The Lasso March 2023 Women's History Month Special Edition

The History of Early TWU
Since 1901, Texas Woman’s
University has empowered and
educated thousands of women
and throughout this history, a
demonstrated commitment to
women’s education has been
emphatically expressed.
By Maddie Ray
“Let our daughters be taught all the
labors necessary to a well-kept,
hygienic home and also be trained
to some business… Let us stop the
embroidery and piano lessons long
enough to send them to a scientific
cooking school,” Stoddard said.
English, science, painting and
photography courses. In addition
to this, women were also given
the opportunity to take courses in
homemaking and even courses
in predominantly male segments
of commerce such as the political
economy and commercial law.
The University also held weekly
lectures open to both students
and community members on the
economics of cooking, the care of
the young, harmful bacteria and
demonstrations of new X-rays.
During the turn of the century, male
students could enroll in academic
schools, vocational schools that
prepared teachers, or industrial
schools that provided training within
other vocations such as agriculture.
In 1877, Texas A&M opened its
doors to offer an education to
train young men in agriculture and
mechanics. Shortly following, The
University of Texas was founded in
1883, offering education in literature
and science. The lack of a higher
education industrial school for
young women was significant and
proved to be a point of contention in
the following years.
In the beginning, the conversations
for the Girls Industrial College were
hushed whispers in some circles
until Texas State Grange and
Patrons of Husbandry A.J. Rose
began advocating for the college,
according to Dawn Letson, a former
archivist who compiled the history of
the founding of TWU.
“Do [girls] not need an industrial
college, too, where they can receive
a practical education which will
prepare them for some vocation
in life?” Rose said in a speech
at the Grange conference in
1899 according to journalist Nita
Thurman.
In 1891, the first bill to establish
a female industrial school passed
in the state Senate but failed in
the state House. Helen Stoddard,
President of the Woman’s Christian
Temperance Union, began
advocating for the school in 1893.
Additionally, Pauline Periwinkle
of the Dallas Morning News took
up the cause on the grounds that
industrial training would prevent
lower-income young women from
becoming prostitutes, which she
argued was the only other moneymaking
alternative for lower-income
women at the time.
Opponents still remained despite
the movement gaining traction. One
politician did not want to support
the bill because it has “female
rights written all over it,” while
another opponent believed that
women did not need to be trained in
homemaking skills, saying “instinct
will make a woman a perfect
housekeeper, a model wife and a
wise mother.”
Finally, in 1900, the Texas
Democratic Party called for an
industrial school for girls and, in
1901, the school was approved and
placed in Denton.
The beginnings of TWU represented
an experiment in educating young
women in non-traditional fields.
The English, Science and Fine
Arts departments offered traditional
Even the Pioneer Woman brought
controversy at TWU. After L.H.
Hubbard, president of what was
then known as the Texas State
College for Women, proposed a
statue honoring women to be on
the campus, he chose the threedimensional
plaster model of
a pioneer family that New York
sculptor William Zorach submitted.
They were thick-bodied and nude,
causing a chapter of the Daughters
of the Republic of Texas to say it
was “the greatest insult that could
be offered to these women who
believed and practiced the virtue of
modesty.”
Zorach attempted to change the
design to one with lightly draped
figures, but the commission
ultimately chose Leo Friedlander’s
model, which depicted a sturdy
woman.
The early history of TWU was
marked with hesitancy because of
its dedication to women, but it was
also notably progressive for its time,
providing women with valuable
education in the career fields most
available at the time, a legacy the
university continues to this day.
3