Women Overcame Obstacles to Acquire an Education in Early Years

Female students were not initially admitted to the University of Maine, then known as Maine State College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, when the doors finally opened in 1868. A law to make the college coeducational was eventually passed in February of 1872. Louise Hammond Ramsdell of Atkinson, Maine, was admitted as the first female student later that year, admitted with junior standing, and graduating in 1874. Percia Vinal became the first woman to earn a graduate degree in 1882. 

Their admittance as students does not mean that their educational experience was equal though. It was not until nearly fifty years after the school’s founding that the first official female dorm would open in 1914, named for Elizabeth Abbott Balentine, the first female staff member at UMaine. Prior to that, female students had to live in chaperoned boarding houses, or take the train in from small towns along the Maine Central Railroad, or Bangor-Orono-Old Town electric trolley. Did you know that an electric trolley came right to campus!? Check out the image of the station in the attached photos.

Even once women were granted admission and given housing on campus, there were often still numerous restrictions put upon their movement and activities.

Nowadays women make up 51% of the student body. 

University of Maine, Office of Student Records, "Catalogue of the Maine State College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, 1872-3" (1872). General University of Maine Publications. 16.

University of Maine, Office of Student Records, "Catalog of the University of Maine, 1914-1915" (1914). General University of Maine Publications. 9.

University of Maine, "University of Maine 1865 - 1940: Seventy-fifth Founders' Day Anniversary" (1940). General University of Maine Publications. 36.