In 1889, Annie Nathan Meyer, still in her early twenties, led the effort
to start Barnard College after Columbia College refused to admit women.
Named after a former Columbia president, Frederick Barnard, who had
advocated for Columbia to become coeducational, Barnard, despite many
ups and downs, became one of the leading women's colleges in the United
States.
A College of Her Own offers a comprehensive and lively narrative of
Barnard from its beginnings to the present day. Through the stories of
presidents and leading figures as well as students and faculty, Robert
McCaughey recounts Barnard's history and how its development was shaped
by its complicated relationship to Columbia University and its New York
City location. McCaughey considers how the student composition of
Barnard and its urban setting distinguished it from other Seven Sisters
colleges, tracing debates around class, ethnicity, and admissions
policies. Turning to the postwar era, A College of Her Own discusses
how Barnard benefited from the boom in higher education after years of a
precarious economic situation. Beyond the decisions made at the top,
McCaughey examines the experience of Barnard students, including the
tumult and aftereffects of 1968 and the impact of the feminist movement.
The concluding section looks at present-day Barnard, the shifts in its
student body, and its efforts to be a global institution. Informed by
McCaughey's five decades as a Barnard faculty member and administrator,
A College of Her Own is a compelling history of a remarkable
institution.
