The American education system during the nineteenth century was wrought with gender disparity, and coeducation, as Andrea Radke-Moss explains in her book Bright Epoch: Women and Coeducation in the American West, was debated on even as late as 1869. “…coeducation was still a hotly debated national topic, and much of the country, especially in the conservative East, balked at the acceptance of women students to colleges.” Moss also explains the viewpoint that many critics of coeducation took. They argued that too much education weakened women both physically and mentally. Suggestions were made that women “distracted impressionable young men and that mixed-gender environments inevitably led to moral depravity, because young men ended up too confused to keep their minds on their studies.” In the midst of these negative reactions, though, came a transitional period within American education.
The Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 was one factor that began to change this ever-present cycle of male-dominated education, serving as a catalyst to prompt gradual change. Its mission—stated in section four—explains:
…each State which may take and claim the benefit of this act, to the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college where the leading object shall be…to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts…in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in several pursuits and professions in life.
Although coeducation was not mandated within the Morrill Act, by 1890, every state included the admission of women in its land grant charter. With the passage of this legislation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, many states in the American Midwest began to charter land grant institutions following the Civil War.
It was the Civil War and increased settlement in the Plains that prompted a higher concern for education. Although public education was not yet compulsory in the U.S., communities in the Midwest began organizing schools and hiring teachers—many of them unmarried, young daughters of homesteaders in the area, especially in the years after the war when there was a shortage of male teachers. This surge in the need for educated prompted the issue that they were often uneducated themselves, so institutionalized teacher training became necessary.
Separate from teacher training, university education for women had an important start in the Great Plains, as implied through the Morrill Act. Since coeducation was a relatively new idea not yet accepted in the United States, the admission of women as students of these institutions was an important experiment for women on the Plains. Land grant universities were unique. Although domestic economy education for women was most prevalent, new opportunities arose through institutions established by the Morrill Act. Since women and men studied basic science courses together and then were divided by gender in upper-level courses, specific importance was placed on the practical application of previous coursework. For example, women focused their science education on their role as housewives, using chemistry in the study of nutrition for healthy meal preparation. This model of education within land grant universities—many of which paved the way for female admission—even prompted some women to build on their undergraduate backgrounds to pursue graduate degrees.
Kansas State Agricultural College (KSAC), now Kansas State University, was one of these institutions and was the first to admit women. Established in 1863 as the successor to Bluemont Central College—a private, Methodist institution—KSAC has been coeducational since its founding, in addition to supporting the mission of the Morrill Land Grant Act. The faculty, too, had female involvement since the establishment of KSAC, and Professor Julius T. Willard mentions members of the first faculty in his book on the university’s history:
When Kansas State Agricultural College opened in the Bluemont Central College building in 1863, the faculty consisted of Rev. Joseph Denison, A. M, president and professor of mental and moral science and ancient languages; J. G. Schnebly, A. M., professor of mathematics and natural science; Miss Belle M. Haines, teacher in the preparatory department; and Mrs. Eliza C. Beckwith, teacher of music on melodeon and piano.
Although beginning with only two female faculty members, this number at KSAC would eventually grow and include many more to close the gender gap so prevalent in nineteenth-century educational institutions. Over a period of more than a century-and-a-half, these faculty members have contributed to the continuance of the Morrill Land Grant mission of the quest for knowledge and education for all.
The People's Party at KSAC
