Archives

The Emma Willard school archive contains a wealth of historical documents that provide the written and visual proof of the school’s rich history. Researchers visit from all over the United States to access our collections. The larger and more widely used records housed in the school archive are the 19th and 20th century student letters collection, Troy Female Seminary-related documents and artifacts, and The Emma Hart Willard collection.

The Archive collects materials relating to Emma Willard School (formerly Troy Female Seminary), including archival records from the school and private records of faculty, staff, and students. Holdings include manuscripts, textbooks, and publications of Emma Willard dating from 1817. The collection also includes a large number of photographs, videotapes, audio recordings, and ephemera from the school. Also included are school records and catalogs; student records, letters, diaries, and notebooks; curriculum materials, and records from administrative offices, all dating from 1814 to the present.

Finding aid to the Emma Hart Willard collection

Willard Family Papers at Amherst College

Mrs. Willard's Plan of Female Education

The Archive is pleased to accept donations of items relating to the establishment, development, growth, and activities of Emma Willard School. Please contact Librarian Nancy Iannucci when contemplating such a donation.

Requests for information may be directed to Nancy Iannucci. The Archive is open for research to outside researchers by appointment.

The Emma Willard Library and Archives include the following resources out-of-print archived materials.

Special Collection

Materials in the Special Collection include important titles which are no longer in print, local history titles, Emma Willard’s published textbooks and books by and about Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps, Emma Willard’s sister and former teacher at the Troy Female Seminary. 

Troy Female Seminary Collection (T.F.S.)

Books in the T. F. S. Collection were in the library of the school in the 19th century before the school’s name changed to Emma Willard School. They constitute an example of what the library was at that time. They are fully catalogued. 

Works by Emma Hart Willard

Abridged History of the United States, or, Republic of America.

An Address to the Public; Particularly to the Members of the Legislature of New York, Proposing a Plan for Improving Female Education.

Advancement of Female Education, or, A Series of Addresses in Favor of Establishing at Athens in Greece, A Female Seminary Especially Designed to Instruct Female Teachers.

Ancient Atlas, to Accompany the Universal Geography.

Ancient Geography as Connected with Chronology.

Astronography, or, Astronomical Geography.

Atlas to Accompany a System of the Universal History.

Everest Charles W. The Poets of Connecticut: With Biographical Sketches.

Hartford: Case Tiffany and Burnham, 1844. (includes Emma Willard's poem "Bride-Stealing.")

The Fulfillment of a Promise: by Which Poems,...Are Published and Affectionately Inscribed to Her Past and Present Pupils.

Geography for Beginners, or The Instructor’s Assistant in Giving First Lessons from Maps in the Style of Familiar Conversation.

Goddard, Abba A., The Trojan Sketch Book. Troy: Young & Hart 1846. (includes several pieces written by Emma Willard.)

Guide to the Temple of Time and Universal History for Schools.

History of the United States, or Republic of America.

Journal and Letters from France and Great Britain. (Correspondence from a trip in the early 1830s.)

Last Leaves of American History.

Last Periods of Universal History.

Morals for the Young, or Good Principles Instilling Wisdom.

Respiration, and Its Effects: More Especially in Relation to Ssiatic Cholera, and Other Sinking Diseases.

Rudiments of Geography, on a New Plan. Universal Geography, Ancient and Modern: On the Principles of Comparison and Classification.

A Series of Maps to an Abridgement of the History of the United States.

A Series of Maps to Willard’s History of the United States, or Republic of America.

A Treatise on the Motive Powers Which Produce the Circulation of the Blood

Universal Geography, Ancient and Modern, on the Principles of Comparison and Classification, (with William Channing Woodbridge, co-author).

Willard's English Chronographer, or, Chronology of Great Britain.

Willard’s Map of Time: A Comparison to the Historic Guide.

Works about Emma Willard School

Gilligan, Carol, Nona Lyons, Trudy J. Hanmer, eds. Making Connections: the relational worlds of adolescent girls at Emma Willard School. Troy, NY : Emma Willard School, 1989.

Lay, Clemewell and Anne Wellington. Emma Willard Plan of Education. Troy: Emma Willard School, 1961. (Lengthy discussion of all aspects of the School from the 1940s into the 1960s by its co-headmistresses during that period. Focuses on the integrated curriculum.)

LaFarge, Phyllis. "A Warmhearted Guide to Certain Girls' Schools." Harper's Magazine, 226 (April 1963), pp. 73-99.

McNamee, Dardis. "What Do Young Women Want?" Capital Region Magazine, (March 1989), 51+.

Potwine, Elizabeth B. Faithfully Yours, Eliza Kellas. Troy: Emma Willard School, 1960. (Early history of the School; concentrates on the administration of its sixth head, Eliza Kellas.)

Prose, Francine. "Confident at 11, Confused at 16." New York Times Magazine, (January 7, 1990), 22+.

Scott, Anne Firor. "The Ever-Widening Circle: The Diffusion of Feminist Values from the Troy Female Seminary, 1822-1872." History and Education Quarterly, 19 (Spring 1979), pp. 3-25.

__________. "What, Then, is the American: This New Woman?" Journal of American History, LXV, 3 (Dec. 1978), pp. 679-703.

* Steinberg, Jane. "The Boarding School Mystique." Mademoiselle, 63 (May 1966), 176+.

Taylor, James Monroe. Before Vassar Opened. Boston: 1914.