For Honor and Alma Mater: Perspectives on Coeducation at Cornell University,1868–1885

Abstract

When Cornell University first officially welcomed women students in 1872, its patriarchs placed great emphasis on provision of equal opportunity for female and male students. After twelve years of defining this “equality” with a laissez faire approach to non-academic student matters, the Board of Trustees, dominated by Henry W. Sage, imposed compulsory residence requirements for women. This move prompted vociferous anger from the Cornell alumnae, who saw the move as institutionalizing discrimination between male and female students. This article explores the conflict between these early Cornell women and the Board of Trustees, focusing on the formal protest, the “Sage College Memorial,” which the women presented to the Board in June of 1885, after a year of close correspondence among themselves.

The incident is significant not only because it illustrates the dubious maturation of formal coeducation from a simplistic policy of open admissions into a deliberate program for gender-role socialization, but also because in doing so it investigates a perspective too seldom discussed in the history of American higher education: the history of women students. The article also suggests that the role of formal coeducation as a mechanism for gender-role socialization would be a fruitful area for further research, as would be the more difficult realm of informal patterns of personal interaction and attitudes which contribute so significantly to define the parameters of the learning experience in the undergraduate world.