"[4] The first graduation ceremonies took place in the library of Longfellow House on Brattle Street, just above where George Washington's generals had slept a century earlier.

Only after generations of civil freedom and social equality will it be possible to obtain the data necessary for an adequate discussion of woman's natural tendencies, tastes, and capabilities...It is not the business of the University to decide this mooted point.

The "Harvard Examinations for Women" included subjects such as history; literature of Shakespeare and Chaucer; languages such as Latin, French, and German; botany; and mathematics.

"[10] Eliot was strongly against co-education, saying, "The difficulties involved in a common residence of hundreds of young men and women of immature character and marriageable age are very grave.

In subsequent years, ongoing discussions with Harvard about admitting women directly into the university still came to a dead end.

The Globe said, "Eliot stated that the percentage of graduates with distinction is much higher at Radcliffe than at Harvard" and that although "[i]t is to yet to be seen whether the women have the originality and pioneering spirit which will fit them to be leaders, perhaps they will when they have had as many generations of thorough education as men.

The original Radcliffe gymnasium and library, and the Bertram, Whitman, Eliot, and Barnard dormitories were constructed during this period.

[16] English professor Barrett Wendell warned his colleagues about continued cooperation with Radcliffe, saying that Harvard could "suddenly find itself committed to coeducation somewhat as unwary men lay themselves open to actions for breach of promise.

Speaking of her, one alumna remembers that "we were in awe of 'Miss Comstock... and knew even then that we had been touched by a vanishing breed of female educator.

"[19] Because it had a university – as opposed to "collegiate" – faculty, Radcliffe was unique among the Seven Sisters in being able to provide a graduate program with a wide number of opportunities for students to pursue advanced studies.

M. Carey Thomas, the second president and chief visionary of Bryn Mawr College, lobbied against the conversion of the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women into Radcliffe College precisely because the Cambridge rival's access to a university faculty competed with Bryn Mawr's own academic ambitions.

"[25] Dorothy Howells noted that, "Allegations were made that Radcliffe was a "vampire" and a "temptress" enticing the teacher from his career-advancing research and publication with the lure of additional income.

[28] During World War II, declines in male enrollment at Harvard and heightened sensitivity about the use of resources called for a new, more efficient arrangement concerning faculty time.

Equally significant, the agreement ended the era in which individual faculty members at Harvard could choose whether to enter contracts with Radcliffe.

"[30] Indeed, Radcliffe continued to maintain a separate admissions office which, by general acknowledgment, was more stringent in its academic requirements of applicants than Harvard's.

Speaking generally about her philosophy for Radcliffe, President Bunting noted that "part of our special purpose is to convey to our students and through them to others that there is no basic conflict between being intellectual and being feminine.

Other post-graduate courses of study at Radcliffe grew as the undergraduate women students became more a part of Harvard University.

Their lives were not as cloistered as those of some of their counterparts at the sister schools, and according to an article in Mademoiselle Magazine, "it was the richness and freedom of life at Radcliffe" which left its mark on the student body.

You spend all week in Bermuda shorts, with your hair in curlers, worrying over who's going to take you to Amherst or New Haven Friday night.

Beth Gutcheon of the class of 1967 wrote in a reminiscence that "One night a classmate of mine was leaving the library alone at eleven when somebody jumped her from behind and knocked her to the ground.

"[44] Davidson added that "without the early and enthusiastic cooperation of 'the young ladies of Radcliffe' the impressive tradition of college choral singing, which is now nationwide and which is always associated first with Cambridge, would almost certainly have been established much later here or would have originated elsewhere.

In 1987, Radcliffe's heavyweight varsity eight completed an undefeated season with a victory at Eastern Sprints and an Ivy championship title.

"[46] Similarly, the Radcliffe honor code provided for more generous library and campus space privileges (for student groups) than the more bureaucratic Harvard systems allowed.

However, some people within the Radcliffe community were less sanguine about the differences between the two schools, seeing the relationship with Harvard as an institutionalized separate but unequal experience for women.

Writer Alison Lurie reflected that "for Radcliffe students of my time the salient fact about Harvard was that it so evidently was not ours.

[51] That same year, several Harvard and Radcliffe dormitories began swapping students through an experimental program, and in 1972 full co-residence between the two colleges was instituted.

The so-called "non-merger merger" combined the Radcliffe and Harvard admissions offices and ended the forced ceiling on female enrollment.

I can't remember a single Harvard classmate, but two of my best friends are fellow Cliffies and I exchange correspondence with about a dozen more.

"[56] Indeed, many Radcliffe alumnae feel their institution has relinquished its distinguished identity in favor of a male-oriented one that remains steadfastly dismissive of women's concerns.

Former Radcliffe president Matina Horner once told the New York Times of her surprise when she first delivered a lecture at Harvard in 1969 and four male students approached her.