Margaret and Stella Stein
When two sisters, Margaret and Stella Stein, walked up the long winding road to the top of Observatory Hill in Allegheny City, Chancellor William Jacob Holland came out to welcome them. It was 1895, opening day of the fall semester, and they were the first women to enter the Western University of Pennsylvania (W.U.P.) as full time students. The Stein sisters had an advantage over previous female applicants because Chancellor Holland believed that two women could look after each other and keep each other company.
The campus in Allegheny
City, now Pittsburgh's North Side, occupied land adjacent to the Allegheny
Observatory. The school settled there in 1889 after occupying several different
buildings in downtown Pittsburgh and a brief stay on North Avenue in Allegheny.
The
First Women
| How Women Fared | A
New Home | College Life | Targets
of Humor | Women's Space | For
Women Only
Rites of Passage | Black
Women | The Twelfth Floor| The
War Years | Women in Sports | Coming
Into the 70's
Next: How Women Fared
Class
of 1898
The first women graduates, Stella and Margaret Stein, covered the first year
of college work at Pittsburgh's Central High School and entered the University
in 1895 as sophomores. The Stein sisters tied
for first place in their class at Pitt. The sisters decided Stella should
be the valedictorian.
Why
Did the Stein Sisters Choose W.U.P.?
The Stein sisters had one other college option
in Pittsburgh -- the Pennsylvania College for Women in Squirrel Hill. The
women's college was closer to home, but the program at W.U.P. was more to
their liking.
The sisters made the daily journey from their home in the East End to the school on the North Side to study mathematics, their favorite subject. They took all the mathematics courses offered, plus astronomy, mathematical chemistry, and surveying.
Both women were "firsts" again when they returned for their master's degrees in 1901. Stella went on to teach modern languages and mathematics at South High School, and Margaret became principal at Avalon High School until she married.