The northern education of two southern women in postbellum America; When sisters Mary and Louisa Poppenheim, daughters of a prominent Charleston, South Carolina, mercantile family, left their childhood home in the 1880s to attend Vassar College in New York, they entered a world that challenged their beliefs about women and society. First Mary and then Louisa pursued degrees at one of the most rigorous and progressive women's colleges in the country. In a stream of letters home, the sisters chronicled the opportunities and ideals they encountered. Their mother, alarmed by such influences,...