She then describes the differing orientations of turn-of-the-century schools, which presented themselves either as college prep (mirroring the classical curriculum of boys’ schools) or as finishing schools (boasting a curriculum of modern languages, history, science, and the arts, as well as etiquette and manners). DeBare outlines the radical nineteenth-century origins of many Eastern boarding schools, situating their intelligent, unmarried, entrepreneurial founders on the margins of Victorian womanhood. Did single-sex schools open doors for their female pupils, DeBare asks, or did they play a conservative role in society, restricting their graduates’ horizons and channeling their interests along socially acceptable lines? The author’s conclusion won’t surprise historians or alumnae of girls’ schools: they did both. With a journalist’s eye for the apt quotation, DeBare selects both amusing and touching anecdotes to tell her story at times it is hard not to laugh out loud at girls’ escapades and young women’s glee.īut DeBare’s narrative, like the girls’ schools she studied, has a serious purpose. The interviews, diaries, photographs, and archival papers - including those from African American institutions - yield vivid images of girls’ day-to-day school lives across two centuries. She also spoke with more than 200 girls’ school alumnae who had graduated over the course of eight decades, beginning in the 1920s. In addition to scouring the archives of such famous institutions as the 180-year-old Emma Willard School in Troy, New York, DeBare interviewed current students, teachers, administrators, and heads of school (headmistresses) across the country.

While founding a girls’ school to which she could send her as yet pre-school-aged daughter, DeBare embarked on a research project exploring the past and present of U.S. The idea of educating girls apart from their male peers, however, remains controversial in a nation long committed to coeducation.

Meanwhile, enrollment at existing girls’ schools - public, private, and parochial - grew by 15 percent.

educational landscape, DeBare’s book is an especially welcome addition to the literature on single-sex education.Īs DeBare reports, more than thirty new girls’ schools across grade level, including the public Young Women’s Leadership School in New York, opened their doors between 19. With vouchers, charter schools, and school choice becoming increasingly important factors in the U.S.

Combining history, memoir, and social science research, Ilana DeBare - journalist and cofounder of the Julia Morgan School for Girls in Oakland, California - probes the complicated past and present of single-sex education in her highly readable book, Where Girls Come First: The Rise, Fall, and Surprising Revival of Girls’ Schools.

Where Girls Come First by Ilana DeBare