Hamilton, Andrea. A Vision for Girls: Gender, Education and the Bryn Mawr School. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. 256 pp.

by Alice Ginsberg

Although Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania is a widely recognized academic institution for women, it is likely that The Bryn Mawr School, a private girls' pre-K-12 institution in Baltimore, Maryland, is far less well known. Founded in the late 1800s by five wealthy and influential women, the school was intended to be a college preparatory school for girls—one of the first five in the country. Over the next 120 years, the school underwent enormous structural, academic, and philosophical change, as well as changes in the composition of the student body, the school's leadership, and its role in the community. Andrea Hamilton's A Vision for Girls: Gender, Education and the Bryn Mawr School is a compelling account of how the history of the Bryn Mawr School parallels the history of female education in the United States, as well as the broader history of the changing roles and expectations of women in American culture.