Annie Nathan Meyer

Annie Nathan Meyer (February 19, 1867 – September 23, 1951) was an American author, anti-suffragist, and promoter of higher education for women who founded Barnard College. Her sister was activist Maud Nathan and her nephew was author and poet Robert Nathan.

Early years and education

She was born in New York City in 1867, the daughter of Annie Augusta Nathan (née Florance) and Robert Weeks Nathan. The Nathans are one of America's colonial-era Sephardic families living in Manhattan who had fled the religious restrictions in their native Spain and Portugal during the fifteenth century. Her great-grandfather was Gershom Seixas, the rabbi leading a prominent synagogue in colonial Manhattan who also suffered repression when he refused to follow the religious dictates of the British. Later, he would assist at the inauguration of George Washington.

During childhood, Meyer encountered many hardships as the Crash of 1873 damaged the financial status of her parents. Since she was withheld from public school by her mother's request, Meyer was self-educated and claimed to have read all of the works of Charles Dickens by the age of seven. In 1875, the family moved from New York to Green Bay, Wisconsin for greater employment opportunities.

Meyer later focused her studies carefully in order to enroll in the newly established Columbia College Collegiate Course for Women in 1885 at the all-male Columbia College in Manhattan. It was a program that allowed women to sit for examinations for all undergraduate degrees although they were not allowed to attend the lectures preparing its students for the examinations. The course did not recognize women participants as fully enrolled Columbia students because at the time, officially, the college did not enroll women.