The science education of American girls, 1784-1932

Over the past several decades, a number of scholars have drawn attention to the relatively poor achievement of American girls in science and mathematics. Many educators and policy makers appear to believe that this state of affairs has always been present in American education.;The research undertaken for this study reveals a surprisingly different picture. My thesis is that science was a girls' subject in the early nineteenth century. Such historical sources as school catalogs, newspaper advertisements, textbooks and contemporary accounts reveal that by 1840, a greater percentage of girls' secondary schools offered natural philosophy (physics), astronomy, and chemistry than did comparable institutions for boys. Of course, this situation did not persist throughout the century. As historians have noted, by the 1930s boys outnumbered girls in most science and mathematics courses in private and public secondary schools across the country. How and why this shift occurred is the primary puzzle this study seeks to solve.;The various sciences entered the curricula available to middle- and upper-class girls just after the American Revolution because post-colonial educators perceived the sciences to be valuable vehicles for promoting moral values, mental discipline, pragmatic knowledge, and cultural polish. Early nineteenth-century women shielded their increasing scientific activity with the rhetoric of women's sphere; women writers sex-typed the sciences, particularly natural history, as peculiarly appropriate for females.;The decline of science as a girls'subject occurred as the result of three social developments. The first, originating during the early nineteenth century, was the gradual but eventually successful movement among girls' private secondary schools to introduce the classics in their curricula in order to elevate the status of their institutions. The second, which gained momentum at the century's end, was a national movement to make secondary schools more pragmatic by including commercial and vocational subjects and reducing or eliminating the science and mathematics requirements for graduation. The third factor in the decline of science as a girls' subject was a growing social backlash against women science teachers at the dawn of the twentieth century. This backlash accompanied a rise in job discrimination against women in science education positions at secondary and post-secondary institutions.