Women in Colleges: Education as a means to Independence

With new Enlightenment teachings of “the natural rights and liberties of all humans” and the desire for independence came a pressing need for education. “The New Woman demanded the right to attend college, and not just at women's colleges”[1]. Previously, women were highly motivated to marry primarily for financial support, as there was little work a woman could get outside of maid services.  However, with the massive industrialization brought by the Gilded Age, the city created a plethora of work opportunities for women. “Office work, which had traditionally been dominated by males, began to attract women”[2]. This caused clear unrest among men in the office who now in the presence of women, were socially forced to conduct themselves in gentlemanly fashion as they were now in the presence of women. Women, who now made up a quarter of the work force, found they were able to make a decent wage and as such were not totally reliant on marriage to create a stable life. “From the 1870s through the 1920s, between 40 and 60 percent of women college graduates did not marry, at a time when only 10 percent of all American women did not"[3]. Many women chose to live in single sex households which fostered independence and networking communities while they chose to pursue a career or further education. The New Woman "had invested college education with her dreams of autonomy and power, which would lead to a new identity, and equality with men”[4]. With this shift from “True Womanhood” to “Real Womanhood” in marriage a real womanhood “saw education as enabling a woman "to attract the right kind of man and … fulfill the duties of wife and companion, a woman with an education was more likely to be a suitable partner for an educated husband, better able to participate in conversations on a more equal level of understanding”[5]. Education allowed women of the Gilded Age to enter with confidence into the public realm and open further opportunities of independence.