In the Footsteps of the Women of 1900

In the Footsteps of the Women of 1900
Remarks for Cap & Gown Convocation
President Patricia McGuire
October 25, 2025

 Congratulations, seniors, Class of 2026!  The regalia you now wear so proudly vests you with your status as true scholars and leaders in the Trinity community and beyond.  Your robes link you in that long line of Trinity women reaching across 12 decades to the very first Trinity pioneers.

In November 1900 when the first brave students made their way onto Trinity’s campus, with Main Hall still under construction, they kindled a revolution that still burns bright to this very day.  Let’s take a minute to think about the arcs of history and justice from their vantage point:

In 1900, this nation was just 111 years old and had already suffered many grievous conflicts and doubts about this experiment in democracy and liberty.

In 1900, slavery had only been abolished for 37 years via the Emancipation Proclamation; the Civil War with its still-fresh wounds in the national psyche had ended just 35 years previously.  1900 was only four years past the nefarious “separate but equal” ruling of the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson that held that segregated facilities did not violate the Constitutional right to equal protection.  It would take another half century for the Supreme Court to right that historic wrong, in 1954, ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that segregated schools were inherently unequal.  It would take ten more years for the Civil Rights Act to pass in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act to become law in 1965.  Laws that are now in jeopardy, sad to say.

In 1900, small groups of progressive women had been talking about women’s rights for about 52 years since Elizabeth Cady Stanton and friends first gathered to declare women’s rights at Seneca Falls.  It would take another 20 years for women to win the right to vote in 1920, and even longer — 72 years — for women to earn equal rights in education through the enactment of Title IX in 1972.

In fact, the founding of Trinity was necessary because women had so few collegiate options in 1900.  Mt. Holyoke, the first of the seven sister colleges, was 63 years old, but Wellesley and Smith had just turned 25 and Bryn Mawr was a mere teenager, only 15.  Many people disparaged the then-new women’s colleges as dangerous fads.  Among conservative Catholic circles, some even declared Trinity’s founding to be part of a heresy called “Americanism.”

The women who moved into the south wing of Main Hall in November 1900 were progressive souls, eager to learn and flourish in an age when a college education was a rare privilege even for men, and rarer still for women.  They were also women astride enormous chasms of social, economic and political upheaval as this nation and world marched inexorably forward into times of great inventions (electricity, automobiles, airplanes, telephones, new technologies) fostering rapid social change, propelled even more swiftly through the world wars, political and economic revolutions of the 20^th Century.  Trinity’s pioneer women used their education here to engage with, shape and lead the forces of change across that dynamic century.

What do those women of 1900 have to do with you, Trinity students of 2025?  They are your foremothers, sisters in the spirit bound to you, and you to them, through the values and traditions of Trinity.  They started our traditions of class colors (they were the first Red Class) and the Cap and Gown tradition that we continue to this very day.  But more than colors and academic costumes, they were the women who started Trinity’s long tradition of education for justice, the formation of citizen leaders who see the problems of this world as theirs and ours to confront, address, resolve in every way possible.

They did not ask why women were excluded from higher education, but instead they asked Why Not — why not develop the knowledge and skills and talents necessary to lead in a tumultuous time.

As we look back on the women of 1900, we can see how time collapses across the decades, how issues we thought were long-settled have risen up like so many rock formations after large earthquakes.  This nation is almost 250 years old now, and yet, values and principles we thought were long settled in 1776 and 1789 are no longer universally accepted; Democracy, itself, seems precarious as authoritarianism rises.

The Civil War, so close still in 1900, seems uneasily close again, haunting our politics and civic compact with new strains of racial venom, a loud keening that seems to mourn the “lost cause.”  After a century of hard-won battles for civil rights, we are now told by our government that we dare not speak of, teach about, practice fundamental ideas of diversity, equity and inclusion — words that in our modern history became the polite scrim shadowing our still-unresolved national struggle and sins of racial injustice and oppression.

I need not tell you that we live in dangerous times, my friends.  The boots of the National Guard stomping along our streets sound the danger, but even more, the shadows of ICE lurking at train stations and along bus routes and outside places where day laborers seek work, the cruel and inhumane snatching of bodies of mothers and fathers and children whose only alleged crime is a lack of papers — papers! — these dangers and nefarious arrests are the shame of our nation and a scandalous assault on human rights.  Surely a lack of papers can be cured easily if a just and compassionate nation had the willpower to fix it.  Whatever happened to the “self-evident truths” about “inalienable rights” to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”??

The Great American Experiment seems on many days to be fraying beyond repair, and yet, on other days, we see the American spirit roaring back to proclaim the very reasons why our founders fought a revolution and declared their independence:  No Kings!

We see people marching and proclaiming that We, the People, are the rulers of our own society and our own fate.  We’ve been there before in this nation.  50 years ago, when I sat in this very chapel wearing my cap and gown for the first time, the my classmates and I —- like you, a Green Class — were already veterans of marching — marching to end a war, to achieve some peace, to secure civil rights and women’s rights.  We thought we made progress back then, only now to see the stones roll back down the mountain.  And so new generations must march again!

As we look back in wonder and admiration at those pioneer women 125 years ago, we must realize that the long arc of history also teaches a hard, inexorable lesson:  no rights are forever, we cannot take our form of government for granted, our privileges should always count less than our obligations to work even harder for equity, fairness and justice for all.  Our greatest, most precious obligation is to pass our freedom and prosperity on to future generations, each striving to achieve even more than the last.

You may hear all of this and be saying to yourself: “Wait!  I don’t want to lead a revolution, I just want to be a good nurse!” Or maybe you are an immigrant or a person of color thinking, “How can I lead others when I feel so oppressed, threatened, at risk myself?”  Your hesitation is understandable, given the risks of this moment, but being a mere bystander is not a choice. Dangerous times demand courageous responses.

You don’t have to march in the streets to stand up and be counted. We spent yesterday, Friday, in a symposium examining the influence of Catholic teachings on social justice from Trinity’s founding on through our work today.  As the generations of Trinity students and graduates have done across twelve decades, you will raise up and exemplify the values of freedom, equality and social justice in the excellence of the work you do each day; in the compassion you extend to your patients and students and clients; in the care you show for truth and integrity in all of your actions; in the choices you make about the causes for which you will be advocates and activists in your communities; in the voluntary sharing of your talents and resources with those in need; in the solidarity you express with others who accompany you on this journey; in the ways in which you teach your children to follow your good example.

No one person can ensure the change we desire in our communities and this nation, but together, we can unite as a powerful force for good, for justice and peace as Trinity students and graduates have done for 125 years.

May you leave this Cap and Gown convocation today vested with the strength, wisdom and love of the Trinity to be your constant companions, sources of support and inspiration all the days of your lives.

Congratulations, Class of 2026!