| In February, 1870, in the wake of much controversy and
debate, Madelon Stockwell appeared on campus at the University of Michigan,
the first woman to officially enroll in what was then the largest university
in the country. |
|
| The daughter of a former Albion professor, Stockwell
was an "outstanding" student of Lucinda Stone in the ladies' department
of Kalamazoo College. (26) Stone - who, along with her husband, James,
was an influential advocate of coeducation - bore the exciting news to
Stockwell in January, 1870, when the University's doors were finally open
to women. That is, the doors were open to those women who passed the rigorous
entrance exams. |
|
| According to Stockwell, the exams she endured were "longer
and more severe than those given the young men" (1). Nonetheless, Stockwell
passed the tests and began attending classes soon after, only to become
the "target of curious stares, of pointed fingers, and whispered remarks
- not only from her - fellow students, but of the men on the faculty and
the people of Ann Arbor" (1). |
