The New York Times/1894/1/11/Ask Equal Rights for Women

ASK EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN.

Petition for Harvard Degrees for Graduates of Radcliffe College.

BOSTON, Jan. 10. &mdash; A petition has been presented to the Overseers of Harvard University touching the issuance of degrees to women graduating from Radcliffe College. The petitioners, all residents of New-York City, and most of them men well known throughout the country, ask that the Radcliffe graduates shall receive the ordinary degrees of Harvard University, in place of diplomas of Radcliffe College, with the seal of Harvard University and the signature of its President affixed.

The petitioners say that unless the diplomas, which it is at present proposed to issue, shall state that the degree of A. B. conferred is equivalent to the A. B. degree of Harvard, the signature of the President and the seal will signify nothing. On the other hand, if the degrees are equivalents, one of the other, the petitioners can see no reason why the women of Radcliffe should not leave their college with the same diplomas that their brothers receive. The petitioners cite the practice at Columbia as to the students of Barnard College as in line with what they ask. They also refer to the practice at the University of Cambridge, England, of issuing to women degree certificates which state what honors each recipient would enjoy if a man. The petition has been referred to a committee of the board.

Among the signers to the petition are the Right Rev. Henry C. Potter, the Rev. Dr. W. R. Huntington, Judge Charles P. Daly, Edwin L. Godkin, Richard M. Hunt, Abram S. Hewitt, J. Pierpont Morgan, the Rev. Dr. Richard S. Storrs, John Bigelow, Judge J. C. Bancroft Davis, Charles Butler, Henry E. Pellew, the rev. Dr. A. Mackay-Smith, E. Ellery Anderson, Dr. Charles McBurney, Albert Stickney, Horace White, Carl Schurz, Joseph H. Choate, Charles S. Fairchild, Nathaniel A. Prentiss, Peter B. Olney, Judge William G. Choate, William E. Dodge, Theodore Roosevelt, George Haven Putnam, W. D. Howells, William Allen Butler.

Miss Marianne Woodhull, Mrs. Sarah H. Emerson, Mrs. Henry Draper, Miss Emily Tuckerman, Mrs. Lucius Tuckerman, Mrs. Joseph Hobson, Mrs. J. C. Bancroft Davis, Mrs. William B. Rice, Mrs. Lydig Hoyt, Miss Rosalie Butler, Dr. Emily Blackwell, Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, Dr. Felix Adler, Richard Watson Gilder, Charles Collins, John Jay Chapman, and the following members of the New-York Local Committee on Harvard Examinations for Women: Mrs. Merritt Trimble, Miss Ellen Collins, Mrs. George F. Canfield, Miss Julia Livingston Delafield, Mrs. Edwin L. Godkin, Mrs. Henry E. Pellew, Mrs. George Haven Putnam, Miss E. T. Minturn, Miss Rose Morse, Miss Josephine Choate, Miss Elizabeth Kittredge Eaton, and Miss Rachel N. Powell.


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