Thursday, June 17, 2021

1746 Princeton University - Women Students?

Early Princeton College

In 1746, Princeton was founded as the College of New Jersey. In 1756, the college was moved to Princeton, New Jersey, which is when the name was changed. Like many other colonial era colleges, it was first opened to train ministers.

Princeton enrolled its first female graduate student, Sabra Follett Meservey, as a PhD candidate in Turkish history in 1961. A handful of undergraduate women had studied at Princeton from 1963 on, spending their junior year there to study "critical languages" in which Princeton's offerings surpassed those of their home institutions. They were considered regular students for their year on campus, but were not candidates for a Princeton degree.

In 1967 Princeton University president Robert F. Goheen announced in The Daily Princetonian that "It is inevitable that, at some point in the future, Princeton is going to move into the education of women." Women were first accepted in 1969: 40 members of the class of 1973 and 90 transfer students.