Alice Freeman Palmer

Alice Freeman Palmer (1855-1902) was an American educator who became one of the most prominent advocates of higher education for women in the late nineteenth century. Born Alice Elvira Freeman in Colesville, New York, she studied at the University of Michigan, graduating in 1876, and taught at a women's academy and then led a high school in Saginaw before joining the faculty of the newly founded Wellesley College as a history teacher. In 1881, at the age of 26, she was named its president, and over six years she expanded the faculty and curriculum, raised academic standards, brought faculty into policy decisions and introduced systems of tenure and seniority. After marrying the Harvard philosopher George Herbert Palmer in 1887 she left the presidency but kept guiding Wellesley as a trustee, served on the Massachusetts Board of Education from 1889, and spent several months a year on speaking tours about education. From 1892 she was dean of the women's college at the University of Chicago, where she pressed for fair treatment of women faculty and students in a coeducational setting. She argued that college should build character and a wish to serve as well as knowledge, and she backed higher admission standards, better teacher training and a curriculum with more science. Her 1897 book was titled Why Go to College.