PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: professional education

Mary Putnam Jacobi American physician, writer, educator, and suffragist who is considered to have been the foremost woman doctor of her era. Mary Putnam was the daughter of George Palmer Putnam, founder...

Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge was an American welfare worker who led the social-work education movement in the United States. Breckinridge graduated from Wellesley College in 1888. After a time as a...

Catharine Beecher was an American educator and author who popularized and shaped a conservative ideological movement to both elevate and entrench women’s place in the domestic sphere of American culture....

George Wythe American jurist who was one of the first judges in the United States to state the principle that a court can invalidate a law considered to be unconstitutional. He also was probably the first...

Grace Hoadley Dodge was an American philanthropist who helped form organizations for the welfare of working women in the United States. Dodge was of a wealthy family long active in philanthropic work....

Louise McManus American nursing educator, an early leader in extending professional nurses’ training in the United States and internationally. McManus graduated from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New...

Stephen Bleecker Luce principal founder and first president of the Naval War College for postgraduate studies, the world’s first such institution. Starting his career in 1841 as a midshipman, Luce rose...

Christopher Columbus Langdell American educator, dean of the Harvard Law School (1870–95), who originated the case method of teaching law. Langdell studied law at Harvard (1851–54) and practiced in New...

Alice Salomon American founder of one of the first schools of social work and an internationally prominent feminist. She was one of the first women to receive the Ph.D. degree from the University of Berlin...

Tapping Reeve U.S. legal educator and jurist. In 1784 Reeve founded the Litchfield Law School, which was the first of its kind in the United States. (Previously, legal training could be acquired in the...