Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard College. The college was named for the early Harvard benefactor Anne Mowlson (née Radcliffe) and was one of the Seven Sisters colleges.Horn, Miriam, quoting The Boston Globe, in Rebels in White Gloves: Coming of Age with Hillary Clinton's Class—Wellesley '68, p. 8, co. 2000, Anchor. See also McCarthy, Mary, How I Grew, pp. 119–120, 1987, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. See Berman, Susan, The Underground Guide to the College of Your Choice, pp. 234, 242, 246 and 404, 1971, Signet. See also Yale Daily News, "The Insiders Guide to the Colleges," 1975–76, co. 1975, G.P. Putnam and Sons. Finally, see Kendall, Elaine, Peculiar Institutions: An Informal History of the Seven Sister Colleges, p. 30, 1975, G.P. Putnam and Sons, NY
For the first 70 years of its existence, Radcliffe conferred undergraduate and graduate degrees. Beginning in 1963, it awarded joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas to undergraduates. In 1977, Radcliffe signed a formal "non-merger merger" agreement with Harvard, and completed a full integration with Harvard in 1999.
Within Harvard University, Radcliffe's former administrative campus, Radcliffe Yard, is home to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Former Radcliffe housing at the Radcliffe Quadrangle, including Pforzheimer House, Cabot House, and Currier House, has been incorporated into Harvard College's house system. Under the terms of the 1999 consolidation, Radcliffe Yard and the Radcliffe Quadrangle retain the "Radcliffe" designation in perpetuity.
History 19th century
The "Harvard Annex", a private program for the instruction of women by Harvard faculty, was founded in 1879 after prolonged efforts by women to gain access to Harvard College. Arthur Gilman, a Cambridge resident, banker, philanthropist and writer, was the founder of what became The Annex/Radcliffe. At a time when higher education for women was a sharply controversial topic, Gilman hoped to establish a higher educational opportunity for his daughter that exceeded what was generally available in female seminaries and the new women's colleges such as Vassar and Wellesley. These schools were in their early years and had substantial numbers of faculty who were not university trained.
In conversations with the chair of Harvard College's classics department, Gilman outlined a plan to have Harvard faculty deliver instruction to a small group of Cambridge and Boston women. He approached Harvard president Charles William Eliot with the idea, and Eliot approved.Howells, Dorothy Elias, A Century to Celebrate Radcliffe College, 1879–1979, p. 1, 1978, Radcliffe College. Gilman and Eliot recruited a group of prominent and well-connected Cambridge women to manage the plan. These women were Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, Mary H. Cooke, Stella Scott Gilman, Mary B. Greenough, Ellen Hooper Gurney, Alice Mary Longfellow, and Lillian Horsford.
Building upon Gilman's premise, the committee convinced 44 members of the Harvard faculty to consider giving lectures to female students in exchange for extra income paid by the committee. The program came to be known informally as "The Harvard Annex". The course of study for the first year included 51 courses in 13 subject areas, an "impressive curriculum with greater diversity than that of any other women's college at its inception. Courses were offered in Greek, Latin, English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish; philosophy, political economy, history, music, mathematics, physics, and natural history."Howells, Dorothy Elia, A Century to Celebrate Radcliffe College, 1879–1979, p. 6, 1978, Radcliffe College. The first graduation ceremonies took place in the library of Longfellow House on Brattle Street, just above where George Washington's generals had slept a century earlier.
The committee members hoped that by raising an endowment for The Annex, they could persuade Harvard to admit women directly into Harvard College, but the university resisted.Sally Schwager, "Taking up the Challenge: The Origins of Radcliffe", in Yards and Gates: Gender in Harvard and Radcliffe History, ed. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), . pp. 92–103 In his 1869 inaugural address as president of Harvard, Charles Eliot summed up the official Harvard position toward female students when he said, The world knows next to nothing about the capacities of the female sex. Only after generations of civil freedom and social equality will it be possible to obtain the data necessary for an adequate discussion of woman's natural tendencies, tastes, and capabilities ... It is not the business of the University to decide this mooted point.Howells, Dorothy Elia, A Century to Celebrate Radcliffe College, 1879–1979, p. viii, 1978, Radcliffe College.
Harvard Examinations for Women From 1874 to 1881, Harvard administered the Harvard Examinations for Women to increase women's educational opportunities, after being pressured by the Women's Education Association of Boston. During these seven years, 107 women participated; 36 received certificates. The low number of certificates received by women led Harvard to change the exam in 1881. At the time, women could also be admitted into the "Harvard Annex", the women's version of a college education. The "Harvard Examinations for Women" included subjects such as history; literature of Shakespeare and Chaucer; languages such as Latin, French, and German; botany; and mathematics. These tests were similar to the admittance exam given to men applying to Harvard College. When a woman passed a subject, she would receive a signed certificate from Harvard's president acknowledging her passing mark.
The Harvard Examinations for Women were ended two years after "Harvard Annex" officially became Radcliffe College, the women's equivalent to Harvard College.
When confronted in 1883 with the notion of females receiving Harvard degrees, the university's treasurer stated, "I have no prejudice in the matter of education of women and am quite willing to see Yale or Columbia take any risks they like, but I feel bound to protect Harvard College from what seems to me a risky experiment."Baker, Liva, I'm Radcliffe. Fly Me!. The Seven Sisters and the Failure of Women's Education, p. 46, New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1976
In 1888, Harvard President Eliot communicated to a faculty member he intended to hire, that "There is no obligation to teach at The Annex. Those professors who on general grounds take an interest in the education of women...feel some obligation but there are many professors who think it their duty NOT to teach there, in which opinion some of the Corporation and Overseers agree."Baker, Liva, I'm Radcliffe. Fly Me! The Seven Sisters and the Failure of Women's Education, p. 47, 1976, MacMillan Publishing.
Eliot was strongly against co-education, saying, "The difficulties involved in a common residence of hundreds of young men and women of immature character and marriageable age are very grave. The necessary police regulations are exceedingly burdensome."Charles Eliot, as quoted by Liva Baker (1976) in I'm Radcliffe!, p. 21
In December 1893, The Boston Globe reported, "President of Harvard To Sign Parchments of the Fair Graduates"."Christened 'Radcliffe;' Annex Girls May Receive A College Degree. Overseers Vote to Carry Out Plans of the Friends of Fay House. President of Harvard To Sign Parchments of the Fair Graduates." The Boston Daily Globe, December 7, 1893, p. 6 Students seeking admission to the new women's college were required to sit for the same entrance examinations required of Harvard College students.
The committee persevered despite Eliot's skepticism. The project proved to be a success, attracting a growing number of students. As a result, the Annex was incorporated in 1882 as the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women, with Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, widow of Harvard professor Louis Agassiz, as president. This society awarded certificates to students but did not have the power to confer academic degrees.
In subsequent years, ongoing discussions with Harvard about admitting women directly into the university still came to a dead end. Instead, Harvard and the Annex negotiated the creation of a degree-granting institution, with Harvard professors serving as its faculty and visiting body. This modification of the Annex was chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as Radcliffe College in 1894.
By 1896, the Globe could headline a story: "Sweet Girls. They Graduate in Shoals at Radcliffe. Commencement Exercises at Sanders Theatre. Galleries Filled with Fair Friends and Students. Handsome Mrs. Agassiz Made Fine Address. Pres Eliot Commends the Work of the New Institution." The Globe said, "Eliot stated that the percentage of graduates with distinction is much higher at Radcliffe than at Harvard" and that although "[i]t is to yet to be seen whether the women have the originality and pioneering spirit which will fit them to be leaders, perhaps they will when they have had as many generations of thorough education as men.""Sweet Girls. They Graduate in Shoals at Radcliffe. Commencement Exercises at Sanders Theatre. Galleries Filled with Fair Friends and Students. Handsome Mrs. Agassiz Made Fine address. Pres Eliot Commends the Work of the New Institution." The Boston Daily Globe, June 24, 1896, p. 4
20th century In 1904, historian Mary Caroline Crawford wrote the following about the founding and early days of Radcliffe College: ... it set up housekeeping in two unpretending rooms in the Appian Way, Cambridge....Probably in all the history of colleges in America there could not be found a story so full of color and interest as that of the beginning of this woman's college. The bathroom of the little house was pressed into service as a laboratory for physics, students and instructors alike making the best of all inconveniences. Because the institution was housed with a private family, generous mothering was given to the girls when they needed it., pp. 99–100
In the first two decades of the 20th century, Radcliffe championed the beginnings of its own campus, consisting of the Radcliffe Yard and the Radcliffe Quadrangle in Cambridge, Massachusetts, not far from Harvard University. The original Radcliffe gymnasium and library, and the Bertram, Whitman, Eliot, and Barnard dormitories were constructed during this period. With the 1920s and 1930s, dormitories Briggs Hall (1924) and Cabot Hall (1937) were built on the Quadrangle, and in the Radcliffe Yard, the administrative building Byerly Hall (1932) and the classroom building Longfellow Hall (1930). Mary Almy was the architect.
English professor Barrett Wendell warned his colleagues about continued cooperation with Radcliffe, saying that Harvard could "suddenly find itself committed to coeducation somewhat as unwary men lay themselves open to actions for breach of promise."Barrett Wendell, as quoted by Elaine Kendall in Peculiar Institutions: An Informal History of the Seven Sister Colleges, pp. 153–154, New York: G.P. Putnam and Sons, 1975 In Wendell's view, Harvard needed to remain "purely virile".