Catherine Elizabeth Benson, née Brewer was one of the earliest women to earn a college bachelor"s degree in the United States.
Background
Catherine Elizabeth Brewer was born on January 24, 1822, in Augusta, Georgia. She was daughter of Thomas Aspinwall Brewer (born on August 20, 1792, in Brookline, Massachusetts, died on September 26, 1874, in Macon, Georgia) and Mary Foster Brewer (born February 29, 1795, in Roxbury, Massachusetts, died on January 31, 1871, in Macon) who were married on October 3, 1820, in Roxbury.
Education
In nearby Gray, Georgia she enrolled in Clinton Female Seminary. When the seminary was closed, the students, including Brewer, entered Georgia Female College (currently Wesleyan College) in 1839. The college, chartered in 1836, began offering classes in 1839.
She was the first woman to earn a degree from Wesleyan because her name came first alphabetically among the graduates of the class of 1840.
She received diploma on July 16, 1840. Her diploma said that "she had completed the regular course and bestowed on her the First Degree", which was commonly referred to the bachelor"s degree.
She is remembered each year at the annual meeting of the Wesleyan College Alumnae Association when graduating seniors are inducted into the association using the "Benson Charge", taken from a speech she made to the Class of 1888: Members of the graduating class, demands will be made upon you which were not made upon us. Your training, if you are true to it, will amply qualify you to meet those demands.
Number wiser blessing could I wish for you than that you may be true to every God-appointed work.
Though Benson has been listed as the first woman to receive a bachelor"s degree in the United States., women at Mississippi College had been earning such degrees since 1831.
Career
Her family moved from Massachusetts to Lexington in the 1820s. In 1838 they moved from Lexington to Macon.
Membership
She is remembered each year at the annual meeting of the Wesleyan College Alumnae Association when graduating seniors are inducted into the association using the "Benson Charge", taken from a speech she made to the Class of 1888: Members of the graduating class, demands will be made upon you which were not made upon us.