Alumnae in Academia
In the late 19th century, many of the country’s most educated women were being portrayed as mannish and peculiar. They endured stereotypes and isolation. Historian Vivian Gornick described the initial group of woman scholars in the 1880s: “They were people made in a different psychological proportion - the brilliant exceptions in whom the fear of freakishness became a badge of wounded honor; the mind a secret weapon.”
Women faculty at women’s colleges were expected to be single and to contribute to the oversight of the students. At Wilson, the women faculty lived on campus in Sharpe, or Harmony or one of the dorms, and were required to eat with the students. The male faculty were expected to be married and to live (and eat) off campus with their families.