Abstract

Through a review of some of the "daily themes" written by women at Radcliffe as well as scholarship on the history of coeducation, developments in pedagogy, the changing content of rhetoric textbooks, the influence of Harvard, and the work of scholars whose theories resisted the dominance of current-traditional rhetoric, this article challenges Robert J. Connors' assertion that coeducation contributed to the demise of agonistic rhetoric. The orientation of Connors' work suggests that while women's role in rhetorical history is slowly being recognized, their words and their experiences continue to receive less consideration than they warrant within the field.