Life threads: reading the professional lives of Mary Hayden (1862–1942) and Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (1877–1965)

Early advocates for the expansion of women’s higher education imagined a future that was deeply embedded in their aspirations for social, economic and political equality. In the vanguard of campaigns for wider access to higher education were women professors, they themselves outsiders within an academic hierarchy marked by male privilege. This article shines the spotlight on two women professors to understand the educational, social and cultural processes that shaped their lives. In doing so the extent to which their work was deeply marked by personal ties, social practices and traditions is revealed. The focus on the careers of Mary Hayden (1862–1942) and Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (1877–1965) highlights the themes and commonalities that emerge from their individual stories and the importance of continued nuanced and critical assessments of women’s professional lives.