Of Pioneers and Latecomers – An Examination of the Process Behind the Initial Admission of Women to the Universities of Zurich and Basel

Switzerland, in the mid to late 19^th century, was among the first countries to matriculate women at universities. The University of Zurich, open-minded and pragmatic pioneer, was the first Swiss university to admit women as students, having matriculated Russian Nadeshda Suslova in 1867. There were, however, institutions which were more hesitant about implementing such a major change. The University of Basel, in particular, rejected all requests from women wishing to study at the university during the 1870s and 80s. Consequently, it became the last university in Switzerland’s German-speaking region to matriculate women, being forced to do so by its cantonal government in 1890, 23 years after the University of Zurich.

The goal of this essay is to identify and analyze the factors which led to such drastically different developments. The process behind the acceptance of the first women to both universities is analyzed in detail, with a focus on four major influential factors: the respective universities’ history, their administration, the faculty members’ opinions, and the universities’ stance on foreign female students, who constituted the majority of women studying in Switzerland during the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Various sources, ranging from contemporary research to letters written by the lecturers, university presidents and government officials directly involved in the process of women’s initial admission are taken into account in order to elucidate and compare the reasons behind the radically different processes and outcomes that emerged at the two universities.