returned to the United States to become an English professor and dean of Bryn Marw College, which opened in 1885. She was the first woman in the country appointed as college dean. As dean she set in motion a series of policies unheard of in women’s institutions at that time, including rigorous entrance exams, exclusively PhD faculty, and graduate programs. In 1885 she also founded, along with members of her intellectual circle known as the “Friday Night” group, Bryn Mawr School, a preparatory school for girls. The Friday Night also induced Johns Hopkins University to require college degrees for entrance into its new medical school and to accept both men and women into the school on the same terms.

In 1893 Thomas became Bryn Mawr’s second president and its first woman president. She served as the college’s president for the next 28 years, overseeing its enrollment, growth, and endowment.

In addition to being a passionate educator, Thomas was a devoted suffragist. She helped found the National College Women’s Equal Suffrage League and became its first president and was prominent member of the National Woman Suffrage Association. She was also active in the National Woman’s Party, which lobbied for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.

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Elizabeth Cary Agassiz

“Colonnade of palms” from A Journey to Brazil

Born this day in 1822: Elizabeth Cary Agassiz (1822–1907), naturalist, education pioneer, author, first president of Radcliffe College

Agassiz was born Elizabeth Cabot Cary to a prominent family in Boston. She received no formal education, but the desultory teaching she received at home served her well enough to later become both a naturalist and educator. In 1850 she married the renowned Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz, and the two formed a partnership that included science and education as well as family life.

Agassiz took careful notes of her husband’s lectures, which he then turned into works for publication. Although Elizabeth worried that her lack of formal training might compromise the result, she proved talented at science writing. She published several titles of her own, including A First Lesson in Natural History (1859), Seaside Studies in Natural History (with her stepson, Alexander Agassiz, 1865), and A Journey in Brazil (with her husband, 1867).

Elizabeth proved to have better managerial skills than her husband. She handled not only the family finances, but that of his work as well. She organized, managed, and kept notes for several of his major expeditions, including the Thayer Expedition to Brazil (learning Portuguese en route!). A Journey in Brazil was a recollection of that trip, taken from her journals and her husband’s scientific observations and including descriptions of their introduction to Brazilian society. The book was very popular with general audiences.

“I wish it were possible to give in words the faintest idea of the architectural beauty of this colonnade of palms, with their green crowns meeting to form the roof. Straight, firm, and smooth as stone columns, a dim vision of colonnades in some ancient Egyptian temple rises to the imagination as one looks down the long vista.” —A Journey in Brazil 

Agassiz ran a school for girls in Cambridge from 1855 to 1863. In 1873 the Agassizes founded a coeducational school of natural history, a marine laboratory located in Buzzard’s Bay, Massachusetts. Mr. Aggasiz died in December of that year. In 1885 Elizabeth wrote his biography, Louis Agassiz, his Life and Correspondence.

Agassiz firmly believed that women should have access to the same education as men. In 1879 she established the “Harvard Annex,” a program of higher education for women, whereby they could be taught by Harvard Faculty. The annex was formally incorporated as the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women, and Agassiz became its first president. The college was named Radcliffe College in 1894 (to honor benefactor Ann Radcliffe, who established Harvard’s first scholarship in 1643).

Agassiz also enjoyed, and excelled at, the duties of home life. She raised three stepchildren and three grandchildren (her stepson’s wife died 8 days after Louis Agassiz died). Her stepson described her as “my mother, my sister, my companion and friend, all in one.”

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