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April 2006 EOP Newsletter
- From The Director
- EOP’S Mentoring Program
- Financial Aid Report
- Celebrating Success
- Career Corner
- Spring Birthdays
- Student Activities
- Shout Outs
- Education for Women in Colonel America
- Student Spotlight
- Farewell and Best Wishes to Ida Rockwell
Education for Women in Colonial America
By; Barbara LeSavoy PhD
When education began in Colonial America, its intentions were confined by the gender restricted roles women and men occupied in early American society. The view of women as inferior to men was transported from Europe and then rooted into the educational culture and traditions of the founding colonies. When Early American life began, women’s educational opportunities were always second to their male counterparts -- race and social class subordinated women even further
Gender was the first determinant in dictating what and how settlers learned in the New World. In Colonial America, the domestic function women were to assume made formal education a male only domain. The private or town sponsored schools that sprung up in the colonies were designed to teach boys reading, writing, and arithmetic -- and many of the well to-do boys -- grammar and languages in preparation for college. In comparison, only reading instruction was available to girls, either taught at home by other women, or, through the private dame schools, where women also were schooled in the social graces so they would be able to assume roles as adequate homemakers. Instruction in writing -- viewed as a complex, job-related craft taught only by and for men – was a skill that neither was taught to colonial women, nor deemed essential for their domesticated lives.
In addition to gender, social class also determined the type and extent of education colonial women were granted. For example, historians cites instances where impoverished boys were afforded reading and writing instruction, whereas impoverished girls were taught only to read and sew. Comparatively, history shows that high social standing resulted in greater educational opportunities for affluent women, realized by well-to-do females who were provided access to private male writing tutors. Literacy rates among poor women also were cited as lower than other male and female groups – in fact – historians find that even as early as colonial times, a high correlation existed between poverty and illiteracy.
The limited educational opportunities available to women in Colonial America largely reflected the experiences of Anglo women who arrived in America from the English Colonies. But women who belonged to races other than Anglican experienced many additional educational restrictions. Native American girls, for example, only were included in any offered female instruction as way to convert them to Christian life, and even then, such so called “charitable” instances were rare. And Historians note that African women who arrived in America as slaves were not free to engage in formal learning opportunities afforded white women.
The view of women as intellectually inferior to men predominated much of educational thought in Colonial America. Anglican, African, or Native American; rich or poor; and male or female all played an important role in deciding women’s educational prospects. Domesticity defined women’s lives, and to a large degree, dictated the what and how of what most women learned. Clearly, wealthy, urban women had the best chance to master reading and writing while poor urban girls were most likely destined for illiteracy. As early American society progressed, girls eventually benefited in learning to read and write in a formal way. Bur even with those hard-won gains, education for women in Colonial America remained a secondary cause, with race, class, and gender all taking a back seat to the social and educational advancement of men.
