Admission of Women (1870)
Fifteen years after the first recorded efforts to admit women to the University of Michigan, and five years after the Civil
War, in the state of Michigan another battle was won. In 1870, women were granted the right to attend Michigan, and Madelon
Stockwell, a student of the classics, joined nearly one thousand men in the classrooms of the University. This was a landmark
occasion in the state and nation. While Oberlin College had inaugurated coeducation in 1833, by 1870 many of the nation's most
distinguished universities continued to be closed to women. Considered a "dangerous experiment" by the Regents, women quickly
took full advantage of coeducation. In the fall of 1870, Stockwell was joined by thirty-three other women, two in law, eighteen
in medicine, and thirteen in the Literary College. Coeducation at Michigan flourished and by 1900, the Literary College
(now L,S&A) graduated more women than men. In 1924, Dr. Eliza Mosher (class of 1875, and first Dean of Women, 1896-1902),
reflecting on her experience, would write, "The University broadened my mental horizon. Opposition increased my power of
resistance, deepened my determination to prove that I had both the ability and the right to become a physician and to practice
medicine beside the best men in the profession."
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