author
Emma Willard
1787–1870
A pioneering American educator, she helped change what girls were allowed to study in the early United States. Her work at the Troy Female Seminary opened the door to a broader, more serious education for women.
2 Audiobooks
A plan for improving female education
by Emma Willard
About the author
Born in Berlin, Connecticut, in 1787, Emma Willard became one of the most important advocates for women's education in 19th-century America. At a time when advanced schooling for girls was rare, she argued that women deserved rigorous instruction in subjects like mathematics, history, and science, not just ornamental training.
She taught in several schools before founding the Troy Female Seminary in New York in 1821. The school became a model for higher education for women in the United States, and her ideas helped encourage the later growth of girls' high schools, women's colleges, and coeducational institutions.
Willard was also a writer who produced textbooks and educational works, especially in history and geography. She died in 1870, but her influence remained strong through the generations of students and teachers shaped by the standards she helped set.