American higher education began as an all-male bastion in 1636 when Harvard College was founded primarily to provide the colonies with an educated clergy. It was not until 200 years later in 1837 that Oberlin College in Ohio enrolled four females (Rudolph, 1962). Opening academia’s door to women was not easy; women’s roles centered on marriage and child rearing. They could not vote. Women had few rights and scant opportunities for utilizing academic talents.
In recounting the history of higher education and the manner in which women were treated and educated, one must take into account that situations were different throughout the country. The higher education of women occurred at different rates and in different ways. Harvard University’s founding in 1636 provided men’s institutions with a 200-year-old heritage prior to coeducation at the collegiate level. The collegiate environment varied greatly depending upon the institution and its location. The well-established, eastern Ivy League schools and the founding of their coordinate and affiliated women’s institutions differed from the small coeducational institutions founded and funded by religious denominations. Those varied greatly from the eastern women’s colleges, which themselves were a world apart from the finishing school atmosphere of the southern female academies and seminaries. The midwestern state universities took shape, and the passage of the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 fostered greater accessibility to higher education for both men and women.
In 1870, there were 582 institutions of higher education in the United States, and of that number only 29% were coeducational; 12% were female only and 59% were male only (Solomon, 1985). That same year, despite increased opportunities, less than one percent of all females 18 through 21 years of age were enrolled in higher education (Newcomer, 1959). Of the 97 major coeducational institutions in the United States in 1872, the majority, 67, were in the West (the West in those days included much of what is today considered the Midwest). There were 17 coeducational institutions in the South. The East shared eight in the Middle Atlantic states and five in New England (Woody, 1929). By 1900, just 30 years later, more than two-thirds of collegiate women attended coeducational institutions (Newcomer, 1959).
Today there are approximately 60 all-women’s colleges in the United States and only three all-male colleges. Many previously single-sex institutions became coeducational in the 1970s and 1980s.*
The three all-male colleges are: Hampden-Sydney College in Hampden-Sydney, Virginia; Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia; and Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Each has a well-established fraternity system.
Hampden-Sydney College was founded in 1775 and it is the country’s tenth oldest institution of higher education. The first fraternity at the school was the Zeta Chapter of Beta Theta Phi, founded in 1850. It was followed by Phi Kappa Psi in 1855. Both chapters are dormant. The oldest chapter of the eight chapters currently on campus is the Epsilon Chapter of Chi Phi, founded in 1867.
Wabash College was founded in 1832 as the Wabash Teachers Seminary and Manual Labor College. The Tau Chapter of Beta Theta Phi was founded at Wabash in 1847, eight years after the fraternity was founded. It has been in continuous existence since then, although from 1849-56 it operated sub-rosa due to anti-fraternity sentiment. Today, there are 10 national fraternity chapters on the campus.
Morehouse College, the country’s only all-male historically black college (HBC), was founded in 1867. It began as Augusta Theological Institute; the primary purpose at its founding was to train ministers and teachers. It was first located in the basement of the Springfield Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia. Morehouse College’s fraternity system came to life in 1921 when a Kappa Alpha Psi chapter was founded. It was followed in 1924 by chapters of Alpha Phi Alpha and Omega Psi Phi.
*My husband is an alumnus of Washington and Lee University. I remember quite well the letters to the editor of the W&L magazine when the debate about coeducation was taking place. My favorite was the one from an alumnus stating that the name of the school should be changed to Washington and Louise. When our daughter was born, W&L was still all male; the Alumni Association sent her a baby-sized “W&L Fancy Dress Ball” t-shirt. When our sons were born a year and a half later, they were sent “Class of 2008” t-shirts. I suspect that today, both boys and girls are sent “Class of” t-shirts.
©Fran Beceque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2013. All rights reserved.
