This essay examines some of the curricular and pedagogical practices in place in English departments during the early years of the “Seven Sisters” — the women’s colleges of the late nineteenth century — to address contemporary issues in English studies. The experimental nature of the woman’s college allowed for pedagogical innovation, so that the “feminine preoccupation” of literary study as understood in the postmodern era was fostered in the collaborative atmosphere of the women’s colleges of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.