Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Emma Hart Willard

Emma Hart Willard was born on February 23, 1887, in Berlin Connecticut. Emma Hart Willard was an American Women's Rights activist who dedicated her life to education. Willard wrote and voiced her views and opinions on opening higher education to women. With the original support from Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Monroe, Willard eventually gained enough support from other people within the community to commence an academy for women. Willard opened Troy Female Seminary, which was an institution dedicated towards preparing professional teachers. This institution provided teacher education programs with experience and training years before the first normal teacher training school was founded. Emma Hart Willard also began to write textbooks on how to teach and how to teach more humanely compared to the stile of teaching that was occurring at the time. 


The curriculum at the Troy Female Seminary consisted of subjects that Emma Hart Willard most desired to include in women's education such as mathematics, philosophy, geography, history, and science. Her success led to an enrollment of over 300 students, attracting students from extremely wealthy families and families that were of high position. Although the women that came out of the Troy Female Seminary mostly continued to marry into a housewife position,  Emma Hart Willard still fought for women's rights and never hindered her student's pursuit towards women's education. 

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