Vesper Talks To Girls is an advice book to young girls written by Laura A. Knott, who served as principal of Bradford Academy in Bradford, Massachusetts, a school for girls at the time. The book is a collection of talks she gave to students at Bradford Academy and offers life advice on dealing with a variety of situations from a Christian perspective. It was published by the Riverside Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts in March 1916, with the dedication to the students of Bradford Academy in the “past, present, and future.” While it was originally written specifically for students at Bradford Academy, it was published in hopes of reaching a wider audience.

Bradford Academy, like Saint Mary’s College, was a women’s school from 1837-1970 and provided college education to women. It became coed in 1971 before closing for good in 2000. This story of decline and closure is not an isolated story; many women’s colleges have shut down in recent years. In the past, they served as important institutions providing higher education to female students when many colleges would only admit men; however, now that colleges legally must admit women, many single-sex colleges have been forced to close or become coed. As the number of women’s colleges dwindles, down to fewer than 40 in the U.S. today from over 200 in the 1960s, students and communities of women’s colleges like Saint Mary’s must reckon with what it means to be a women’s college in the modern era (Moody, 2021). Some believe they are redundant now that most colleges are coed, and some women’s colleges have cited diminishing interest from prospective students as the reason for becoming coed. Therefore, Saint Mary’s and other women’s colleges must define the role and meaning of women-only colleges in the 21st century, and struggle with questions of whether it is useful to have spaces reserved just for women. At Saint Mary’s, many would likely argue that the sisterhood formed at Saint Mary’s is a unique and priceless experience they would not trade, and that spaces for women, just as there are magazines made specifically for women, uniquely address women’s issues in a way that does not happen in coed spaces. However, there are no easy answers to these questions, especially as schools grapple with financial problems and controversies over the admittance of students who identify as transgender. 

As Saint Mary’s and others face these challenges, it is comforting to know that others in the past have faced similar battles, and the struggle to assert one’s place in society as a woman is not new. Laura A. Knott herself discussed the feminist movement in her chapter titled “The Progress of Woman,” in which she argued for women’s suffrage and asserted the crucial roles of women establishing a safe and just future. Then, just as now, people were searching for meaning in their lives and strength to fight for the future they believed in.