Agatha Tiegel Hanson

Barely fifteen years old in 1888, Agatha Tiegel entered the nation's only college for deaf students after the college tentatively opened its doors to women. Amid male student and faculty hostility and skepticism, Agatha achieved exemplary academic success and became the first female to earn a BA degree from the college. Upon facing the most stringent campus restrictions and exclusion from male only organizations and activities at the college, Agatha cofounded a society for women students. Her prerequisite graduation presentation, the "Intellect of Woman" was a powerful oratory, urging women's right to their "places in the sun." Agatha's journey marked by struggles and achievements highlight the life of an extraordinary deaf woman in the early years of history.