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To Know Her Own History chronicles the evolution of writing programs at a landmark Southern women's college during the postwar period. Kelly Ritter finds that despite its conservative Southern culture and vocational roots, the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina was a unique setting where advanced writing programs and creativity flourished long before these trends emerged nationally. Ritter profiles the history of the Woman's College, first as a normal school, where women trained as teachers with an emphasis on composition and analytical writing, then as a liberal arts college. She compares the burgeoning writing program here to those of the Seven Sisters (Wellesley, Smith, Radcliffe, Barnard, Vassar, Bryn Mawr, and Mount Holyoke) and to elite all-male universities, to show the singular progressivism of the Woman's College. Ritter presents lively student writing samples from the early postwar period to reveal a blurring of the boundaries between "creative" and "expository" styles. By midcentury, a quantum shift toward creative writing changed administrators' valuation of composition courses and staff at the Woman's College. An intensive process of curricular revisions, modeled after Harvard's "Redbook" plan, was proposed and rejected in 1951, as the college stood by its unique curricula and singular values. Ritter follows the plight of individual instructors of creative writing and composition, showing how their compensation and standing were made disproportionate by the shifting position of expository writing in relation to creative writing. Despite this unsettled period, the Woman's College continued to gain in stature, and by 1964 it became a prize acquisition of the University of North Carolina system. Ritter's study demonstrates the value of local histories to uncover undocumented advancements in writing education, offering insights into the political, cultural, and social conditions that influenced learning and methodologies at "marginalized" schools such as the Woman's College.
"To educate American girls and women in ways beyond the traditional has been a dangerous experiment that has challenged basic notions of female nature and has seemed to threaten the social order... One such bold venture in female education--the Bryn Mawr School of Baltimore, Maryland--is the subject of Andrea Hamilton's lively and well-researched book... In Hamilton's telling, the story of the Bryn Mawr School moves beyond its local particulars to illumine much about the history of American education and life... The importance of Hamilton's contribution is that she never loses sight of the complexity of the school and its relation to society. Her history of the Bryn Mawr School helps us understand aspects of the unique position held by American women in national social, intellectual, and cultural life."--from the Foreword by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz Baltimore's Bryn Mawr School was founded in the 1880s, the first college-preparatory school for girls in the United States. Unlike other educational institutions at the time, the Bryn Mawr School championed intellectual equality of the sexes. Established with the goal of providing girls with an education identical to boys' in quality and compass, it endeavored to prepare girls to excel in a public sphere traditionally dominated by men. Narrating the history of the Bryn Mawr School, Andrea Hamilton's A Vision for Girls examines the value of single-sex education, America's shifting educational philosophy, and significant changes in the role of women in American society. Hamilton reveals an institution that was both ahead of its time and a product of its time. A Vision for Girls offers an original and engaging history of an institution that helped shape educational goals in America, shedding light on the course of American education and attitudes toward women's intellectual and professional capabilities.
This book presents a series of narratives that reflect the compelling and sometimes dangerous allure of the world of books - and the world in books - in late-medieval Britain. It envisions the confines of medieval manuscripts as virtual worlds: realms that readers call forth through imaginative interactions with books' material features.
