Waynesburg College
Waynesburg, Greene County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Founded in 1849 by the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Chartered by the State in 1850. One of the first two colleges in Pennsylvania to grant degrees to women, in 1857.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In 1849, on the rolling hills of Greene County in Pennsylvania's southwestern corner, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church founded Waynesburg College, and the state chartered it the following year. In an era when higher education was almost entirely a male preserve, the young school made a remarkable choice: in 1857 it conferred degrees on women, becoming one of the first two Pennsylvania colleges to do so. That decision placed a small frontier-country college decades ahead of most of American academia.
Why it matters
Waynesburg's early willingness to grant women degrees marks an important early step in the long American struggle to open higher education to everyone, not just men.
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