1857-1935
College President, Feminist Educator

Female Scholar.

The life and career of M. Carey Thomas highlighted both the educational limitations and possibilities that women faced at the beginning of the twentieth century. Most Americans at that time felt that educating a young woman beyond elementary school was unnecessary, perhaps even harmful. Her future life as mother and wife required only the most rudimentary level of literacy, according to the opponents of female education. Consequently, high-school attendance for girls was rare, and college opportunities for women were virtually nonexistent. Women who succeeded in going to college had few career options upon graduation and were frequently scorned and belittled by society. Thomas heroically rose above these circumstances and became a scholar of the first rank. Eventually, she also became president of Bryn Mawr, a women's college outside of Philadelphia; at Bryn Mawr she fashioned an institution of...