Emma Willard Thesis

Emma Willard was a vocal supporter of female education. Willard was born on February 23, 1787. She was raised by her father, who encouraged her to read and think for herself. At age 15, Willard was enrolled in her first school in her hometown of Berlin. Willard eventually took charge of the Academy for a term in 1806. She was very smart even at a young age, and she always knew what she wanted to do with her life. In 1807, Emma Willard went to Middlebury, Vermont, to run a female academy there. Two years later she married a local doctor, John Willard. She retired from teaching, and then, in 1814, she opened a girls’ school in her home to help with family finances. A few years later, she wrote A Plan for Improving Female Education, a widely admired and …show more content…
She helped women think for themselves, and she changed the way women saw themselves. In 1819, with the encouragement of Governor DeWitt Clinton, Emma Willard moved to New York and opened a school in Waterford. After two years there, she moved to Troy, where she opened the Troy Female Seminary. (The school was renamed in her honor in 1895.) The Troy Female Seminary was one of the most influential schools in America, pioneering in the teaching of science, mathematics, and social studies to young women. Thousands of young women passed through the Troy school during her lifetime. Although most were wealthy and worked mostly as wives and mothers, many of her graduates became teachers, writers, and social activists. During her lifetime, the school was a for-profit institution. Emma Willard became financially successful, both from the profits of her school and from the best-selling textbooks that she authored. Emma Willard left daily management of the school to her son and daughter-in-law in 1838, the year she made a disastrous second marriage. (She had been widowed in 1825.) She spent the last thirty years of her life traveling and writing, although the seminary and Troy remained her home