Named by BookBrowse as a Best Book for Book Clubs
“In absorbing detail, Perkins describes the organizing efforts of those early years … [a] lively and engaging account of the college’s first class of female students.”
“This stunning, engaging work highlights the strength and courage of women who fought for their future against centuries of patriarchy.”
“An engaging and surprising story that illustrates the challenges college women have confronted across the country.”
“Perkins’ account of how these women transformed Yale’s ‘village of men’ to a coeducational university is an absorbing read.”
“A riveting and uplifting account of the experiences of Yale’s early women coeds—first admitted in 1969 … This inspiring book is a ‘must read’ for everyone.”
“This beautifully written history provides a comprehensive view of the many social and political changes that faced the young college women of this era.”
From where we sit today, it hardly seems possible that up until 1969, the vast majority of America’s top colleges still refused entry to women. Yet the list of campuses that banned women undergraduates back then reads like an academic who’s who: from Amherst, Boston College, and Bowdoin at the start of the alphabet, to West Point, Williams, and Yale at its end.
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Anne Gardiner Perkins, PhD, is an award-winning historian, a graduate of Yale University, and a Rhodes Scholar. She spent more than five years interviewing the women of Yale and digging through the archives to tell their story. Read more