About
Women’s Voices is a collection of vividly expressed reminiscences of the earliest women students admitted to the University of Michigan. The quotations were selected from responses to a survey sent in 1924 to all alumnae who had attended the University of Michigan. The more than 3,000 women who responded were among the first in the nation to experience higher education in a coeducational environment, and reported experiences that occurred over 54 years on the campus of the University of Michigan.
The responses to the survey were highly individualistic. The alumnae had come to the University from different geographical areas and different backgrounds, and they went from the University into many different fields of endeavor. The quotations selected for inclusion in the book, although only a small sampling, are representative of these diverse experiences, philosophies, and perspectives. The selected images are a visual representation of this experience.
The book contains only a small sampling of the lives, experiences (from both historical and personal perspectives) and philosophies of the early alumnae. The idealism, hopes and dreams of youth have been vividly and movingly expressed by these women, as well as the struggles and frustrations of their courageous entrance into a campus designed for the instruction and accommodation of men only. This is a digital version of a Bentley Historical Library bulletin published in 2000. See more information on the Bentley website.