Willard, Emma Hart
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
Emma Hart (1787-1870), an American educator. She was born at Berlin, Connecticut, February 23, 1787, and died at Troy, New York , April 13, 1870. She was principal of a school for girls in Middlebury, Vermont. In 1809 she married Dr. John Willard. In 1814 she opened a boarding school for girls in her own home. In 1819 she was encouraged by Governor Clinton to remove her school to Waterford, New York. In 1823, being offered a suitable building, she removed to Troy and established the Troy Female Seminary, the name of which in 1892 was changed to the Emma Willard School. Prior to Mrs. Willard's death 15,000 girls had been students in this school. Mr. Willard died in 1825. A few years later she married a Dr. Yates, from whom she soon obtained a divorce, resuming her former name. Mrs. Willard traveled extensively at home and in England, everywhere advo-cating the higher education of women. To appreciate her work it is necessary to remember that she entered the educational field when it was believed that women had no need of high school or college studies and no intellect to master them. Mrs. Willard and her school were the forerunners of higher education for women. She was the author of several popular school books. One of these was Willard's Geography, the text and maps of which were published in separate volumes: Other texts were her History of the United States and an Astronomy for Schools. She was a woman of no little poetic fancy. She was the author of Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep. See Stanton ; Elizabeth Cady; Livermore ; Mary
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's judgment in 1910 that Willard "and her school were the forerunners of higher education for women" has only grown firmer, and the Emma Willard School still operates in Troy, New York, now as a private girls' boarding and day school. The world she argued into existence has been transformed: where she had to insist that women could master college studies, women have been the majority of American undergraduates since about 1980 and now make up close to 60 percent of enrollment. The biggest shift in her own reputation concerns the school books Aiton's mentions in passing: her history and geography charts, including the 1846 "Temple of Time," are now studied as landmark works of information graphics, and a 2018 book collected her maps for that reason. Her authorship of the words to "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep" (1830) is still generally credited to her, though the song is remembered as a Victorian parlour piece rather than as poetry.
Written for this edition, 2026.