Emma Willard

Emma Willard (1787 to 1870) was an American educator who argued that girls were fit for the same serious study as boys and then built a school to prove it. Born in Berlin, Connecticut, she began teaching as a teenager, served as a principal in Middlebury, Vermont, and in 1819 addressed the New York Legislature with a pamphlet, A Plan for Improving Female Education, calling for a publicly funded women's seminary. When that appeal went unanswered she moved her school to Troy, New York, where the Troy Female Seminary opened in 1821 with mathematics, philosophy, geography, history and science in its curriculum. Willard also wrote widely used history and geography textbooks, some with William Channing Woodbridge, and toured the United States and Europe to promote women's education. The Troy school was later renamed the Emma Willard School in her honor.