Background
Julia Henrietta Gulliver was born in Norwich, Connecticut on July 30, 1856. She was the elder of two daughters in a family which also included two boys and two other children who did not survive early childhood.
Julia Henrietta Gulliver was born in Norwich, Connecticut on July 30, 1856. She was the elder of two daughters in a family which also included two boys and two other children who did not survive early childhood.
She was only the second woman in America to receive a Doctor of Philosophy in philosophy and was a tireless advocate for increased female representation in higher education. Gulliver graduated high school in Binghamton, New York and entered the first class of the newly founded Smith College in 1875. Her Doctor of Philosophy was the second graduate degree awarded by Smith College and it made her the second woman in America to earn a Doctor of Philosophy in philosophy.
She studied at the University of Leipzig for two years where she was the only woman in a department of two hundred mentor
Her senior thesis on dreams was published in the Journal of Speculative Philosophy in the April 1880 issue. Gulliver received her doctorate degree from Smith in 1888. In 1890 she became head of the Department of Philosophy and Biblical Literature at Rockford Female Seminary in Rockford, Illinois.
After Leipzig, she returned to Rockford Female Seminary, which had been renamed Rockford College.
In 1902, she became president and set about reforming the institution, banning sororities. In 1906, she added a program of home economics and secretarial studies to the existing curriculum.
In 1919, she retired and moved to Eustis, Florida. In addition to her philosophical writings and work as president of Rockford College, Gulliver was an early advocate of higher education for women and lectured in favor of women's liberatory causes.
Gulliver died on July 25, 1940 in Eustis, Florida.
Gulliver was one of the first fifteen women to join the American Philosophical Association, as well as being active in the Religious Education Association.