Emma Hart Willard

Emma Hart Willard (February 23, 1787 – April 15, 1870) was an American women's rights activist who dedicated her life to education. She worked in several schools and founded the first school for women's higher education, the Troy Female Seminary in Troy, New York. With the success of her school, Willard was able to travel across the country and abroad, to promote education for women. The Troy Female Seminary was renamed the Emma Willard School in 1895 in her honor.

Emma Willard was born on February 23, 1787, in Berlin, Connecticut. She was the sixteenth of seventeen children from her father, Samuel Hart, and his second wife Lydia Hinsdale Hart. Her father was a farmer who encouraged his children to read and think for themselves. At a young age, Willard's father recognized her passion for learning. At that time women were only provided basic education. However, Willard was included in family discussions such as politics, philosophy, world politics and mathematics that were primarily male subjects. At age 15, Willard was enrolled in her first school in 1802 in her hometown of Berlin. She progressed so quickly that just two years later at the age of 17 she was teaching there. Willard eventually took charge of the academy for a term in 1806.

In 1807, Willard left Berlin and briefly worked in Westfield, Massachusetts, before accepting a job offer at a female academy in Middlebury, Vermont. She held the position of principal at the Middlebury Female Seminary from 1807 to 1809. However, she was unimpressed by the material taught there and opened a boarding school for women in 1814, in her own home. She was inspired by the subjects her nephew, John Willard, was learning at Middlebury College and strived to improve the curriculum that was taught at girls' schools. Willard believed that women could master topics like mathematics and philosophy rather than just subjects taught at finishing schools. This passion for women's education led her to fight for the first women's school for higher education.

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