Emma Willard was an American women's rights advocate and the pioneer who
founded the first women's school of higher education. Her father had a liberal
frame of mind and educated her as far as possible in the system of that day.
When, at the age of 12, she began to teach herself geometry, a study of which
the female brain was literally thought incapable, her father saw her through it
and also engaged her in discussions of philosophy. Emma started teaching at the
age of 17. She married in 1809.
In 1814, at the age of 25, she opened the Middlebury Female Seminary in
her home. In 1819 the Willards moved to Waterford, New York, and she opened a
school there. In 1821 she moved on to Troy, New York, where the town council
had raised money to build a girls’ school. The Troy Female Seminary opened
in September 1821 and began its long history as one of the most influential
schools in the United States. It was a pioneer in the teaching of science,
mathematics, and social studies to girls. Mrs. Willard's husband died in 1825,
but she continued to manage the institution until 1838, when she placed it in
the hands of her son and her daughter-in-law. The Troy Female Seminary was
renamed the Emma Willard School in 1895 and it is still flourishing today.
In 1830, Emma made a tour of Europe, and three years later published
Journals and Letters from Great Britain; the proceeds from the sale of
the book she gave to a school for women that she helped to found in Athens,
Greece. Her later years were filled with traveling, lecturing, and writing. In
1854 she represented the United States at the World’s Educational
Convention in London.
