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• 1 2020-04-14T20:17:42+00:00 1850-1899 99 CWRU's First Women - Students, Graduates, Philanthropists, Staff, Honorees plain 2021-03-03T13:43:44+00:00 1833
  Oberlin College opened - the first American college to grant undergraduate degrees to women.
              
  1849
  Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman to receive a medical degree from a regular American medical school, Geneva Medical College.
  
   
  Nancy Talbot Clark
  1852
  Nancy Elizabeth Talbot Clark was the first woman to graduate from Western Reserve's nine-year-old medical school.
  
  
  1855
  University of Iowa became the first state university to admit male and female students on an equal basis from its opening.
  
  1870
  University of Cincinnati was founded as a coeducational municipal university. 29% of American colleges were coeducational, 12% were women only, 59% were men only. Women represented 21% of all students enrolled in American higher education institutions. Ada Kepley became the first woman in the U.S. to receive a law degree, from Union College of Law.
  
  Viola Smith Buell

   

  
  1876
  Fifty years after its establishment, Viola Smith Buell became the first woman to graduate from Western Reserve College.
  
  1877
  Helen Magill White was the first woman awarded the Ph.D. by an American university, Boston University.
  
  1879
  Harvard “Annex” opened for women’s instruction by Harvard faculty. In 1894 it was chartered as Radcliffe College.

   

   

  
  Francisca Himmelsback painting of Laura Kerr Axtell

   

  
  1885
  Laura Kerr Axtell was the first woman to endow a Case School of Applied Science professorship.
  
  
  1888
  Western Reserve University ended undergraduate co-education and adopted the coordinate system, establishing the College for Women, later Flora Stone Mather College, as its women's college.
   

   

   

  Eliza Hardy Lord
  Maude Kimball
  Eliza Hardy Lord, Dean of the College for Women (1888-1892) was Western Reserve University's first woman faculty member and first woman dean.

   

  In 1888, Maude Kimball was the first student of the Western Reserve University College for Women.

   

  
  1889
  Columbia trustees approved the founding of Barnard College, Columbia’s “female annex.”
  
  1890
  43% of American colleges were coeducational, 20% were women only, 37% were men only.
  Women represented just under 36% of all students enrolled in American higher education institutions.
  
  Mary Louise French
  
  1891
  Mary Louisa French was the first graduate of the College for Women.
  
  Brown adopted the coordinate system, establishing Pembroke as its women’s college.
  
  
  
  
  1892
  From its establishment, the University of Chicago admitted women and men.
  
  1895
  Mary Chilton Noyes was the first woman to earn a Ph.D. from Western Reserve University when its three-year-old Department of Graduate Instruction awarded its first Ph.D. degrees.
  
  
  Aida Louise Smith 
  1896
  Aida Louise Smith was the first documented woman hired by Case School of Applied Science.
  
  
  1898
  First Phi Beta Kappa chapter at a woman’s college was established at Vassar College.
  
  Louisa F. Randolph became the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Western Reserve University.
   

   

• 1 2020-01-30T16:08:26+00:00 200 Events in 200 Years: 1870s 13 This section provides detailed information about the university from 1870-1879 plain 2025-04-21T12:36:31+00:00 1870 Information was compiled by staff of the Case Western Reserve Archives, February 2006.

  1870

  The sophomore spoof of the Junior Exhibition upset many faculty members as this event was 1 of only 4 official public functions of Western Reserve College each year. At the Junior Exhibition, each member of the junior class delivered an oration and junior honors became public. The sophomores used the initials of the juniors and made fun of their oration topics.
  
  

  1871

  Earliest class composite photograph in the Archives is of the Western Reserve College class of 1871. Pictured are 8 of the 30 members during their freshman year, 1867/68.
  
  

  1872
  Carroll Cutler was inaugurated as Western Reserve College's fourth president.
   

  
  1873

  Resources available to Medical Department students included a library of several thousand volumes, leading medical journals, natural history specimens, and anatomical models.
  
  

  1874

  A Preparatory School was conducted under the authority of the trustees of Western Reserve College (and Adelbert College) for many years.
  
  

  1875

  The Washington Birthday celebration, led by the sophomore class, began with the firing of a 22-gun salute.
  
  

  1876
  Viola Smith Buell became the first woman to graduate from Western Reserve College, fifty years after its establishment.
   

  
  1877

  Military instruction began at Western Reserve College.
  
  

  1878

  Last known perpetual scholarship was sold by Western Reserve College. An individual would donate a required amount (it varied over time) and they and their heirs would receive free tuition in perpetuity. Pictured here is a certificate issued to a donor for 4 perpetual scholarships.
  
  

  1879

  After its fifth decade, Western Reserve College boasted 56 students, a faculty of 12, tuition of $30, and a new Modern Languages course of study which substituted French and German for Greek. Pictured is a listing of the entire College faculty.