Mount Vernon scholar lectures on women’s history at Cornell

MOUNT VERNON — Mount Vernon resident Gretchen Sutherland will speak on “The History of Women at Cornell College” at 11 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 17, in Hedges Conference Room of The Commons at Cornell. Admission is free.

Women have played a significant role throughout Cornell’s history. Cornell, founded in 1853, was the first college west of the Mississippi to grant women the same rights and privileges as men and the first college in Iowa to confer a baccalaureate degree on a woman, Mary Fellows in 1858. Cornell was the first U.S. college to grant a full professorship to a woman, Harriette J. Cooke in 1871, with a salary equal to her male colleagues.

Sutherland’s doctoral dissertation focuses on the history of women at Cornell. Her talk is one of many events during the second half of the academic year that will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the women’s studies program at Cornell.