Marie Curie Got Her Start At a Secret University For Women
August 9th, 2016Via: Atlas Obscura:
In the 1860s and 1870s, more educational opportunities were being made available to women in Poland, but universities still staunchly refused to admit them. In 1863, the Ministry of Education had actually sent out a decree to every university council in the country explicitly banning women from enrolling (to be fair, most all universities across Europe had policies forbidding women at the time). Any effort to give a complete education to the complete population would have to happen in violation of the new laws.
The Flying University began in the Polish capital of Warsaw in 1882, when secret classes for women began taking place in private homes. The lectures and seminars were taught by Polish philosophers, professors, and historians. Here they could not only receive a proper higher education, but also one that celebrated Polish heritage, free from the influence of outside powers. Hosting and organizing the classes was illegal under government statute, so to avoid detection they often changed location, moving from private home to private home. The classes came to be known as the Uniwersytet Lataj?cy, the Flying (or Floating) University.
