Yale Needs Women: How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant

For 268 years, Yale University was an all-men’s college, but in the summer of 1969, all that changed when the first women were admitted. Debut author Perkins, a former high school teacher and education policymaker, reveals the struggles and triumphs of the institution’s first women as she explores its move to coeducation from 1969 through 1972. Drawing on primary source documents and oral histories, she provides both the student and administrative perspectives, as women navigated housing, sex education, classes, privilege, isolation, and politics. Perkins focuses on a few women and brings their voices to the fore of the historical and political happenings of the time, including the broader issues of gender and racial inequality and the strife of the Vietnam War, imbuing this slice of history with depth.