When The City College was first established in 1847 as The Free Academy, it was established as a college for men. Most education at the academy and the collegiate level in the United States and in Europe was segregated by sex, and The Free Academy was for males only.

In 1849, two years after opening of The Free Academy, the Board of Education considered the need to establish a “Female Free Academy.” Not until twenty years later, however, in the 1869, was the Normal School for Women (later Hunter College) finally opened.

The earliest appearance of women in the academic departments of the College was in the Extension Division of the College, and in the Schools of Education, Business, and a little later in the School of Technology. The School of Business admitted women from its founding in 1920, largely in courses teaching accounting, stenography and other practical business office skills. In all three schools, however, women were registered in restricted numbers and according to restricted schedules that favored male students.