Chance Vought scholars pose in their dorm room in 1942. The scholarship program provided free tuition, room, board, transportation, and a $50 monthly stipend for women to study aeronautics engineering at NYU.
This Women's History Month, as we recognize the struggles women have encountered on the way to numerous victories—and continue to look for ways to remove the remaining obstacles to true gender equity—we're also taking a look within to tell the story of women's contributions to our own institution. In 1873, there were just three female students at NYU. Today, women make up 57 percent of NYU's undergraduate population of over 25,000—and the history of the intervening years is a catalogue of "firsts."
Discussions about admitting degree-seeking female applicants to NYU began as early as 1876-1877, and women were formally admitted to the graduate department in 1888. The School of Law admitted women in 1890—60 years before Harvard. When, also in 1890, NYU became the first university in the country to create a school of pedagogy (now Steinhardt), the new school recruited female faculty and admitted women to its very first class. Stern admitted women from its inception (as the School of Commerce) in 1900, and by 1936 they made up 15 percent of the school's total enrollment.
Two women received B.A. degrees from NYU in 1915, and when Washington Square College was founded in 1913, it opened its doors to women as well as commuters, recent immigrants, and professional students. By 1931, a local newspaper noted that "the combined faculties of Washington Square College, the School of Commerce, and the School of Education boast[ed] women prominent in the fields of vocational guidance, physical education, science sociology, and literature."
During World War II, the Chance Vought Division of United Aircraft established a scholarship for women to complete an eight-month course in aeronautical engineering at NYU; 110 completed the program. In the Bronx, the University Heights Campus—comprising the University College of Arts and Science and the College of Engineering—became fully co–ed in 1959.
View more milestones in the slideshow below.
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This memo from the 1980s shows that three women—Ella H. Brown, Amelia C. Barton, and Sophia Wilson—were enrolled in the School of Art in 1873-74.
Photo credit: NYU Archives -
Minutes from a December 6, 1867, council meeting mark the resolution to admit women to the "benefits of the Institution."
Photo credit: NYU Archives -
1915: A Commencement program lists the Elizabeth Stow Brown and Mary Harriet Riddle as the first women B.A. graduates of NYU.
Photo credit: NYU Archives -
1918: Women in an NYU knitting group knit socks for World War I soldiers.
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1923: The New York Times featured Sylvia Altman, who graduated from Washington Square College at age 17.
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1926: May Edward Chinn became the first black woman to graduate from NYU's Bellevue Medical College.
Photo credit: NYU Archives -
1929: On one of the first of her many official visits to NYU, Eleanor Roosevelt hosted tea for female students at of the School of Law.
Photo credit: NYU Archives -
1930: A page from the WSC yearbook shows the League of Women, founded in 1921 as a social organization and support system for NYU's female students.
Photo credit: NYU Archives -
1931: A newspaper profiles female faculty Anna Yeomans Reed, Ruth B. Howland, Lucy J. Chamberlin, Eda Lou Walton, as leaders in their fields.
Photo credit: NYU Archives -
1941: The New York Sun pictures women fencing, socializing, and taking part in home management courses during fall semester at WSC. (part one)
Photo credit: NYU Archives -
1941: The New York Sun pictures women fencing, socializing, and taking part in home management courses during fall semester at WSC. (part two)
Photo credit: NYU Archives -
1934: Isabel Ebel was the only female aeronautical engineer in the country when she graduated from NYU. She had previously earned a B.S. from MIT.
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1943: The Chance Vought scholarship was awarded to a total of 110 women who completed an 8-month training in aeronautical engineering at NYU.
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1947: The Judson Hostelry, designed by Stanford White, was completed in 1890 and purchased by NYU in 1933, later becoming a dormitory for women.
Photo credit: NYU Archives -
1953: Accomplished chemist and engineer Maria Telkes founded a solar energy research lab at the College of Engineering.
Photo credit: NYU Archives -
1958: Justice Birdie Amsterdam (NYUL '22) became the first woman to be named "Man of the Year" by the Law Alumni Association.
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1959-60: A 1977 memorandum indicates that women were first admitted to NYU's School of Engineering & University College of Arts and Science in 1959.
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1971: Red Burns co-founded the Alternative Media Center at NYU's School of the Arts.
Photo credit: NYU Archives -
1988: Gertrude Elion ('42) won the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Her work would lead to the development of the AIDS drug AZT.
Photo credit: NYU Archives
