Spelman’s founding students were mostly adults needing elementary education, not young girls.

Evidence

At least one-third of the first year’s class consisted of women between the ages of 25 and 50. All the students required basic elementary education. The younger women attended in order to prepare themselves for a future vocation, while older women primarily sought religious instruction and the rudiments of reading and writing. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 173

Categorization

• DEFINE: Shows that ‘women’s higher education’ institutions of this era began as literacy schools for adult women, complicating what ‘college’ meant for freedwomen.