ABSTRACT
In a March 1915 article published in the Ladies’ Home Journal ( LHJ or Journal ), Dr. Caroline Hazard, the former president of Wellesley, a prestigious woman’s college, outlined the dynamics of a discussion about the pros and cons of college for women which had been occurring in society and the magazine since the late nineteenth century. She explained, “The questions which are asked, by both the doubters and the believers in college education for women, are very fundamental and far reaching.” The queries that dominated the conversation involved the immediate effects of collegiate life on female students, but more widely how the college experience impacted the graduate for the rest of her life. Between 1890 and 1920, medical experts, LHJ authors, and American society at large debated the effects of higher education on women in regards to health, family relations, marriage, motherhood, childbearing, spinsterhood, employment, and the proper role of women in society. Hazard’s broad questions encased the major concerns presented in the vast discourse. She asked,
Does the college make good? Is it able to satisfy the demands it awakens? Is the quickened life that it fosters a sane and wholesome life, one which fits the student to progress on the road in which she has set her feet, with profit and happiness to herself and to those about her?
