where she taught at Western College. In Illinois, she worked for Knox College as the principal of the Woman's Department and a faculty member, teaching Moral Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Literary Criticism. In 1866, when she taught at the college, there were separate classrooms and curriculums for men and women. She felt that women should have the same opportunities for education as men. Student Strike at Knox College After becoming principal of the women's seminary in 1867, Howard was overworked and unable to influence President William Curtis to create an equal co-educational program or even to make the salaries for the women seminary teachers equal to those of the college professors. She, and two other professors, Louise A. Sanderson and Mary J. Farnham, resigned in 1868 after Curtis grabbed her during an argument about the next year’s course catalog. James Parks, a Knox freshman at the time, reports that the next day, a Saturday, students rang the bell in Old Main, the oldest building on the Knox campus, for a long time. They had cut the bell rope and also taken Civil War muskets and ammunition up into the bell tower so that they could make noise in protest of Curtis’ conduct. Parks reports that little happened on Sunday. On Monday, when students assembled near the college chapel in the morning, they refused to enter until Curtis resigned. Parks writes that only three students went to chapel services that day. A historian at Knox College reports that six students went to services, but otherwise corroborates Park’s description of the strike. During Tuesday, students repeated this technique which Parks later began to call the first ‘sit-down strike’ which he knew of. Before the 3 pm recitation in the chapel that day, the trustees met. The president of the Knox board of trustees, Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Lawrence, then informed the students that Curtis had resigned. The students went to the chapel for the recitation, “yelling ‘Hurrah for Knox College!’ or words to that effect.” Other sources provide additional details to the historical event. According to the College Courier, a Monmouth College newspaper, students even surrounded the president’s residence throwing hisses and complaints before parading the campus the next day armed with weapons. The Seminary female students joined in the commotion with piano and organs. After an unfruitful attempt to halt the noises, Curtis made his way to the Seminary and inquired