Photo: Emma Willard, ca. 1805-1815., public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Emma Hart Willard was born in Berlin, Connecticut, in 1787. She taught school from a young age and became convinced that girls deserved the same serious education as boys.
In 1819 she published a proposal asking the New York Legislature to fund schools for young women. The state did not pay, but the city of Troy offered a building.
The school
Willard opened the Troy Female Seminary in 1821. It taught mathematics, science, history and philosophy, subjects many people thought were unsuitable for women. Graduates went on to teach and to start schools of their own around the country. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was among its students.
Lasting influence
Willard also wrote widely used history and geography textbooks. She stepped back from running the school in 1838 but continued to promote education for women until her death in 1870.
The school was renamed the Emma Willard School in 1895 and moved to its current Gothic campus on Mount Ida in Troy in 1910. It is still a girls’ boarding and day school.
Willard is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Troy, and she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
