Women's History

Wells College, founded in 1868 by businessman Henry Wells, boasts a storied history that spans over a century and a half. Using images and ephemera from the Wells College Archive and Special Collections, Tiffany Raymond, MLIS, and Daniel G. Renfrow, PhD, illustrate the college's rich history and the unique traditions that continue to inspire generations of students to pursue knowledge, leadership, and positive change in the world.

Established as a women’s college in Aurora, New York, Wells fulfilled the founder’s dream of making a “College Home” for students while simultaneously pioneering women’s education, providing opportunities for intellectual growth and leadership long before women’s rights were fully recognized. Throughout this history, the college has adapted to the evolving needs of the students and the wider society, including transitioning to coeducation in 2005 to better serve a diverse student body. Wells College’s commitment to academic excellence, social responsibility, and community engagement remains unwavering, making it a beacon of higher education in the picturesque Finger Lakes region.

Tiffany Raymond, MLIS, is director of the Louis Jefferson Long Library at Wells

College and a member of the class of 2010. Daniel G. Renfrow, PhD, is an associate professor of sociology and chair of the Social Science Division at Wells College. 

Discover Maryland's legacy of daring women who made their mark on history as spies, would-be queens and fiery suffragettes.

Maryland's history is punctuated by women who refused to be forgotten.  Sarah Wilson escaped indentured servitude in Frederick by impersonating the queen's sister. In Cumberland, Sallie Pollock smuggled letters for top Confederate officials. Baltimore journalist Marguerite Harrison snuck into Russia to report conditions there after World War I. From famous figures like Harriet Tubman to unsung heroines like Lady Law Violet Hill Whyte, author Lauren R. Silberman introduces Maryland's most tenacious and adventurous women.

Vassar College was founded in 1861, two miles from the banks of the Hudson River in Poughkeepsie by Matthew Vassar, a self-made businessman.

The college grew to confirm its founder's precedent-breaking vision that women would profit from intellectual opportunities in the liberal arts similar to those that Ivy League institutions had long offered the other gender. The college has grown and changed with the times, first countering Victorian prejudices that women were not suited for serious study, always leading the way as opportunities to broaden the spectrum of women's education developed. In the tumultuous decade of the 1960s, Vassar College again broke precedent, turning itself from a single-sex institution into one in which true coeducation exists. After 139 years, Vassar is poised for the changes under way and yet to come in the twenty-first century.

Long Island and the Woman Suffrage Movement documents the historical movement of the right to vote for women in New York.

For seventy-two years, American women fought for the right to vote, and many remarkable ladies on Long Island worked tirelessly during this important civil rights movement. The colorful—and exceedingly wealthy—Alva Vanderbilt Belmont was undoubtedly the island's most outspoken and controversial advocate for woman suffrage. Ida Bunce Sammis, vigorous in her efforts, became one of the first women elected to the New York legislature. Well-known Harriot Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, worked with countless other famous and ordinary Long Islanders to make her mother's quest a reality. Author Antonia Petrash tells the story of these and other women's struggle to secure the right to vote for themselves, their daughters and future generations of Long Island women.

Discover the stories of these indomitable women who have steered the course of New York's history from the colonial era through today.

The significant events in New York State history are well known to educators, students and New Yorkers alike. But often, the role that women played in these events has been overlooked. In this book, members of the American Association of University Women in New York State have meticulously researched the lives and actions of some of New York's finest women. Some of the names are renowned, like the great emancipator Harriet Tubman, who settled in Auburn, and some are less so, such as Linda Tetor, who fought for the rights of senior citizens in Steuben County and throughout the state.

A vivid narrative of the heroic struggle of Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party as they worked to earn the vote, framed by the demonstration known as The Great Suffrage Parade.

The Great Suffrage Parade was the first civil rights march to use the nation's capital as a backdrop. Despite sixty years of relentless campaigning by suffrage organizations, by 1913 only six states allowed women to vote. Then Alice Paul came to Washington, D.C. She planned a grand spectacle on Pennsylvania Avenue on the day before Woodrow Wilson's inauguration - marking the beginning of a more aggressive strategy on the part of the women's suffrage movement. Groups of women protested and picketed outside the White House, and some were thrown into jail. Newspapers across the nation covered their activities. These tactics finally led to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Author Rebecca Boggs Roberts narrates the heroic struggle of Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party as they worked to earn the vote.

In September 1918 Elizabeth Kalb boarded a train to Washington, DC to fight for voting rights for women.

For over two years, Elizabeth lived and worked at the National Woman’s Party headquarters a block from the White House. Letters she wrote during that time describe detention at the Capitol and an arrest at the White House, raising money, serving in the organization's Tea Room and struggling through the 1918 flu epidemic. Elizabeth draws the reader into a world of intense partisanship, battles with police, and diverse personalities united in a common cause. Suffragists ensured that politicians could not ignore women’s rights.

Author Shirley Marshall uses this eyewitness account to create an indelible portrait of life within the National Woman's Party.

Fiery suffragettes, unconventional first ladies, and rebellious socialites turning up their noses at ladylike behavior, these pioneering women of Washington, D.C., shattered the expectations of a tightly-corseted society.

Escaped slave turned spy Mary Touvestre risked it all to scuttle Confederate plans to break the Union blockade. Trading petticoats for trousers to work at the Union hospitals, Dr. Mary E. Walker was both the only female Medal of Honor recipient and the possessor of a police record for impersonating a man. During Prohibition, First Lady Florence Harding hosted jazz soirees and served up cocktails in the White House gardens. From pioneering photographers and newspaperwomen to enterprising madams and soldiers in disguise, author Canden Schwantes introduces readers to the decidedly daring and wild women of the capital.

Victorine Quille Adams was a Baltimore native and the first African American woman elected to the city council. Born in 1912, she lived through stringent segregation, racial violence and economic turbulence

Victorine Quille Adams was a Baltimore native and the first African American woman elected to the city council. Born in 1912, she lived through stringent segregation, racial violence and economic turbulence.

Educated at Morgan State and Coppin State Universities, she took to the classroom and enriched the lives of her students. In 1946, she founded the Colored Women's Democratic Campaign Committee to educate African American women about the vote and the power of the ballot box. In concert with fellow educators Mary McLeod Bethune, Kate Sheppard and Dr. Delores Hunt, she persisted in educating and empowering voters throughout her life. Author Ida E. Jones reveals the story of this civic leader and her crusade for equity for all people in Baltimore.