In 1915, in a speech to the Columbia Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa she challenged the commonly held belief that the education of women was a detriment to society, arguing that improved public health and the declining infant mortality made it unnecessary to breed as many children as once had been the case. In the modern world women could have the same ambitions as men. Rosalind Rosenberg, Gildersleeve's biographer, has argued that ``Through her work Gildersleeve and other pioneers like her provided the essential conditions necessary to winning for women full equality with men in American society and throughout the world.
Rosalind Rosenberg
Gildersleeve