1	Diversity and Equity Schooling Girls and Women Chapter 5
2	Political/Economy American Revolution stimulated discussion about how a new nation could be forged and how public schooling could be used for nation building. Common schools and their need for teachers led women to work force. The growing industry required clerical help for which the women were considered suited.
3	Ideology Women were entitled to education but they were inferior to men. The need to control and govern women necessary.
4	Schooling Increased number of girls in pubic schools and a curriculum of domestic sciences. Attitudes toward gender found in basic ideological commitments in religious traditions. Women were viewed as dependent and irrational beings. Girls were barred from public schooling from the 1630’s to the eve of the Revolution because: It was not considered necessary to educate girls in an agrarian and frontier society when only a few people required education. It was also the common belief the females were basically unsuited for intellectual activities. Affluent women were often tutored at home or private academies (social graces). The only goal for most women was marriage.
5	Women were believed to: Be responsible for the comfort of her family and husband. Be models of manners and morals to future generations. The Cult of Domesticity – encouraged women be educated in the roles exclusive to women: homemaking and nurturing-teaching roles. Radicals demanded gender equality, these included: Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Elisabeth Cady Stanton and others. The Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention in 1848, called for the opening of higher education through a vote. This vote and demand was realized with the opening of the Normal schools, supported by Horace Mann.
6	"Vassar College founded on the..." Vassar College founded on the premise that women were equal to men was a major breakthrough for higher education for women. Domestic Vocational Education – patterned the curriculum around the domestic science (sewing, cooking, family accounting and hospitality). Commercial Education (clerical - typing ,stenography, bookkeeping ). Women were hired in businesses as stenographers and secretaries. Commercial Education was seen as appropriate to white working class females.
7	Emma Willard The Plan for Improving Female Education The primary purpose of the Plan was to convince the voters and legislators to provide public funds for higher education for women. Higher education which had intellectual goals instead of finishing schools. Education should seek to bring its subjects to the perfection of their moral, intellectual and physical nature, that they may be of the greatest possible use to themselves and others. Female seminary – supported by public funds, would provide instruction in religion and morals, literary, domestic and ornamental. Benefits of Female Seminaries – graduates of these seminaries would become teachers in the common schools, where they would raise the level of instruction because of their specific training. The advantage to the nation was that women would teach at lower salaries than men, but men would increase productivity in male-dominated occupations because they would not be teaching.