Women Professors and Deans

Abstract

This chapter argues that the key tension in the historiography of women's progress as academics lies in its position within women's and feminist history and the history of education. The themes of institutions, networking, money, and religion provide four hubs from which to reflect on existing work and recognize potential new directions for those seeking to improve either our understanding of the past or the problems of the present. A fifth section discusses the possibility of "border crossings" as an additional lens through which to view the field. The scope of the chapter is restricted to material published in English, and existing lacunae in terms of race, disability, and sexuality are recognized but inevitably repeated. Most examples are taken from the USA,