ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on developments in education of women, African, Native, and Hispanic Americans. Education for girls and women in the colonial and national periods was tailored to fit their traditional future roles as wives and mothers. Emma Willard was one who turned all of her efforts to improving education of women. Her own educational interests began early. Mary Mason Lyon was born in rural Massachusetts and spent much of her youth attending one-room schools and keeping house for an older brother. In 1834 Lyon took the first steps in making her dream of a women's school a reality. Women's admission to schooling beyond the baccalaureate degree became an issue as the nineteenth century progressed. As graduate and professional schools developed, hardly anyone thought of admitting women. Throughout much of the nineteenth century, advanced schooling was not essential for a professional career; for example, a person was considered competently trained for a career by assisting a practicing doctor or lawyer.
