Bryn Mawr College - History

History

Bryn Mawr College is a highly selective, private, women's liberal arts college founded in 1885. The Graduate School has male and female graduates. It is named after the town of Bryn Mawr in which the campus is located, which had been named by a representative of the Pennsylvania Railroad who found the name in some old records. Bryn Mawr was the name of an area estate granted to Rowland Ellis by William Penn in the 1680s. Ellis's former home, also called Bryn Mawr, was a house near Dolgellau, Merionnydd (Merioneth), Gwynedd, Wales. The College was largely founded through the bequest of Joseph W. Taylor, and its first president was James Evans Rhoads. Bryn Mawr was the first higher education institution to offer graduate degrees, including doctorates, to women. The first class included 36 undergraduate women and eight graduate students. Bryn Mawr was originally affiliated with the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), but by 1893 had become non-denominational. In 2012, U.S. News & World Report ranked it 25th in Best Liberal Arts Colleges.

In 1912, Bryn Mawr became the first college in the United States to offer doctorates in social work, through the Department of Social Economy and Social Research. This department became the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research in 1970. In 1931, Bryn Mawr began accepting men as graduate students, while remaining women-only at the undergraduate level.

From 1921 to 1938 the Bryn Mawr campus was home to the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers, which was founded as part of the labor education movement and the women's labor movement. The school taught women workers political economy, science, and literature, as well as organizing many extracurricular activities.

A June 3, 2008, article in The New York Times discussed the move by women's colleges in the United States to promote their schools in the Middle East. The article noted that in doing so, the schools promote the work of graduates of women's colleges such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, Emily Dickinson, Diane Sawyer, Katharine Hepburn (Bryn Mawr Class of 1928) and Madeleine Albright. The Dean of Admissions of Bryn Mawr noted, "We still prepare a disproportionate number of women scientists We’re really about the empowerment of women and enabling women to get a top-notch education." The article also contrasted the difference between women's colleges in the Middle East and "the American colleges for all their white-glove history and academic prominence, are liberal strongholds where students fiercely debate political action, gender identity and issues like “heteronormativity”, the marginalizing of standards that are other than heterosexual. Middle Eastern students who already attend these colleges tell of a transition that can be jarring."

The College celebrated its 125th anniversary of "bold vision, for women, for the world" during the 2010–2011 academic year. In September 2010, Bryn Mawr hosted an international conference on issues of educational access, equity, and opportunity in secondary schools and universities in the United States and around the world. Other festivities held for the anniversary year included publication of a commemorative book on 125 years of student life, and, in partnership with the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program Mural Arts Program, creation of a mural in West Philadelphia highlighting advances in women's education.