Originally a
women's college, Vassar is
one of the oldest institutions of higher education for
women in the United States. It was founded by its
namesake, brewer
Matthew Vassar, in 1861 in the
Hudson Valley, about 70 mi (100 km) north of New
York City. The first person appointed to the Vassar
faculty was the
astronomer
Maria Mitchell, in 1865. Vassar adopted coeducation
in 1969 after declining an offer to merge with
Yale University. However, immediately following
World War II, Vassar accepted a very small number of
male students on the
G.I. Bill. Because Vassar's charter prohibited male
matriculants, the graduates were given diplomas via the
University of the State of New York. These were
reissued under the Vassar title after the school
formally became co-ed.
[2]
Vassar's campus, also an
arboretum[3],
is 1,000 acres marked by period and modern
buildings. The great majority of students live on
campus. The renovated library has unusually large
holdings for a college of its size. It includes special
collections of
Albert Einstein,
Mary McCarthy, and
Elizabeth Bishop.
In its early years, Vassar was associated with the
social elite of the
Protestant establishment.
E. Digby Baltzell writes that "upper-class
WASP families ... educated their children at ...
colleges such as
Harvard,
Princeton,
Yale, Vassar, and
Smith among other elite colleges."[4]
Before becoming President of the United States, Franklin
Delano Roosevelt was a Trustee[5]
