Diary from a Women (Great Society)

Dear Diary, 

I am writing to you as a women. I reconcile hearing that tax-supported schooling for girls began as early as 1767 in New England. It was optional and some towns proved reluctant. Not until after 1800 did educated girls go to school using public money. In contrast, the town of Sutton, Massachusetts, was diverse in terms of social leadership and religion at an early point in its history. Sutton paid for its schools by means of taxes on households with children only, thereby creating an active constituency in favor of universal education for both boys and girls. School taught both, but in places without schools, writing was taught mainly to boys and a few privileged girls. Men handled worldly affairs and needed to both read and write. Girls only needed to read especially religious materials. Back to the late 1700‘s diary. 

The education of elite women in Philadelphia after 1740 followed the British model developed by the gentry classes during the early 18th century. Rather than emphasizing aspects of women's roles, this new model encouraged women to engage in more substantive education, reaching into the arts and sciences to emphasize their reasoning skills. Finally, we women became useful. Education had the capacity to help colonial women secure their elite status by giving them traits that their 'inferiors' could not easily mimic.

Love always,

A women