Lucinda Foote

Last updated

Lucinda Foote is best known for attempting to study at Yale College (now part of Yale University) in 1783, some 186 years prior to women being admitted. Her name was later used by protesters supporting the admission of women to the University in 1963.

Contents

Biography

In 1783, female student Lucinda Foote undertook the entrance exams for Yale College (now University), at the age of 12 years old. [1] Based on the results of the exams, in both Latin and Greek, she met the required standard to study at the university. However, she was rejected on the basis of her gender by the President of the University, Ezra Stiles. [2]

Stiles wrote of Foote's application: [2] [3]

Let it be known unto you, that I have tested Miss Lucinda Foote, aged 12, by way of examination, proving that she has made laudable progress in the languages of the learned, viz, the Latin and the Greek; to such an extent that I found her translating and expouding with perfick (sic) ease, both words and sentences in the whole of Vergil's Aeneid, in selected orations of Cicero, and in the Greek testament. I testify that were it not for her sex, she would be considered fit to be admitted as a student of Yale.

Legacy

When the subject of the admission of women to Yale University was raised in 1963, the student demonstrators referred to themselves as the Lucinda Foote Committee. [4] When the prospect of naming two new colleges within the University arose in 2014, history professor Jay Gitlin suggested naming them after Foote or Grace Hopper. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ivy League</span> Athletic conference of eight elite American universities

The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference, comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term Ivy League is typically used outside sports to refer to the eight schools as a group of elite colleges with connotations of academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and social elitism. Its members are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University. The conference headquarters are in Princeton, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yale University</span> Private university in New Haven, Connecticut

Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. It is among the most prestigious universities in the nation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ezra Stiles</span> American theologian, clergyman and Yale College president

Ezra Stiles was an American educator, academic, Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author. He is noted as the seventh president of Yale College (1778–1795) and one of the founders of Brown University. According to religious historian Timothy L. Hall, Stiles' tenure at Yale distinguishes him as "one of the first great American college presidents."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yale College</span> Undergraduate college of Yale University

Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, when its schools were confederated and the institution was renamed Yale University. It is ranked as one of the top colleges in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radcliffe College</span> Womens college in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1878–1999)

Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and held the popular reputation of having an intellectual, literary, and independent-minded female student body.

Numerus clausus is one of many methods used to limit the number of students who may study at a university. In many cases, the goal of the numerus clausus is simply to limit the number of students to the maximum feasible in some particularly sought-after areas of studies with an intent to keep a constant supply of qualified workforce and thus limit competition. In historical terms however, in some countries, numerus clausus policies were religious or racial quotas, both in intent and function.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edith Hamilton</span> American teacher and writer (1867-1963)

Edith Hamilton was an American educator and internationally known author who was one of the most renowned classicists of her era in the United States. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College, she also studied in Germany at the University of Leipzig and the University of Munich. Hamilton began her career as an educator and head of the Bryn Mawr School, a private college preparatory school for girls in Baltimore, Maryland; however, Hamilton is best known for her essays and best-selling books on ancient Greek and Roman civilizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catharine Beecher</span> United States educator (1800–1878)

Catharine Esther Beecher was an American educator known for her forthright opinions on female education as well as her vehement support of the many benefits of the incorporation of kindergarten into children's education. She published the advice manual The American Woman's Home with her sister Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1869. Some sources spell her first name as "Catherine".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boston Latin School</span> First public school in the United States

The Boston Latin School is a public exam school in Boston, Massachusetts. It was established on April 23, 1635, making it both the oldest public school in British America and the oldest existing school in the United States. The school's admission policies and demographics have been controversial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abraham Baldwin</span> American Founding Father and politician (1754–1807)

Abraham Baldwin was an American minister, patriot, politician, and Founding Father who signed the United States Constitution. Born and raised in Connecticut, he was a 1772 graduate of Yale College. After the Revolutionary War, Baldwin became a lawyer. He moved to the U.S. state of Georgia in the mid-1780s and founded the University of Georgia. Baldwin was a member of Society of the Cincinnati.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of West Georgia</span> Public university in Carrollton, Georgia, United States

The University of West Georgia is a public university in Carrollton, Georgia. The university offers a satellite campus in Newnan, Georgia, select classes at its Douglasville Center, and off-campus Museum Studies classes at the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta, Georgia. A total of 13,238 students, including 10,411 undergraduate and 2,827 graduate, were enrolled as of Fall 2019. The university is also one of four comprehensive universities in the University System of Georgia.

A Jewish quota was a discriminatory racial quota designed to limit or deny access for Jews to various institutions. Such quotas were widespread in the 19th and 20th centuries in developed countries and frequently present in higher education, often at prestigious universities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alfred Whitney Griswold</span> American historian and educator (1906–1963)

Alfred Whitney Griswold was an American historian and educator. He served as 16th president of Yale University from 1951 to 1963, during which he built much of Yale's modern scientific research infrastructure, especially on Science Hill.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Freeman Palmer</span> American educator (1855-1902)

Alice Freeman Palmer was an American educator. As Alice Freeman, she was president of Wellesley College from 1881 to 1887, when she left to marry the Harvard professor George Herbert Palmer. From 1892 to 1895 she was dean of women at the newly founded University of Chicago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edinburgh Seven</span> First British female medical students, 1869

The Edinburgh Seven were the first group of matriculated undergraduate female students at any British university. They began studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1869 and, although the Court of Session ruled that they should never have been admitted, and they did not graduate or qualify as doctors, the campaign they fought gained national attention and won them many supporters, including Charles Darwin. Their campaign put the demands of women for a university education on the national political agenda, and eventually resulted in legislation to ensure that women could be licensed to practice medicine in 1876.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Winona Cargile Alexander</span>

Winona Cargile Alexander was a founder of Delta Sigma Theta sorority, Incorporated at Howard University on January 13, 1913. It was the second sorority founded by African-American women and was influential in women's building civic institutions and charities. In 1915, she was the first African-American admitted to the New York School of Philanthropy, where she received a graduate fellowship for her studies. She was the first African-American hired as a social worker in New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sonja Sekula</span> American avant-garde artist, lesbian public figure

Sonja Sekula was an American artist linked with the abstract expressionist movement, notable for her activity as an "out" lesbian in the New York art world during the 1940s and early 1950s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willa Beatrice Player</span> American educator and civil rights activist

Willa Beatrice Player was an American educator, college administrator, college president, civil rights activist, and federal appointee. Player was the first African-American woman to become president of a four-year, fully accredited liberal arts college when she took the position at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Oldham</span> Irish suffragette and promoter of womens education

Alice Oldham (1850–1907) was one of the Nine Graces, the first nine women to graduate from University with a degree in either Great Britain or Ireland. Oldham was a leader of the campaign for higher education of women in Ireland and in particular of the campaign to gain admission for women to Trinity College Dublin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucinda Hinsdale Stone</span> American feminist, educator, traveler, writer and philanthropist

Lucinda Hinsdale Stone was an early American feminist, educator, traveler, writer, and philanthropist. Stone was the first woman in the United States to take classes of young women abroad to study, that means to illustrate history and literature.

References

  1. Rudolph, Frederick (1991). The American College and University: A History. Athens, Georgia: Univ. of Georgia Press. p. 307. ISBN   978-0-820312-842.
  2. 1 2 Griffin, Lynne; McCann, Kelly (1995). The Book of Women : 300 Notable Women History Passed By. Holbrook, Mass: Adams Pub. p. 103. ISBN   978-1-558505-162.
  3. Arnstein, Mary (1974). The Admission of Women to Yale College (PDF). New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. p. 1.
  4. Karabel, Jerome (2006). The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. p. 415. ISBN   978-0-618773-558.
  5. Shimer, David; Siegel, Rachel (October 10, 2014). "Naming of new colleges sparks debate". Yale Daily News. Retrieved November 29, 2017.