The Seven Sisters: Space and Structure in Women's Colleges to 1900

"Visiting in order each of the... colleges for women, situated within comparatively close range of each other... one gains a distinct impression of the peculiar excellences of each..." (Lester Hemment, 1897).

The "Seven Sisters" colleges--Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Radcliffe, Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley--developed in reaction to each other, to male colleges, and to emerging theories of education.

This exhibit asks, is it possible to trace social perception of the differences and congruences between these schools in their archival material? How are women's colleges created by their physical spaces and their philosophies?

Using Collegewomen.org, this exhibit interrogates the connections between space, reputation, and the "college woman" in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The Seven Sisters: Space and Structure in Women's Colleges to 1900