Women's colleges in the United States

Women's colleges in the United States are single-sex U.S. institutions of higher education that only admit female students. They are often liberal arts colleges. There will be approximately 39 active women's colleges in the United States in the fall of 2016.

Education for girls and women was originally provided within the family, by locals dame schools and public elementary schools, and at female seminaries found in every colony, but limited to young ladies from families with the means to pay tuition and, arguably, still more limited by the focus on providing ladylike accomplishments rather than academic training. These seminaries or academies were usually small and often ephemeral, usually established founded by a single woman or small group of women, they often failed to outlive their founders. In evaluating the many claims of various colleges to have been the "first" women's college, it is necessary to understand that a number of these 18th- or early 19th-century female seminaries later grew into academic, degree-granting colleges, while others became notable private high schools. However, to have been a female seminary at an early date is not the same thing as to have been a women's college at that date.

Institutions of higher education for women, however, were primarily founded during the early 19th century, many as teaching seminaries. As noted by the Women's College Coalition:

Irene Harwarth, Mindi Maline, and Elizabeth DeBra further note that, "women's colleges were founded during the mid- and late-19th century in response to a need for advanced education for women at a time when they were not admitted to most institutions of higher education." Early proponents of education for women were Sarah Pierce (Litchfield Female Academy, 1792); Catharine Beecher (Hartford Female Seminary, 1823); Zilpah P. Grant Banister (Ipswich Female Seminary, 1828); and Mary Lyon. Lyon was involved in the development of both Hartford Female Seminary and Ipswich Female Seminary. She was also involved in the creation of Wheaton Female Seminary (now Wheaton College, Massachusetts) in 1834; it was re-chartered as a college in 1912. In 1837, Lyon founded Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (Mount Holyoke College), it was chartered as a college in 1888. Harwarth, Maline, and DeBra note that, "Mount Holyoke’s significance is that it became a model for a multitude of other women’s colleges throughout the country.". Both Vassar College and Wellesley College were patterned after Mount Holyoke.Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia was the first college chartered for women, receiving its charter in 1836. Mount Holyoke College was the first of the Seven Sisters to be chartered as a college in 1837. In 1840, the first Catholic women's college Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College was founded by Saint Mother Theodore Guerin of the Sisters of Providence in Indiana as an academy, later becoming the college, which remains the oldest Roman Catholic women's college in the United States today.

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