Emma Willard School history

In 1819 Willard moved to Waterford, New York, and opened a school.

After his death in 1823 she became a teacher in New York in her sister’s Troy Female Seminary, where she remained for eight years.

The school was an immediate success, even before the first public high schools for girls were opened in New York and Boston in 1826.

By 1831 the school had enrolled over 300 students, and the school actually made a profit.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a leader in the women’s rights movement, was an 1832 graduate of Troy Female Seminary.

Willard remained the head of the seminary until 1838, when she handed it over to her son.

From 1845 until her death, Emma remained close to the Troy Female Seminary as an adviser, teacher, speaker, and friend of good causes.

Clothing dominated the city’s economy after the introduction of the sewing machine in 1852, but a more diversified economy (including auto-parts, high-technology, clothing, and heavy gardening equipment industries) now prevails.

In 1859 Almira became only the second woman ever elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Emma Hart Willard died at Troy in 1870 when she was eighty-four years old.

Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps, née Almira Hart, (born July 15, 1793, Berlin, Connecticut, United States—died July 15, 1884, Baltimore, Maryland), 19th-century American educator and writer who strove to raise the academic standards of education for girls.

In 1895 the Troy Female Seminary was renamed Emma Willard School in her honor.