It Happened on
September 17, 1892
Twenty-three women were admitted to pursue graduate degrees that year. Established by an act of the Yale Corporation in August 1847, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences was originally called the “Department of Philosophy and the Arts,” enrolling eleven students who had completed four-year undergraduate degrees. The program offered seminars in chemistry and metallurgy, agricultural science, Greek and Latin literature, mathematics, philology, and Arabic. The faculty consisted of two full-time science professors, Benjamin Silliman Jr. and John P. Norton, and five Yale College faculty members who offered advanced courses in their subject areas. This was the first program at Yale to focus on research and scholarship. Professional training was already being offered in medicine (1810), theology (1822), and law (1824).
“Read the fine print” – A. Blake
The first woman to graduate from Yale University was Alice Rufie Jordan Blake, who earned a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1886, according to Yale Alumni Magazine and Yale University’s website. She was admitted to Yale Law School after discovering that the regulations did not explicitly forbid female applicants.