Category: colleges

The concept for Texas Woman’s University dates back more than one hundred twenty years. An article from March 24, 1897 in the Bryan Eagle, Bryan, Texas referenced a Dr. Ellen Lawson Dabbs (there shown as “Dobbs”) who advocated for the creation of a Girl’s Industrial College to be located in Bryan with the only stated opposition coming from a Mrs. Stoddard of Waco who favored that the location of the proposed school would be in Waco. Proponents of the Bryan site favored the location there in association with “A. and M. College” (now Texas A&M University) which was already in operation there, and served only male students. The female school was to be an annex to the existing college. Dr. Dabbs was quoted as saying, “The bill we wish is the only one having the ghost of a chance. This legislature is pledged to retrenchment and cannot afford to appropriate hundreds of thousands of dollars, even if Mrs. Stoddard does permit it to go to Waco. That same bait was offered to me that it might come to Ft. Worth if the Woman’s Council would work for it, but I am not out on this as a local matter. I do not regard public funds as a private snap or even a town snap. I am working for Texas girls and the best interests of all concerned, and through you I beg all our people, men and women, to write their representatives at Austin and urge their support of this measure to open the Agricultural and Mechanical College to girls.”