{"id":570,"date":"2022-08-16T18:37:02","date_gmt":"2022-08-16T18:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wbbm.digitalprojects.brynmawr.edu\/dev\/?page_id=570"},"modified":"2022-09-16T17:22:19","modified_gmt":"2022-09-16T21:22:19","slug":"gloomy","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wbbm.digitalprojects.brynmawr.edu\/why-build\/exhibit\/health\/gloomy\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Gloomy Little Spectre”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In Sex in Education: A Fair Chance for Girls <\/em>(1873) <\/em>Dr. Edward Hammond Clarke (1820-1877) <\/em>claimed that educating women to the same standards as men would have disastrous effects, depleting women\u2019s energy for womb development and leading to sterility. Dr. Clarke specifically discouraged elite white women from pursuing an education akin to the one Bryn Mawr offered because it would lead to race suicide<\/a><\/strong>. When speaking of working-class women, he was not concerned, however, asserting that they began employment in their late teens, when their reproductive organs were fully developed, and that their work was not mentally taxing. Dr. Clarke implored that women take \u201ccare of the reproductive system that is the cradle of the [white, elite, Anglo-Saxon] race\u201d lest \u201cthe [white] race will be propagated from its inferior classes.\u201d \u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Clarke\u2019s theories were not easily dismissed and caused many to question the safety of women\u2019s participation in higher education. It was essential that Bryn Mawr students\u2019 health be documented and displayed so as to prove that a rigorous academic curriculum would not cause dangerous mental strain or render them infertile, thereby contributing to the decline of a white, Anglo-Saxon society. Bryn Mawr disproved Dr. Clarke’s theories, but the College made no effort to challenge the underlying, racist, classist attitudes that shaped them and their popular acceptance. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"A
Unknown photographer, Edward Hammond Clarke, c. 1868. Harvard University Archives, HUP Clarke, Edward H. (1), Harvard Class of 1868 Album.\u200b<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"The
Edward H. Clarke  (American, 1820-1877)\u200b
Sex in Education: or, A Fair Chance for the Girls, <\/em>Boston: J. R. Osgood, 1873 \u200b
Bryn Mawr College Special Collections\u200b<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cEducate a man for manhood, a woman for\u00a0womanhood, both for humanity. In this lies the\u00a0hope of the race.\u201d\u00a0\u200b<\/p>Edward Hammond Clarke,\u00a0Sex in Education: A\u00a0Fair Chance for Girls,\u00a0<\/em>1873, 19.\u200b<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe\u00a0did not\u00a0know when we began whether women\u2019s health could stand\u00a0the strain of college education. We were haunted in those days by the\u00a0clanging chains of that gloomy little\u00a0spectre, Dr. Edward Clarke\u2019s\u00a0Sex in\u00a0Education<\/em>. With trepidation of spirit, I made my mother read it and was\u00a0much cheered by her remark that as neither she nor any of the women\u00a0she knew had ever seen girls or women of the kind described in Dr.\u00a0Clarke\u2019s book, we might as well act as if they\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0exist. Still, we\u00a0did not\u00a0know whether college might not produce a crop of just such invalids.\u00a0Doctors insisted that it would; we women\u00a0could not\u00a0be sure until\u00a0we had\u00a0tried the experiment.\u201c\u200b<\/p>M. Carey Thomas,\u00a0 “President Thomas’s Address,”\u00a0Bryn\u00a0Mawr\u00a0Alumnae\u00a0Quarterly,\u00a0<\/em>January 1908, 45.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Return to: Health By Design<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Continue to: Physical Education the Sargent Way<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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