“Snow lay deep upon the ground. The cold wind blew. The leafless branches of the great trees swayed and groaned.” (Catherine Turner Bryce)
It was 1920, and Yale had just established their graduate Department of Education. The department’s creation followed local demand; Yale had awarded PhDs in education since the 1890s, and offered extension courses to local teachers, but the new department needed professors. Yale appointed six faculty members to fill this role, and one of them, Catherine Turner Bryce, was Yale’s first female assistant professor.
When Bryce arrived at Yale in 1920, she was already a writer of popular children’s books. Now she had a different task: teaching about elementary education. Being the only woman in her department wasn’t easy, and as a Normal School graduate, Bryce had teacher training, but she lacked the prestige of a PhD. She taught at Yale for two years, but pressure from her male colleagues over her qualifications led her to resign in 1922.
The following year, Bessie Lee Gambrill joined Yale as a professor of elementary education. She became the first woman to earn tenure at Yale in a subject other than nursing, and she later spoke out about the marginalization Bryce had faced. Teacher training at Yale may have been an early site of gender inclusion, but it also involved struggle, change, and institutional challenges.
Around this time, Yale sought to expand its work in education studies, housing the department in Barnard Hall at 28 Hillhouse Avenue, named after education reformer Henry Barnard. Over the next 30 years 8,611 students would take courses in education with 879 earning Master’s and PhDs.
Despite its growth, Yale’s education program faced challenges. In 1950, amid a national climate of hostility towards education departments and the departure of key faculty, Yale’s department was closed. But this was not the end of education studies at Yale—over subsequent decades, teacher training re-emerged in an array of programs… Stay tuned!
Adapted from research by Judith Ann Schiff, Dr. Cary Cherniss, and Dr. Mira Debs.
Works cited:
Bryce, C. T. (1910). That’s why Stories. United States: Newson & Company.
Cherniss, C. (1972). New Settings In The University: Their Creation, Problems, And Early Development (Order No. 7314099). Available from Dissertations & Theses @ Yale University; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (302609691). Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/new-settings-university-their-creation-problems/docview/302609691/se-2?accountid=15172
Schiff, J. A. (2021). Teaching the teachers. Yale Alumni Magazine, 84(3). https://yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/5268-teaching-the-teachers