3.Nash+Womens+Education+1780-1840


 * **BOOK** || **QUOTATION** || **My Reaction/Comments** ||  ||
 * Nash Women's Education || "The academies and seminaries if the early republic and antebellum era paved the way for the women's college movement, not by proving women's intellectual capabilities, but by institutionalizing women's //right// to education and setting in motion a commitment to access equal education for women." p.116. || closing argument by Nash reaffirms her theme throughout the book. that women and men were able to function at the same level of intellect. throughout ,most of the US history that was not challenged until after the 1900's according to Nash. ||  ||
 * Nash || "The articles and essays recommending 'social utility' of women's education have received much attention form scholars, whereas the equally important theme of education for women's self-interest and fulfillment has been neglected." p.28. || Nash entitled her chapter "Is not a Woman a Human Being?"from the Britiash essayist's famous quote of 1799. "Reflective of Enlightenment thought" P. 15. This appealed to many religious leaders and many of those in the new colonies attitudes on the inclusion of women in educative endeavors. ||  ||
 * Nash || " 'Improvement' was a catchword of the antebellum era." p. 61 ||  ||   ||
 * Nash || "Although the focus of historical writing on the self-improvement movement has been on men, women clearly were also a part of this movement." p. 62 || Nash pulls from local journals, and periodicals of the time to support her ideas. The teachers of the time were women and not just because men were turning to other roles. These women were actively encouraging their students to continue their educational goals. Nash points to Catherine Beecher as one of those leading in this movement of 'improvement' for self. ||  ||
 * ||  || As in the previous chapters Nash pulls from the voices of religious leaders in the nation. Many were looking to further evangelism. Leaders found this a good reason to include women and girls in the instruction of reading and writing. These tools would then enable the church's to send women as missionaries. ||   ||
 * Nash || "Judged on the basis of course offerings, academic standards rose consistently in female seminaries and academies. Out of the 91 schools for which such information was collected, 19 percent offered algebra in the 1820s, while 67 percent did do in the 1830s. Similarly, 34 percent offered geometry in the 1820s, compared to 74 percent in the 1830s. the percentage of schools offering botany rose from 38 percent in the 1820s to 72 in the 1830s." p.87. || The details used by Nash in her narrative employ the lens of a Social Historian. She claims data and numbers on enrollment and courses offered to back up her theory that women were being educated in the same subjects and curricula as the men of the era. ||  ||
 * Nash || "Rhetoric surrounding the love of learning was strikingly similar for men and women. Women were allured to the temple of science, and thirsted to drink from the fountains of knowledge." p. 94. || The relationship here can be connected to another book I read. "The Science Education" by Tolley. A comparison shows how women and girls were not thought to be lacking in any way intellectually when it came to the sciences or to languages. this is fer different form the views since the later part of the nineteenth century and on into the twentieth century. The shift in thinking about women reflected ironically after women began t enter more into the public sphere. more concentration on domestic studies and teaching young girls about their 'place' in the home began to replace the academic unity shown by both Nash and Tolley that existed form the late 1700's until the 1840's through the collections on data of courses taught at both male academies and female institutions of higher learning. ||  ||
 * Nash || "Advanced education for women and men was more similar than it was different in both curricula and pedagogy between 1780 and 1840." p. 99. ||  ||   ||
 * Nash || "The most salient difference in educational opportunities was that of class and race, not gender. Only a small group of mostly white and middle-class people attended academies, seminaries, and colleges.By the 1820s and 1830s, that experience became part of the formation of a middle-class identity and the consolidation of middle-class cultural imperatives." p. 99. || When I read this I am reminded of the influence of Marxism on the writing of history. The focus on studies of relationship to education here lists gender as a minor issue. that class made for a center stage of the society as it related to access to education. While most of the book has focused on the reasons behind the equality between women and men academically. Her in the last chapter does Nash bring into the discussion the issue of class. The relatively small number of those with access to education during those time periods covered were those with economic means to afford such. The emergence of the 'middling-class' had more to do with the perceptions of forming and creating a social structure, according to Nash, than the access to education of women did. ||  ||
 * Nash || "Largely unspoken as a goal, higher education also functioned as a delineator of social classes. for all these reasons, curricula and pedagogy did not need to be starkly differentiated for women and men." p. 104. || The need to create a world where both men and women would become socially functional and thus create the strength of a new class in order to struggle against the 'others' in society shows a very strong tie to Marxist thought. Nash makes a very strong statement here throughout this Chapter 6, //Possibilites and Limitations,// that class and race served the largest influence of the education of women in the middle nineteenth century than any other factor. Her claims are that these two areas were of much greater impact than even the access to education of women because of gender. ||  ||
 * Nash || "At a minimum, higher education gave women confidence in their intellectual abilities." p.112. || Chapter 6, the most historiographical portion of the book concludes by looking at the many emerging views and discourses on the upcoming years after the end of this study-1840 and beyond. Nash elaborates on the works of many historians that attribute the ability of women who joined and lead the movements for women's suffrage to their work in the middle years of the nineteenth century as abolitionists. in addition to the work of the temperance movement and the evangelical movements. However, Nash clearly argues that the education and skills that women attained through their education may have actually been the strongest roots that gave women the training and abilities to create and sustain the movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. ||  ||