biography
| name: |
Willard, Emma
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| |
née Hart
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| sex:
| female
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| lived:
| (1787–1870)
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| biography:
| Educator, born in Berlin, Connecticut, USA. Raised by a father who, while a farmer, encouraged her to read and think for herself, she attended a local academy (1802–4) and then began teaching. In 1807 she went to Middlebury, VT to head a female academy there, marrying a local doctor (1809). She opened her own school, the Middlebury Female Seminary (1814), to provide advanced education that young women were denied by colleges. Her Address... Proposing a Plan for Improving Female Education (1819) was a much admired and influential proposal to get public support for advanced education for young women. In 1821 she moved to Troy, NY, where she opened the Troy Female Seminary (renamed the Emma Willard School in 1895). With both boarding and day students, in some respects it was the first US institution of serious learning for young women, though even it recognized that most of its graduates would be housewives, not professionals, and most of its students came from families of means. The school actually made a profit, and she also earned money from the textbooks she wrote. (She also wrote poetry; only ‘Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep’ remains known.) After her husband died (1825), she ran the school until 1838. Her second marriage proved disastrous, and she was separated within nine months. Her later years were spent in travelling to promote education for women, and she returned to Troy in 1844. |
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