June 1866

Matthew Vassar wrote Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book and a persistent opponent of “Female” in the name of the college, that the trustees had at last approved the word’s deletion:

“I hasten to inform you that the great agony is over—your long cherished wishes reilised—Woman stands redeemed, at least so far as Vassar College is concerned from the degrading vulgarism in the associated name of ‘female’, that has long and extensively grown up in our society…”

Elizabeth Hazelton Haight, ed., The Autobiography and Letters of Matthew Vassar