

For instance, they had limited access to the library and the gymnasium. While admitted to the university, women were limited in what they could do. Immediately after her high school graduation in 1877 Florence Bascom enrolled at the University of Wisconsin.

While not much is known of Bascom’s early education, she did graduate at the age of fifteen from high school in Madison, Wisconsin. The progressive attitudes of her parents encouraged Bascom to not fear any challenge to attain what she desired. Florence’s mother was a suffragist as well as a school teacher. A year after he became president of the University of Wisconsin that school opened its doors to women students – a radical and progressive move for the era. He and his wife actively supported the temperance and suffrage movements and he advocated coeducation. John Bascom was a professor of oratory and rhetoric at Williams College, and in 1874 he became the president of the University of Wisconsin – a post he held until 1887. Her parents were John and Emma Curtis Bascom. However, none of these significant ‘firsts’ in women’s history occurred with out struggle, persistence, and dedication.įlorence Bascom was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts on July 14, 1862. Geological Survey as well as the first woman elected to the Council of the Geological Society of America.

One of those women became among first to earn a PhD in Geology (the second woman to do so) the first woman geologist hired by the U.S. Her designs were popular and well-received, but she soon decided that there was no chance for name recognition in designing fabrics and switched to painting.The late nineteenth century was an exciting time for women in the United States as they saw their opportunities for professional careers expanding further than they ever had before in this nation.
