As the repository for the university's offical records, Special Collections without doubt can tell you a lot about the history of women as students, educators, and administrators at Virginia Tech. Women began working for the university as early as 1902, when the first Superintendent of the Infirmary Frances Brockenbrough was brought aboard. When in 1921 women were admitted for the first time as full-time, degree-seeking students, a number of female educators were already among the faculty!
See our slideshow below for more items and historical tidbits about the roles of women at Virginia Tech. We created it for an exhibit at the 2015 Virginia Tech Women's Weekend and thought we would share it here!
Of course, we have a number of items to explore the roles of women in educational institutions outside of the university. We have materials from Christiansburg Normal and Industrial Institute, the first African-American high school in the county, and the Montgomery Female College, where young women were educated in penmanship, arithmetic, "mental and moral science", mathematics, and both ancient and modern languages and history. And we have rich resources in the International Archive of Women in Architecture, which maintains the works of students and professors of architecture, among others.
So please, peruse and enjoy our two exhibits on female educators and coeds featuring these items and more!