This was the formally educated female with, at least, a high school diploma and, sometimes, a college degree. This was the first step taken in the "advancement of women" since "all movements for female emancipation begin with calls to close the educational gap between men and women." 1.
It cannot be assumed, however, that since women had an education equal to that of men, that they would enter the professional world with the same status. Many men believed that their degrees had been "cheapened" by the admittance of women into what used to be a strictly male domain. Women often felt that they were treading on man's turf with encroachment into higher education. Separate colleges such as Vassar (1865) and Wellesley (1875) were then formed, which placed women on more familiar ground. The first generation of formally educated women was viewed as pioneers "and their lapses or failures might jeopardize the whole "experiment" of higher education for women." 1.
New women's clubs were formed on the basis of "intellectual self-improvement" after the Civil War. These were not radical groups, nor were they the modest sewing circles of pre-war times. The term club was used to give it a more formal and serious air than the women's meetings of the past. These women met with the intention of enlarging the mind; "they were women who had not the opportunities for higher education that were opening up to their daughters generation." The women would study different areas of interest such as "literature, art, history, education, and, increasingly, civic improvement." It was the latter that led to the major social reforms of the period. 1.
These women were the pioneers of organized social reform. Women had always been the silent pillars, but through clubs they acquired the ability to speak in public and effectively create whole movements of social progress across the nation. The Women's Christian Temperance Union was one of the most successful women's organizations of the period.