Inness

Intimate Communities Representative Inness

The many popular representations of student life at women s colleges produced in the United States during the Progressive Era are examined. The college woman was described and defined in a period when women s higher education was still socially suspect. While other scholars have argued that the Progressive Era was the golden age for women s single-sex education, pointing to the many positive depictions of the women s college student, Inness suggests that these representations actually helped to perpetuate the status quo and did little to advance women s social rights."