Women's education evolved very differently in Britain and America. In Britain, the first BA degrees were awarded to women in 1880; by that time, American medical schools had already produced a host of female doctors, and women could obtain degrees both in women's and co-educational colleges. Oberlin College, founded in 1833, was the first to accept women as well as men; Wesleyan College of Georgia (founded in 1839 as the Georgia Female College) claims to be the first college in the world chartered to grant degrees to women. This is not to say that women didn't struggle to achieve the right to higher education in America - only that the struggle seems to have been won quite a bit earlier than in Britain!

Women's Colleges & Degree Programs in Britain

Colleges for Women (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1880)

Girton College, by J.A. Owen (Girl's Own Paper, 1880)

On the origins of the first residential college for women in the UK.

Our Own Colleges (Girl's Own Paper, 1880)

An overview of colleges offering higher education to women.

Our Own Schools (Girl's Own Paper, 1880)

An overview of the best public schools for women.

Durham Degrees for Women (Girl's Own Paper, 1881)

Evening Colleges for Women, by Mercy Grogan (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1881)

The North London Collegiate School for Girls (Girl's Own Paper, 1882)

The Dream of Princess Ida (Girl's Own Paper, 1884)

More on the founding of Girton College.

Education for Women at Oxford (Girl's Own Paper, 1884)

Women at an English University: Newnham College, Cambridge, by Eleanor Field (Century Magazine, 1891B)

How a Woman's College Began, by Helen Gladstone (Ladies' Home Journal, 1892)

On the founding of Newnham College.

The Education of Our Girls, by Raymond Blathwayt (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1894)

A talk with Miss Buss, Headmistress of the North London Collegiate School for Girls.

The Education of Our Girls: Life at Girton College, by Raymond Blathwayt (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1894)

Girton and Newnham Colleges, by E.A. Brayley Hodgetts (Strand, 1894B)

Girls' Schools of Today: Cheltenham College, by L.T. Meade (Strand, 1895A)

Girls' Schools of Today: St. Leonard's and Great Harrowden Hall, by L.T. Meade (Strand, 1895A)

Newnham and After, by Christabel Osborn (Windsor Magazine, 1896B)

The second UK college to admit women. "The women's colleges at Oxford and Cambridge have recently been brought prominently before the notice of the public through the discussion on the granting of degrees, and the vexed question of the value to women of a university education, its nature and its results, has been considered again and again... There is no better way than a college course for obtaining a clear perception of one's own ignorance..."

Concerning Girton, by R.S. Warren Bell (Windsor Magazine, 1897B)

"The Girtonian is little more than a big schoolgirl ; when she is not working she is playing - or talking - hockey, cycling, golfing, or drinking tea; she is blessed with an excellent appetite; she goes to bed early and she gets up early."

[Royal Holloway College] A Model Women's College, by Charles Ray (Good Words, 1902)

Women's Colleges in America

Medical Colleges for Women (Godey's, 1860)

Women's Colleges (Godey's, 1868)

A look at the Michigan Female College and the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania.

Free National Normal Schools for Young Women (Godey's, 1868)

"Normal Schools" were teacher-training colleges.

Vassar College, by Anna C. Brackett (Harper's Monthly, 1876A)

Wellesley College, by Edward Abbott (Harper's Monthly, 1876B)

[Barnard College, NY] A New College for Women (Century Magazine, 1889B)

The First Female College (Century Magazine, 1890B)

The Georgia Female College, chartered in 1836.

On the Opening of the Johns Hopkins Medical School to Women, by James, Cardinal Gibbons, Baltimore (Century Magazine, 1891A)

The author is very much in favor of having more female physicians.

A Day at Vassar, by Helen Marshall North (Demorest, 1896)

International Women's Colleges

A Russian Girton, by Alder Anderson (Strand, 1901A)

The Women's University in St. Petersburg.