This book explores the efforts of educational reformers who sought to link secondary and higher education in the decades after 1870. Through various state, regional, and national initiatives, these reformers created a hierarchical system, laid the foundation for a growing standardization in education, and influenced who would have access to college. Neither higher education nor the secondary branches dominated the other in creating this educational system. Rather, through debate, argument, and accommodation, the two levels mutually shaped each other in a time of significant political and economic change. Reformers today wrestle with this legacy as they continue to forge connections between the two educational levels.

University Coeducation in the Victorian Era chronicles the inclusion of women in state-supported male universities during the nineteenth century. Based on primary sources produced by the administrators, faculty, and students, or other contemporary Victorian writers, this book provides insight from multiple perspectives of an important step in the progress of gender relations in higher education and society at large. By studying twelve institutions in the United States, and another twelve in the United Kingdom, the comparative scope of the work is substantial and brings local, regional, national, and international questions together, while not losing sight of individual university student experiences.