Beneath Thy Guiding Hand: A History of Women at the University of Delaware

Front cover of Beneath Thy Guiding Hand: A History of Women at the University of Delaware

Beneath Thy Guiding Hand: A History of Women at the University of Delaware was written by Carol E. Hoffecker.

To many, Hoffecker is the quintessential Delawarean. A native of the state, she is a graduate of Mt. Pleasant High School and UD and has made the First State and the University the focus of her research and writing.

After graduating from UD in 1960, with the encouragement of Munroe and the late UD Prof. Eve Clift, Hoffecker attended graduate school at Radcliffe College and Harvard University. She later headed the fellowship program at Hagley Museum and taught at the University before joining the faculty full time in 1973.

Carol Hoffecker, Richards Professor Emerita of History at the University of Delaware, is the author of several books on Delaware history. Her University honors include induction in the Alumni Wall of Fame; the Francis Alison Award, as an outstanding member of the faculty; the Medal of Distinction; and the E. Arthur Trabant Institutional Award for Women’s Equity.

The books she has written “are the part of you that stays behind,” she says. Hers reflect the breadth of her interests: Wilmington, Delaware, Portrait of an Industrial City: 1830-1900; Brandywine Village, Corporate Capital: Wilmington in the 20th Century; Delaware: A Bicentennial History; Beneath Thy Guiding Hand: A History of Women at the University of Delaware; Familiar Relations: The du Ponts and the University of Delaware; Honest John Williams: U.S. Senator from Delaware; Federal Justice in the First State; and, for school-age children, Delaware, The First State, among others.