A Vision for Girls: Gender, Education, and the Bryn Mawr School (review)

In the tradition of research on women's colleges, historian Andrea Hamilton investigates the experience of girls at one of the first all-girls' schools. Hamilton follows the creation of Bryn Mawr School, established in Baltimore in 1885, and traces its evolution to the present. The work is set in the context of changing historical norms and expectations for the precollegiate education of girls.

The publication of the book is as noteworthy as the actual content of the book. Two years prior to final publication, the author was involved in legal wrangling with Bryn Mawr over publication rights. The Johns Hopkins University Press rescinded its offer to publish under threat of lawsuit from the school. Shortly after articles appeared about Hamilton's troubles in both The Chronicle of Higher Education (Ruark, 2002) and in the Baltimore Sun (Bowler, 2002), Bryn Mawr trustees ultimately permitted the book's publication with an inserted caveat that the book was not a sanctioned history and did not represent the opinions of those associated with the school.

Despite the rocky road to publication, the book provides a significant missing historical perspective regarding the role of all-girl schools in American public education. The book highlights the influence of society's gendered roles and expectations regarding careers for girls and how this perspective has changed over time. At its inception, the school's founders envisioned an institution that would academically prepare girls for higher education with the same rigor with which boys were prepared. In current times, this goal may not seem significant, but at the time of Bryn Mawr's founding in 1885 the roles and options for girls were severely restricted and defined by domestic pursuits.

The book is set in six stages ranging from the inception of the idea for the school and the establishment of the school in the late 1800s, to the transformation of the original vision and establishment of a new image in the early to mid-twentieth century, to the challenging of historic norms and reinvention of a new guiding paradigm in the last half of the twentieth century. The first third of the book is particularly rich in painting a portrait of the early days of the school and in providing insight into the roles of women founders and headmistresses.

The original conception for the school germinated with a group of five women. Martha Carey Thomas (also president of Bryn Mawr College), Mary Elizabeth Garrett (daughter and beneficiary of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad mogul John Garrett), Mary Mackall Gwinn (daughter of a prominent Baltimore family), Elizabeth Tabor King, and Julia Rebecca Rogers. Bryn Mawr School was established to act as a feeder school for Bryn Mawr College—one of the "seven sister" women's colleges. Not only did the school allow for the education of precollegiate girls, but it also provided an opportunity for employing the early graduates of Bryn Mawr College and other colleges.

This school was frame-breaking in that it was more than just an expansion of public education. Rather the founders sought to provide parity for academic pursuits for women. Ironically, as the school changed over time in response to community and parental demands, the country day-school model of the school in the 1950s in fact reified roles for women in ways that were antithetical to the intentions of the school's founders. The school went from being a trend-setter and leader in pushing the boundaries for girls to more of a follower of currently accepted practices regarding expectations for girls. Over time, the privileged status of the families using the private school established the grounds for tensions as the Bryn Mawr School sought to redefine its mission and vision for educating a more inclusive group of girls and to bridge the school with the surrounding community.

Men took on an increased role in the operations of the school, in particular regarding...