| Research Abstract |
In this study, I clarified the career opportunities of women students in British higher education from 1880 to1914. Before 1960s, all the universities in Great Britain shut their doors for women, and women had no chance entering into learning professions. However after 1870, not only new civic universities, but also old universities began to accept women as formal students, and the number of women student increased rapidly up to the twentieth century. As a result, by 1930 the number of female student amounted to nearly one quarter of all university students in Great Britain.
After graduating the universities, most of them entered into teaching profession. Why they did so, and how they did their work, how long they continued their job, and when they married, if any. These were the key questions of my study. As to the university students, I did a case study on Girton College, Cambridge. Through analyzing the Girton College Register published in 1848, I found out some features of their stu
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dents.
(1) Most of the early student entered into teaching profession.
(2) Others had no working experience and got married a few years after graduation.
(3) Those who entered the teaching profession started their careers as assistant mistress at secondary schools for girls, and gradually promoted into headmistress, and continued their profession for more than 30years.
(4) Those who married didn't do paid work, but most of them were occupied some voluntary work in the local community.
On the other hand, some aspiring women entered into medical profession. In order to examine the medical career, I did a case study of London School of Medicine for Women, (LSMW) founded in 1874. Through analyzing the annual reports and magazines of LSMW, I clarified some features of career attainment of early women doctors.
(1) Most of the early female doctors worked at hospitals for women and children, mostly founded by pioneer medical women.
(2) After 1880, a great number of female doctors began to move into foreign countries, especially colonial districts such as India and China.
Generally, female doctors were obliged to work in marginal places in whole the medical world, but gender boundaries of medicine changed little by little during the first half of the twentieth century. Less
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