6
''Remember the ladies, do not put such unlimited power into
the hands of husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if
they could... ” Abigail to John Adams
In the years following the revolution there was a great deal of rhetoric concerning the
education of women. In 1787 the Young Ladies Academy opened In Philadelphia. As the
name suggests, “young ladies" were given the opportunity to study grammar, geography,
arithmetic and the formerly all male art of oratory. The school was under the leadership of
the city's most influential men, who founded it and taught in it. They still believed that a
woman's place was in the home and that by educating herself she would be better able to
aid her husband in his quest for success. They were to serve as “stewards and guardians
of their husband’s property." The first student rolls show that the "ladies" were mostly
from the wealthiest families in the city. Most families could not afford to even educate a
son, let alone waste the money on a daughter. A son could probably earn his tuition back
many times over but a daughter who would get married and stay in the home could not.
Students like Priscella Mason, however orated upon the opportunities that an education
could present for her sex. She called on her sisters to use their new found knowledge to
participate more fully to “qualify ourselves for those high departments they (men) will
open for us." In her naive way Priscilla Mason expected an eon of suppression to be
eliminated because she was educated.
As the wealth of the young nation grew, a generation of women emerged who believed
all that was required of them was ornamental duties and they tried as best as possible to
emulate the idle life of wealthy European women. The majority of the female populace
however was far too poor to attend a ladies academy or any other kind of school. The op
portunities for an education were limited to the privileged few and it would be a century
before all women would be extended this right.
Abigail Adams Is said to have told her son, John Quincy, when he was looking for a bride
that “girls were frivolous because men liked them that way." They were like clay in the
hands of the artist to be “molded to whatever form (men) please." That Abigail was less
than pleased with the status of women after the revolution Is evident. She and others like
her, famous or anonymous, were unaware that they were laying the foundation for the
social movements that would rise up in the next century. Meanwhile, women continued to
push westward alongside their husbands, fathers, or masters, carving a country out of the
wilderness with the indomitable spirit unique to women.
Mary Ann Osby is a senior majoring in history.
This is the first of her four-part senior thesis.
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