Includes bibliographical references (pages 362-387) and index.
Contents:
The beginnings -- Katie and Martin Luther -- Learning the vocation of pastor's wife in Norway -- Outside contemporary influences on the education of women -- Building schools that served both men and women -- Comitia Dumriana: assembly of the silly fair ones -- Lutheran Ladies' Seminary at Red Wing, Minnesota -- Getting women the vote in church -- Co-education at Luther College.
Summary:
"When Lutheran church leaders came from Norway in the middle of the nineteenth century, educational plans for each gender were based on deeply held beliefs about what a man was and what a woman was. Teenage boys were to be educated at a school away from home--Luther College for those in the Norwegian Synod. Girls were to be educated in the parlors of an aunt or close friends of her parents. At the time they immigrated, how to educate their children had been central to the cultural debates of their day. Those arguments lived on in this country while the Norwegian Synod pastors were deciding how to build such institutions for their children. Now they lived not only in a new land and culture, but also in a new era when the role of women was changing. Luther remained the only college among Norwegians-Americans that did not admit women in the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. The arguments surrounding these decisions reveal deeply traditional understandings of men and women held by these Norwegian-Americans. Finally, in 1932 Luther College became a co-educational institution. Gracia Grindal surveys these developments within the history of the Norwegian Synod. The arguments regarding the education of women reveal some of the deeply traditional understandings of men and women held by the Norwegian immigrants. Although by today's standards, they appear sexist and exclusive, they reveal the traditions that shaped the Lutheran church in America."--Publisher description.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.