Published : 2025-12-21

Anna Eliot Ticknor: Correspondence Education of Women by Women

Abstract

This text is dedicated to Anna Eliot Ticknor, a pioneer of correspondence education in the United States, who in 1873 founded the Society to Encourage Studies at Home. The Society’s activities focused on distance learning through mail-based instruction, emphasizing the learner’s self-directed study. Remarkably progressive for its time, the Society was devoted to the education of women by women – regardless of their background, race, social status, or level of formal education. In this article, I draw upon the Society’s original commemorative publication honoring Ticknor, as well as descriptions found in international (primarily American) literature, to explore the organization’s work and its influence on contemporary educational thought. I also attempt to reinterpret Ticknor’s educational vision in the context of today’s world.

Keywords:

correspondence learning, self-directed study, Society to Encourage Studies at Home, Anna Ticknor, Education in the United States in the 19th century



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Mazurek, E. A. (2025). Anna Eliot Ticknor: Correspondence Education of Women by Women. Biografistyka Pedagogiczna [Biographical Studies in Education], 10(3), 105–122. https://doi.org/10.36578/BP.2025.10.45

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"Biografistyka Pedagogiczna" received funding for the years 2022-2024 from the funds of the Minister of Education and Science under the programme „Rozwój Czasopism Naukowych”.

Project duration: 2023-2024.

The amount of co-financing is 65 992,00 PLN

Contract number: RCN/SP/0434/2021/1