For Northwestern students, Frances Willard’s name has always been associated with taking away alhol and, of course, the annual party to mock her. But NU might have single-sex parties now had Willard not worked for coeducation at NU.
Though Willard primarily is known for her role in getting Prohibition passed while serving as president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, she also was instrumental in making Northwestern a coeducational institution, according to Carolyn Gifford, a research associate in gender studies.
About 20 people attended Gifford’s “Young Ladies at NU? Frances Willard and the Experiment in Coeducation at Northwestern” on Saturday in Scott Hall as part of the sesquicentennial kickoff weekend.
When the Evanston College for Ladies began classes in 1871, higher education for women lacked support in the United States. “Probably still then, the majority in the U.S. believed that women were not fit for higher education,” Gifford said.
Despite having popular opinion against them, a group of Evanston women led by Mary Haskin conceived of a nurturing, intellectual college run entirely by women.
“The Ladies Education Society of Evanston had a very bold vision of what this institution would be from its inception,” Gifford said.
At the same time, Willard was touring Europe with a friend to further her studies because American women at that time could not attend universities.
“This trip to Europe was her ‘graduate’ school,” Gifford said.
Upon her return, Willard was asked to become president of what would become the Evanston College for Ladies. Aided by then-University President Erastus Haven, a proponent of women’s education, Willard began planning a large Fourth of July celebration to raise money and support for the college.
The festivities brought about 10,000 people to campus and raised more than $30,000 in pledges — more than enough to guarantee the building of the college.
But the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 caused many people to take back their financial pledges to the College, leaving them with half the money needed to construct their first building, Gifford said. The building, which is now the Music Administration Building, was left with only its first floor completed.
“It was a disaster from which the Evanston College for Ladies could not recover,” Gifford said. Many of the pledges received by the college also were from people who were devastated by the fire. After two years of unsuccessfully trying to raise more money for the building, the women’s college had no other option but to merge with NU.
Although NU had admitted its first female student in 1869, it officially became coeducational after the 1873 merger, when Willard was named NU’s first dean of women. Willard left the university in 1874 over differences of opinion between her and University President Charles Fowler on her authority over NU’s female students, contrary to the rumor that it was their broken engagement that forced her to leave.
“Very few people have any idea about her, and if they do have any idea of her, they think she’s responsible for liquor being outlawed on the campus until the 1970s,” Gifford said. “But that isn’t true.”
• Read more coverage from the Sesquicentennial Celebration
