Jan/Feb 2021
Manuscripts and archives
Henry Barnard Hall at 28 Hillhouse Avenue was the first home of the education department in Yale’s Graduate School. It now houses the economics department. View full image
When Yale tested the waters
In March 1958, newspapers around the country carried a surprising wire-service item. A Texas paper gave it the headline “Yale University Planning to Turn Lightly Co-Ed.” A New York State paper went with “Another Male Stronghold Gone as Yale Admits Undergraduate Girls.”
The event that sounded so momentous was, in reality, extremely small-scale and short-lived. But it was the first time Yale College had tipped even a toe into coeducation.