St. Joseph's Female College

Patee Female College

St. Joseph's Female College

Location: St. Joseph, Missouri, USA

Opened: 1875

Closed: 1881

The Patee House, which was built in 1858 as a hotel, now operates as a  National Historic Landmark and museum. The location has had a variety of usages over the years, but what we're interested in here is that it once housed two private women's colleges: The Patee Female College (1865-1868) and the St. Joseph Female College (1875-1881).

Here's the standard write-up on St. Joseph derived from that "free encyclopedia":

 

Affiliated with the Baptist Church, St. Joseph Female College was opened in 1875 by the English-born Rev. Elijah S. Dulin. The college was located for most of its operating years in the Patee House, a hotel and office building. It had previously housed the Patee Female College from 1865 to 1868.

 

Patee House today

Patee House has historically been most commonly associated with the founding of the Pony Express in 1860, and the death of outlaw Jesse James nearby in 1882.

The college moved out of Patee House in 1880 and constructed its own building at a cost of $100,000 on a hill near the city's center. According to The Baptist Encyclopedia, the board of trustees was composed of the state's leading men, with Rev. Dulin serving as president throughout the college's life.

It's a pattern we've seen before with 19th-century women's colleges: no signs of any actual women! The president is a dude. The Board of Trustees were dudes. And it was short-lived. Big surprise. We often see this too, as the dudes really don't have much motivation for keeping a women's college afloat through all the challenges.

Mary Alicia Owen

And yet women students often transcended the oppressive educational and religious limitations put upon these schools, and creatively reworked the educational opportunities to their own advantage. 

One of these students was Mary Alicia Owen (1850-1935), who attended Patee Female College for three years. Most unusual for a Missouri frontier girl of the time (even a white girl from a fairly prosperous family), Mary then proceeded on to Vassar College, which was one of the few women's colleges of the time that offered women a liberal arts education that was comparable to the ones offered by the men's schools. (Alas, Vassar is no longer a women's college as it began admitting men in 1969.)  

Mary was intent on remaining independent and never married. She later became a writer and renowned folklorist, with a particular interest in local Native American and African-American folklore and "voodoo" (as it was called at the time). She has been described as "the most famous American Woman Folklorist of her time."

While growing up, her family owned slaves. According to the State Historical Society of Missouri,  

Mary would recall how she loved to listen to the myths and stories told by the slaves.  As an adult, she wrote about one slave in the household, Mymee Whitehead, who was a conjurer.  Conjure, or Hoodoo as it is sometimes called, is the African American folk practice of using spells or creating potions to ask the spirit world for help.  Mary loved to watch “Aunt” Mymee prepare special potions.  She sometimes helped by getting needed ingredients from her grandmother’s kitchen.

Mary says more about Mymee here:

Mary Alicia Owen around 20

Aunt Mymee gave me the first glimpse of her secret business by importuning me to get from my grandmother some amaranth seeds. When I insisted on knowing what she wanted with them, she acknowledged she wished to make them into a little cake which would make any who ate it love the one who handed it to him. That sounded reasonable enough to anyone as fond of all sorts of sweeties as I was, so I procured the seeds, and had the cake made up.

Not long after I heard other servants of the family say that Mymee had surely conjured me, for I followed at her heels like a dog that had eaten shoebread.

What she learned from Mymee Whitehead and later from another area conjurer named King Alexander, who was part African American and part Cherokee, was recorded in her first book: Old Rabbit, the Voodoo, and Other Sorcerers (1893).

Mary's life has been written up in a recent book by Greg Olson, Voodoo Priests, Noble Savages, and Ozark Gypsies: The Life of Folklorist Mary Alicia Owen (2012), so I'm not going to summarize it all here. Nor do I want to minimize the legitimate criticism that her work has received in recent years for its racist assumptions and connotations--though the same could be argued about all the other white anthropologists and archaeologists of the time, since these "disciplines" were essentially constructed around the exotic "other".

But as a woman who is little known today outside American folklore circles, it is still important to recognize her contributions and the role that women's schools played in sustaining her life.

Still, I wish we could hear Mymee Whitehead in her own voice, and that she could have had a school of her own....

Lutheran Ladies Seminary

Lutheran Ladies Seminary

Lutheran Ladies Seminary

Location: Red Wing, Minnesota, USA

Opened: Built in 1894

Closed: Building burned in 1920; property went into recievership in 1935


The information provided below on the Lutheran Ladies Seminary is extracted from a longer piece on Education for Young Norwegian-American Lutheran Women.

The education offered to young women at institution like the Lutheran Ladies Seminary reveals something of the community’s expectations about how women would fill their places as daughters and sisters, as wives and mothers. The message given at the schools was not, however, unambiguous. On the one hand, attending a Norwegian-American Lutheran school bound the student to her ethnic, religious community; on the other, it prepared her to move beyond it. Even as female students were trained to be enlightened wives and mothers, they had examples in female teachers and older graduates of women devoted to careers such as teaching or missionary work. The young women’s world was expanded by their studies and they were equipped with skills that could take them beyond the realm of wife and mother into careers in education, music, or the church. And yet the presence of faculty wives and explicit statements in favor of more traditional roles moderated unconventional influences, as did the possibility of forming romantic attachments. These schools could reinforce conventional expectations about female behavior and they could expand those expectations.

The Lutheran Ladies Seminary opened in 1894 with forty young women students. The founders, the (male) president, and the staff of the Ladies’ Seminary were anxious to provide a top-quality education which was both liberal and practical, which would educate mind and body, and which would contribute to their Christian growth. The stated objective was to provide a "thorough and liberal education [and] also to furnish a practical course . . . and above all to imbue the student with a true Christian spirit." The school had much in common with others for women, such as Rockford Seminary, well known for its famous graduate, Jane Addams. 

The curriculum seems designed to prepare young women for conventional domestic roles. The final catalogue made this clear: "The founder of this institution . . . realized, as we do, that the welfare of our homes depends in the highest degree upon what type of woman is making them. Thrifty, neat, and well-trained home-makers create thrifty and well-ordered households. Intelligent, educated and cultured mothers and wives understand how to make the homes centers of noble interests and elevating influences. Pious, spiritually enlightened and devout Christian women are the most zealous guardians of earnest faith, pure morals and unselfish activities." However, the possibility that some students would become teachers or business women was suggested by course offerings and by the normal and business, in fact secretarial, departments as well as the conservatory of music. So here too students received mixed messages about the ends of their education.

Lutheran Ladies Seminary
Home Economics Class (c. 1907)

Every part of the day presented opportunities for learning of some sort. When a student arrived, the contents of her luggage indicated the sorts of activities she would take part in. She had a dictionary and a Bible for required religion and literature courses, a suit for drills in physical culture, a large apron to protect her cotton dresses during domestic science labs, and napkins and a ring for proper dining. Faculty and students dined together from hand-painted china at tables covered with white linen; breaches in etiquette were corrected by notes under the offender’s dinner plate. Students in the four-year seminary and classical departments took courses such as Bible (in Norwegian or English), Augsburg Confession, physical geography, arithmetic, history, drawing, and optionally, Latin, German, or Greek. The 1894 catalogue listed housekeeping and needlework as "obligatory throughout the whole course." Students were also required to attend chapel exercises and Sunday worship. Music and domestic science, both important aspects of students’ studies, equipped them with skills especially useful in the domestic arena. Every student participated in the chorus and sang in its two annual concerts. After the (male) director of the Conservatory of Music was appointed in 1907, the program’s reputation and recruitment efforts were strengthened. The seminary octet went on tour, providing entertainment to the school’s friends and soliciting support. Some students continued their studies with private teachers or abroad and used their talents as church musicians or in concert halls. In domestic science classes students mastered the art of setting a table, serving, and preparation of dishes such as hollandaise sauce, layer cake, and stuffed eggs, skills that would be useful regardless of their occupation. 

The seminary students’ lives were shaped by "such rules as are necessary for the well-being of the students and for the best interest of the school as a Christian school-home." A daily schedule of activities with mandatory free time was enforced. Proper female behavior was encouraged and social interaction regulated; leaning out of windows and reading dime novels were prohibited and visits from "gentlemen" allowed only with written permission from the student’s parents. Students used their free time in extracurricular groups and less structured activities. Besides their Sunday trip to church, the young women were permitted to go downtown once a week.

Alumnae were encouraged to subscribe and keep up with their alma mater via the "articles contributed by the pupils, reports of lectures delivered, concerts given, and an account of everything else worthy of note that happens at the school." Each class organized upon arrival and planned activities for itself and the others: picnics, boat trips on the Mississippi, teas, and the like were recorded in photographs and memory books. Throughout that year there were traditions to be carried on; each class chose colors and a motto ("To be rather than to seem," 1911) to be placed on their class pin. 

Careful reading of enrollment rosters yields a notable number of students connected by birth or marriage to families prominent in Norwegian Lutheranism. Despite the absence of male students at the Seminary, students’ families became entwined by marriage to each others’ brothers or cousins. However, the student body was more geographically and ethnically diverse than highlighting a few students from notable families might suggest. Writing to her aunt in about 1905 student Alma Engelbert described her living situation. "I have three room-mates, one a German, Alma Bleckman, from Iowa, one a Swede, Frances Tornell, from South Dakota, and one a Norwegian, Cornelia Solberg, from North Dakota, so I have all the nationalities in my room, but they are all three very nice." Enrollment data indicates that as much as 25 percent of the student body came from outside Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, and Iowa. 

By the 1910s, enrollment was declining because of the strains of war, changes in leadership, and organizational shifts brought about by the formation of the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America in 1917.  Then in 1919—1920 two fires ended the Seminary’s operation. The first was contained and repairs made during Christmas vacation. The second broke out the night before graduation; both the main building and the music hall were declared total losses. When local business people and the (male) president were unsuccessful in their attempts to raise the funds needed to begin anew, the Board of Trustees put the question of rebuilding to the church. The decision was made not to rebuild the Lutheran Ladies’ Seminary, the property went into receivership, and in 1935 it was sold.

The Alumnae Association (organized in 1910) continued to meet into the late 1960s when the Alumni Association of Luther College, by then coeducational, assumed the membership list. Although there were approximately 500 graduates of the school’s various programs, the total enrollment list for its years of operation was far larger, since many students attended without receiving a degree.

There is also a discussion in the "Education" piece on the heterosexual romances that began between seminary students and local men at Red Wing's drugstore and other places. 

However, what is not discussed are the romances between women. For evidence of this we turn to a blog called It's a Dog's Life. Though to be perfectly honest, the author of Dog's Life fails to understand or appreciate the evidence presented. 

The author had several female relative who attended the school, and pages from one of the relative's scrapbook are shared. Do check it out, as it's utterly charming. 

In a couple of instances, the pages show female couples that are identified as "crushes." Here's one:

"Crushes" at Lutheran Ladies Seminary (1910)

Apparently, the Blog author knows very little about women's history: "I'm not sure what the whole "crush" thing was about. Anyone?" 

It's actually quite simple. "Crushes" were "smashes." They were infatuations mixed with love, erotic attraction, and romance. One of the pioneering explorations on this topic is Carroll Smith-Rosenberg's 1975 essay on the "Female World of Love and Ritual." Read it here. "Crushes" and "smashes" were very common in women's schools and colleges. And the Lutheran Ladies Seminary was obviously no exception. 

Robinson Female Seminary

Domestic Science Class at
Robinson Female Seminary (circa 1904)

Robinson Female Seminary

Located: Exeter, New Hampshire, USA

Opened: 1867

Closed: 1954

Robinson Female Seminary was one of those educational experiments for women that started with the best of intentions. At first it provided a great alternative for middle-class girls whose families could not afford the elite Exeter Female Academy, but were "deterred" by the "crowded classrooms" and "coed environment" (i.e. male domination) of the town high school. It emphasized academic rigor in safe, stimulating, female-only environent.

It was not to last. Within a short 25 years, academic rigor was sacrificed to a curriculum emphasizing the "domestic sciences"--i.e. skills that directly supported the care and feeding of men.

From Seacoastonline:
 

When Exeter's Robinson Female Seminary was created in 1867, it was intended to be an academic school similar to Phillips Exeter Academy. William Robinson's will, which funded the teachers, stated; "In my poor opinion there is altogether too much partaking of the fancy in the education that females obtain, and I would most respectfully suggest such a course of instruction as will tend to make female scholars equal to all the practical duties of life; such a course of education as will enable them to compete, and successfully too, with their brothers throughout the world, when they have to take their part in the actual of life."

 

Robinson Female Seminary

Schools for young women tended to focus on needlework and deportment. In Exeter, the girls were welcome to attend the town high school, but most did not stay long — the crowded classrooms and coed environment seemed to deter them. Wealthier families sent their daughters to the Exeter Female Academy, where they could obtain an education that included many of the same subjects the boys at Phillips Exeter studied, but not well enough to prepare them for college. And, of course, it had a needlework department.

 

For the first 25 years of the Robinson Seminary's existence, the directors were careful to avoid the finishing school model of "soft arts" for the students. Girls were taught academic subjects only, including arithmetic, mathematics, history, English grammar, botany, physiology, algebra, rhetoric, geometry, chemistry, philosophy and astronomy. Those working to prepare for college would add Greek and Latin to their studies.

Robinson Female Seminary Basketball Team (1923)

But by the late 1880s, it had become evident that the majority of girls attending school did not go on to college and that perhaps the school should also offer more of what Robinson referred to as "the practical duties of life." The curriculum was re-evaluate in 1890 and cooking and sewing — rechristened as "domestic science" — would be offered.

 

The new department was created at just the time when there was a revolution in the way homemaking was viewed by society. As more scientists began to endorse the germ theory, sanitary cooking and kitchen management was seen as a frontline defense against disease. The domestic science department at the Robinson Female Seminary was designed to teach girls this new method of clean, scientific cooking. It wasn't your mother's cooking with its inexact measurements and unsanitary food handling.

 

Principal George Cross wrote in his 1891 school report that domestic science would "help our young ladies in preparing for their future responsibility of home making, teaching them to apply the principles of chemistry, physics and physiology to the affairs of the household and giving them some manual practice in the household arts."

 

Teachers were hired from the prestigious Boston Cooking School, including the nationally renowned Anna Barrows. Born in Fryeburg, Maine, Barrows reached national audiences through her demonstration teaching methods and writing. She was the author, along with Mary J. Lincoln, of the "Home Science Cook Book" and editor of the American Kitchen Magazine. But before she began writing in earnest, she split her time teaching between Exeter's Robinson Female Seminary and Auburndale's Lasell Seminary.

 

In her classes, girls were taught to cook with gas burners, not on wood or coal stoves. Burrows enthusiasm for gas cooking was reflected in a pamphlet she drafted about the new technology: "You can arrange your cooking with mathematical precision if you use gas. The old way was certainly not conducive to comfort. Splitting kindling and carrying coal upstairs is wearying work for a woman, and a coal or wood fire often has a way of its own of refusing to burn." Food was treated with great care and the use of new cooking equipment — such as the double boiler, to avoid scorching and uneven heat — was used.

 

Classes stressed cleanliness and safety. The course was broken into 15 segments, beginning with a lesson on fire and progressing through water, canning fruit, milk, vegetables, cereals, fish, meats, bread, quick doughs, cake and pastry, invalid cookery, breakfast, luncheon and dinner. The final session was a reception for the trustees of the school, a sample menu for which might include cream of green peas, scalloped salmon, potato marbles and harlequin cream.

 

Barrows taught at the school through 1906, but the program she devised continued to be utilized with only a few changes until the school closed in 1954. Barrows spent her later years writing and teaching in New York and developing the Cooperative Extension domestic arts program. Her papers are now located in the Maine Women's Writers Collection at the University of New England in Portland, Maine. Her influence on the cooking techniques of Exeter's women still resonates in town.

 

Barbara Rimkunas is curator of the Exeter Historical Society.

Monticello College

Monticello Ladies Seminary (Monticello College) (1890)

Monticello College

Location: Godfrey, Illinois, USA

Founded: 1838

Closed: Last Monticello class graduated in 1971; first coed Lewis and Clark Community College class began in 1970, the same year the Monticello campus was purchased

Monticello College was a two-year college for women. It was founded by Captain Benjamin Godfrey, a native New Englander, who arrived in the southern Illinois area in 1832. Captain Godfrey, the father of eight daughters, was an advocate of higher education for women and made a large donation of funds and land for the college. (I imagine that Mrs. Godfrey was far too burdened by pregnancy and childcare to take much of an interest either way.) Monticello Female Seminary, later renamed Monticello College, was established in 1838.  

Not surprisingly, a man (The Reverend Theron Baldwin of Yale) was selected as the first headmaster. But two women, Philomena Fobes and and Harriet Haskell, are credited as the ones who were "influential in establishing the fine reputation enjoyed by the school."

Here is a description of the early campus:

The 110-by-44-foot seminary building was five stories high, including the basement. The basement was divided into a dining room and recitation rooms. The second story was divided into a library, recitation, and family rooms. The next two floors contained forty rooms. Each one of these rooms was made for two young ladies to live in them. The fifth story was divided into painting and music rooms. The 45-by-70-foot south wing contained two large halls and twenty-two rooms that were centrally heated and illuminated by gas. Also located on the thirty-acre campus was a cottage near the seminary, designed as a boarding house for mothers who wished to be with their daughters. The cottage also served as a place for guests to stay.

In 1888, these original buildings were destroyed by fire.

Though sometimes dismissed as a "finishing school," Monticello offered coursework in advanced mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, mineralogy, logic, and political economy--as well as the the obligatory offerings in art, music, and needlework. Monticello enjoyed tremendous alumnae loyalty. But by the 1960s, the rising popularity of coeducation, combined with low enrollment, lead to Monticello's demise. As Kristen Brueckner has reported,

In 1965 young women came here from thirty-six states and three foreign countries to make the annual enrollment of 392. Many girls who enrolled followed their mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers to Monticello. In the 1960s enrollment dropped due to a waning interest in separate schools for boys and girls, and the seminary was forced to close in 1975.

Elsewhere it is reported that the campus was sold to Lewis and Clark Community College in 1970, with coed classes beginning that year. The last Monticello class graduated in 1971.

No doubt it would be tempting to write-off Monticelllo's graduates as little more than decorative young ladies, but that would be wrong. As we have seen before, even the most conservative or conventional of womyn's spaces have a way of creating strong and independent women--even if that is not their expressed intent. 

One Monticello alumna was a member of Annette Daisy's Amazons, who were intent on setting up an all-woman town in Oklahoma back in the 1890s. As the press announced at the time (and with evident alarm), "Each of the young women is armed with a rifle and a revolver, and as a whole they are fully capable of taking care of themselves." Can't get less ladylike than that!

Washington Female Seminary

Two "mistresses" from the Washington Female Seminary (late 1800s)

Washington Female Seminary

Location: Northwest corner of Lincoln and Maiden Streets, Washington, Pennsylvania, USA

Founded: April 21,1836

Closed: June 1948

Washington Female Seminary was a Presbyterian seminary for women. Though historic accounts say that it was organized by "a group of enterprising citizens in Washington," men's names are the only ones mentioned, especially the names of two local men who were relatively prominent abolitionists.

However, the Seminary did have a strong tradition of female leadership through its women principals. Mrs. Frances Biddle, the first principal, remained just a short time, till 1840, as she was apparently "not quite the person for the job." Miss Sarah R. Foster (later Mrs. Sarah B. Hanna), a former student of Emma Willard (another pioneer in women's education), served from 1840-1874. This time around, at least according to this source, they found just the right woman for the position:

The board chose well; the new principal was to serve for 34 years and under her expert guidance the seminary soon became one of the most famous schools for girls in the region. She was a born administrator, possessed of uncommon tact and energy. In no time at all she and her school began to exercise a great influence upon the entire community.

After Mrs. Hanna's retirement, she was succeeded by Miss Nancy Sherrard, a graduate and former vice principal at the Steubenville Female Seminary. (Once again, we're seeing how women's seminaries and colleges provided mutual support to each other.) Miss Sherrard remained till her retirement in 1897. She in turn was followed by Mrs. Martha McMillan, who served till 1901. During Mrs. McMillan's tenure, a second building was finally added to the school--various additions had previously been added over the years, but not a new building as such. The commission went to a Pittsburgh woman architect, Elice Mercur. This also follows a pattern we have seen before, of women's colleges and schools providing important opportunities for women architects and other professionals.  Today this building, now known as McIlvaine Hall, belongs to Washington & Jefferson College.

Classes began in 1836 with just forty students and an emphasis on "providing not just a finishing education for young women of good Christian standing but a rigorous, classical curriculum." The "course of study," we are told, included "grammar, ancient and modern geography, mental and natural philosophy, history, arithmetic, astronomy, and evidence of Christianity." Pretty tough-sounding stuff indeed.  By 1845 the curriculum had been expanded to include geology, algebra, geometry, political economy, chemistry, botany, rhetoric, logic, mental and moral science, and scripture history.

Life at the school during this era was certainly less than luxurious by contemporary standards, but there were apparently few complaints:

The hospitable three-story building, which fronted on Maiden Street, had 40 rooms. The students' rooms were furnished , and the girls were expected to keep them neat and tidy. The furnishings would be regarded as decidedly chilly and austere by today's standards. Carpets could be found only in the parlors and in the teachers' quarters; no pictures adorned the walls, and there was no central heating. Warmth was provided by little coal or wood fires in each room. There was as yet no gas, electricity, or running water. Light was provided by dip tallow candles. Beds were equipped with two mattresses, a straw one for summer and a feather one for winter. Pupils took turns serving as "monitress," and were responsible for visiting the dormitory room during study hours to make sure that students were in their rooms if they were supposed to be in, or out if they were supposed to be out. Demerits were given for infractions. Food was abundant and apparently good. While life was rugged, letters written by students of the period attested that they found it enjoyable.

Pioneering journalist and author Rebecca Harding Davis (1831-1910) graduated from Washington Female Seminary at the age of 17 in 1848. Though serving as class valedictorian, she found the school a bit wonting in its academic rigor at that time. As she later reflected, the Seminary taught "enough math to do accounts, enough astronomy to point out constellations, a little music and drawing, and French, history, literature at discretion".

Scholar Gregory Hadley describes Davis's frustration with an authoritarian father who thought that higher education was wasted on women. She desperately wanted to go to college, but that wish was thwarted. Her father hired private tutors to teach her younger brother, but none for her.

Rebecca eventually went to Washington Women’s Seminary in Washington, Pennsylvania, a school which trained women to become missionaries, pastor’s wives and teachers. During this time she studied the Bible intensively. Washington, Pennsylvania was also on the American lecture circuit, which meant that scholars and political thinkers regularly came to the city to lecture on abolitionism, human rights, women’s rights and the plight of immigrants. Couched within the ethical teachings of Christianity, Rebecca Harding Davis was challenged to explore ideas, read widely, and think for herself about social as well as religious issues. Judging from her later writings, it is likely that during this time in her life, Davis began to reach the conclusion that in order to be faithful to the ethical teachings of Christ, one should work for to bring justice to those who were suffering injustice. 

After three years, she graduated at the top of her class and returned home, where she found her family hostile to her liberal ideas.  Rebecca was expected to stay at home and help her mother take care of her brothers and sisters, who now numbered five.  In her spare time, Rebecca tried to continue her education at home by studying her brother’s old college textbooks, but under the psychological pressure of her parent’s constant opposition and the chore of taking care of little children,  she became deeply depressed.  She felt that life had become a curse because she was unable to use anything that she had learned. From the pit of this despair, she found strength to make a break from the bondage imposed upon her by her family and social class.

Rebecca Harding Davis

Eventually, Davis published her first novella, Life in the Iron Mills (1861), which is now considered a masterpiece of literary realism. She went on to have a successful writing career in many ways. But as Hadley observes, she was almost too advanced for her time:

Rebecca Harding Davis’ writings often preceded the works of other well-known authors of her day.  Her portrayal of the psychological pain of soldiers during the American Civil War was written years before that of Stephen Crane.  Davis’ study of the social imprisonment of Victorian women anticipated Kate Chopin, and her riveting denouncement of the dehumanizing effects of industrialization and capitalism were written well before Upton Sinclair’s novels.  

By the time she died, Davis was virtually unknown. It was not until the feminist writer Tillie Olson rediscovered her writings in the early 1970s that interest in Davis's life and work was revived.

Throughout the last decades of  nineteenth century, the school continued to expand in academic breadth and enrollment: "By the mid-80s the seminary was graduating an average of 20 students annually; in 1884 there were 140 pupils in attendance, 60 of whom were boarders."

As it entered the first decades of the twentieth century, Washington Female Seminary had certainly developed a well-earned reputation for academic excellence. This glowing recommendation is from 1910:

Washington Female Seminary Class of 1888

From its opening Washington Seminary has grown slowly, but steadily, both in members and in character and range of opportunties afforded. It is one of the few schools in which the Bible is scientifically taught from a literary standpoint. Its certificate admits to the leading women's colleges of the country. In addition to the College preparatory course and regular course there are also studies in music, art and elocution. The proximity of the Seminary to Pittsburg with its famous resident orchestra, musical advantages and art exhibits, affords the opportunity of hearing the great symphanies and soloists, and seeing the work of the great artists. Washington Seminary numbers her alumnae by the thousands.

A 1913 advertisement for the school further boasts that "certificates from the college preparatory course admits to the freshman class of Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, Mt. Holyoke, Ohio Wesleyan and other leading institutions."

So what happened? It seemed that the Seminary developed financial problems around the first World War. An ambitious capital plan was embarked upon, which involved the purchase of a 36-acre site with buildings outside the central part of town. The project was finally abandoned in the 1920s with little explanation. As the country entered the Great Depression years, the financial difficulties only grew worse:

By the early 1930s financial pressures and increased competition from the growing number of public high schools created so many difficulties that in 1932 the trustees voted to close the school. Through the efforts of a devoted faculty and a determined principal, however, the seminary reopened almost immediately as a day school and junior college and it continued to operate on this basis for another sixteen years. Accreditation and financial problems continued to plague the administration and after the second World War the pressures became more intense. The school property had been sold to W&J in 1939; so, homeless and without funds, the trustees gave up the struggle for good in December 1947. The 112th commencement in June 1948 was the last. 

Miss Seward's Female Seminary

Miss Seward's Female Seminary

Miss Seward's Female Seminary

Location: Alexander Street, Rochester, New York, USA

Opened: 1839

Closed: 1853

Miss Seward's Female Seminary was founded by Miss Sarah Seward, a graduate of the Troy Female Seminary. (The Troy Female Seminary, in turn, was founded by Emma Willard, an early advocate for women's education, in 1814. The Troy Female Seminary STILL EXISTS as a girls' school though it is now known as the Emma Willard School.) Women who established schools for girls and women were often graduates of girls' schools and/or women's colleges themselves, so Miss Seward's certainly fits that pattern.

Sarah Seward arrived in Rochester in March 1833, and "almost immediately" opened a school for girls at the former United States Hotel Building. "Miss Sayles" (no first name given), who was also a Troy Female Seminary graduate, soon joined this endeavor as Sarah's assistant. According to the Semi-Centennial History of the City of Rochester,

Miss Seward's school speedily achieved great success. After continuing in the United States Hotel for one year it was removed to the large stone building at the corner of Plymouth avenue and Spring street, the present site of the First Presbyterian church. During its continuance at that place for nearly two years, and till its removal to Alexander street in the autumn of 1835, it continued to flourish, and there followed an awakening of the people of Rochester to an appreciation of the value of higher female education.

As the Semi-Centennial History goes on to elaborate,

The school building which Miss Seward caused to be erected in that year was large, having sixty-four feet front. It was attractive in appearance, and the handsome grounds around the building were four or five acres in extent. All the appointments were complete and appropriate to a boarding-school for young ladies. The sum expended by Miss Seward and her friends for the grounds, buildings, scientific apparatus and other requisites to a large institution for higher female education exceeded $12,000. The ability and skill, as teachers, of Miss Seward and her assistants were justly appreciated not only in Rochester but throughout the state and to some extent in other states. The first year after its establishment the school numbered nearly a hundred pupils, many of whom were from various parts of New York and from other states and from Canada, and Miss Seward's seminary took front rank with the best like institutions in the country. It was incorporated in 1838.

Unlike many of the early women's colleges, girls' schools like Miss Seward's were very much womyn's spaces--run by and for the benefit of women and girls. According to a report published in 1838, all of the school's administrators and teachers were women. Here's the list:

Miss Sarah T. Seward, Principal and Teacher of Teacher of Ethics and Metaphysics.

Miss Philena Fobes, Teacher in Drawing, Painting, and Mathematics.

Miss Martha Raymond, Teacher in the French Language.

Miss Sarah C. Eaton, Teacher in Natural Science.

Miss Mary A. Thorpe, Teacher in the Primary Department.

Miss Julia R. Hall is also an assistant teacher.

In fact, the role of men at this place was surprisingly peripheral:

Lectures on history, botany, and elocution are delivered occasionally at the institution at by professional gentlemen of the city.

In addition, we see that the school had a a pretty stubborn streak of independence when it came to the  male-dominated political and economic social structure of the time:

This valuable seminary was erected and is sustained wholly through individual enterprise. "Our friends will recollect," says the late report, "that we have no legislative fund to aid us, no trustees to be interested in our success; and our institution (if it deserves the name) is simply an individual effort to be useful."   

The "late report" was the school's 1837-1838 catalogue, which can be viewed here. Note that the quote above omits the final words: "and the only hope of reward is 'she hath done what she could.'" Interesting how the part about female agency was left out.

In the "late report," you can also find a poem by 13-year-old "Alice" on leaving the school and her grief at losing her beloved "youthful band of sisters." It truly encapsulates what schools like Miss Seward's meant to these young women, and the deep, often life-long connections that were made there.

So how and why did this school finally come to an end? In a nutshell: Miss Sarah Seward got married.

Why did she do this? Social pressure? Desperation? Financial fears? In mid-19th century New York state, a woman who married essentially committed civil suicide. She lost all legal rights she had as a single person--which weren't all that numerous to start with. ("Miss Sayles" at some point got married as well--to Mr. William S. Bishop. For what it's worth.) The Semi-Centennial History explains it thus:

On the marriage of Miss Seward to General Jacob Gould in September, 1841, Jason W. Seward, a brother of Miss Seward and president of the corporation, assumed direction of the institution. It continued its good work under his guidance, aided by Miss Seward's former assistants, till 1848, when it was finally discontinued, or superseded by the Tracy female institute. In 1856 the grounds were sold to Freeman Clarke and the buildings removed to give place to the mansion of Mr. Clarke, who now resides there.

So, despite the careful and laudatory language here, this is essentially what happened: a man (the former principal's brother) managed to seize control of a successful girls' school and "succeeded" in running it into the ground in little more than seven years.

Nowadays, the property is part of the University of Rochester.

Barber-Scotia College

Scotia Seminary, Class of 1891

Barber-Scotia College

Location: 145 Cabarrus Avenue, West Concord, North Carolina, USA

Founded: In 1867 as Scotia Seminary. Became Scotia Women's College in 1916. In 1930, merged with another women's college, Barber Memorial College, and became Barber-Scotia Junior College for women. Became Barber-Scotia College in 1932. Granted its first bachelor's degree in 1945, and became a four-year women's college in 1946.

Closed: Became co-ed in 1954. Lost accreditation in 2004, and has been struggling since then to regain its former status.

Barber-Scotia began as a female seminary in 1867. Scotia Seminary was founded by the Reverend Luke Dorland and chartered in 1870. This was a project by the Presbyterian Church to prepare young African American southern women (the daughters of former slaves) for careers as social workers and teachers. It was the coordinate women's school for Biddle University (now Johnson C. Smith University).

It was the first historically black female institution of higher education established after the American Civil War. The Charlotte Observer, in an interview with Janet Magaldi, president of Piedmont Preservation Foundation, stated, "Scotia Seminary was one of the first black institutions built after the Civil War. For the first time, it gave black women an alternative to becoming domestic servants or field hands."

As the current Barber-Scotia College website further explains, "The original purpose of the College was to prepare teachers and social workers to improve the '101 of the freedman and to provide a pool of leaders.' Accordingly, subjects classified as normal, academic, and homemaking were offered in a pattern which anticipated state certification, but which always pointed to the collegiate level."

Scotia Seminary was modeled after Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College) and was referred to as The Mount Holyoke of the South. The seminary offered grammar, science, and domestic arts. In 1908 it had 19 teachers and 291 students. From its founding in 1867 to 1908 it had enrolled 2,900 students, with 604 having graduated from the grammar department and 109 from the normal department.

It has been suggested that Mount Holyoke's influence extended beyond the formalities of curriculum. As Glenda Gilmore has argued, Scotia Seminary was "calculated to give students the knowledge, social consciousness, and sensibilities of New England ladies, with a strong dose of Boston egalitarianism thrown in." At any rate, "peer relationships" at Scotia Seminary strongly resembled those at the "elite female seminaries in the Northeast." Which is to say that "smashes" (deeply emotional and erotic attachments) were a common occurrence between the students.

Jane H. Hunter, in How Young Ladies Became Girls: The Victorian Origins of American Girlhood (2003) offers the following illustration:

Roberta Fitgerald went to Scotia in the early twentieth century and kept a composition book, likely in 1902, which was filled with the talismans of schoolgirl crushes. A note inside addressed to "Dear Roberta" asked, "Will you please exchange rings with me to-day and you may ware mine again," and  Roberta herself wrote a sad poem to a friend "Lu" who had thrown her over.

And so you see as I am deemed
Most silently to wait
I cannot but be womanlike
And meekly await my fate.

Ah! Sweet it is to love a girl
But truly oh! how bitter
To love a girl with all your heart
And then to hear "cant get her."

And Lulu dear as I must here
Relinquish with a moan
May your joys be as deep as the ocean
And your sorrow as light as its foam.

On the back of the notebook, which also contained class assignments, was a confidence exchanged with a seatmate. "I was teasing Bess Hoover about you and she told me she loved you dearly."

One of Scotia Seminary's most famous alumna was Mary McCleod Bethune (1963-1955), who entered the school in 1887 on a scholarship, and graduated in 1894. It's difficult to do justice to Bethune's life and career in just a few sentences. But in a pattern often seen in graduates of women's schools, Bethune developed a passionate commitment to the advancement of women, education, civil rights, and social justice. As the National Women's Hall of Fame has said of Bethune,

In Daytona, Florida, in 1904 she scraped together $1.50 to begin a school with just five pupils. She called it the Daytona Literary and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls. A gifted teacher and leader, Mrs. Bethune ran her school with a combination of unshakable faith and remarkable organizational skills. She was a brilliant speaker and an astute fund raiser. She expanded the school to a high school, then a junior college, and finally it became Bethune-Cookman College. Continuing to direct the school, she turned her attention to the national scene, where she became a forceful and inspiring representative of her people. First through the National Council of Negro Women, then within Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in the National Youth Administration, she worked to attack discrimination and increase opportunities for Blacks. Behind the scenes as a member of the "Black cabinet," and in hundreds of public appearances, she strove to improve the status of her people.

Read more:

http://openbuildings.com/buildings/barber-scotia-college-profile-20952

Photo: Scotia Seminary, Class of 1891

Ipswitch Female Seminary

Ipswitch Female Seminary

Ipswitch Female Seminary

Location: Ipswitch, Massachusetts, USA

Founded: 1825 as co-ed Ipswitch Academy; reconstituted in 1828 as a school for women

Closed: 1876

The most thorough discussion I have seen on the Ipswitch Female Seminary is the following 2005 article by Sarah Vickery. As I collect more and more stories about the development of women's colleges and schools, I'm forever being reminded of the power of being educated within a womyn's space, and how the experiences and friendships gained within that space inspire students to create additional womyn's spaces.

No history of women's collegiate education is complete without at least a glance at the Ipswich Female Seminary, which for nearly 50 years sat just above the Choate Bridge where the Christian Science Center is today. 

Founded as the co-ed Ipswich Academy in 1825, it was reconstituted in 1828 as a school for women, with renowned educator Zilpah Polly Grant at its helm. Grant brought along her colleague and lifelong friend, Mary Lyon, whose eventual fame as the founder of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (one of the first fully recognized women's colleges in the United States) would prove more lasting than Grant's own. 

Today, when it is mentioned at all, the Ipswich Female Seminary is usually depicted as little more than a false start in the history of women's education. But historians have undervalued both the seminary and Grant's role in it. 

Grant and Lyon worked closely together, and it was Grant's philosophy above all else that shaped their joint vision. 

"I think of the two of them as yin and yang. Neither could have accomplished what she did without the other," says Beverly Perna, an Ipswich resident who completed a doctoral dissertation on Grant.

While Grant was intense, theoretically minded and immaculate, Perna says, Lyon was practical and energetic, if at times slovenly. What both women had in common was a firm commitment to educating women. 

At a time when most girls' higher education consisted of superficial instruction in French, music and drawing, the seminary's rigorous curriculum included botany, astronomy and chemistry. Several of the instruments the students used in experiments can be found on display in the Heard House Museum. 

But the strength of the seminary was in training young women themselves to be educators. Here, Grant's influence is especially clear. Education leaders nationwide recognized her as an expert teacher. Her advanced ideas about teaching the mind how to learn drew experienced educators as well as novices to the seminary, where students were encouraged to think deeply, beyond traditional rote methods of learning, and to pursue only two or three subjects at a time, emphasizing depth of knowledge rather than breadth. Seminary graduates took these philosophies far. Highly in demand, they taught in schools worldwide and in nearly all the states then in the Union. 

Of course, neither the school nor its founders were perfect. Grant's strong religious convictions in particular caused friction. And although one of the seminary's most famous alumnae, writer Mary Abigail Dodge, praised Grant as a proto-feminist hero who fought valiantly in the struggle between "those who are prying open college doors to women and those who are striving to turn the feet of girls away from them," most women today would be outraged by the strictures she imposed on student life. 

Students were expected to spend most of their free time either taking supervised nature walks with their teachers or in their own rooms at the seminary's boardinghouse. If a girl boarded in a private family's home, she was firmly instructed to limit the time she spent with them. Students were forbidden from stopping in the street or even showing themselves in the front windows of their lodgings.

But even as Grant stressed "the delicacy of the female constitution, and the greater delicacy of her reputation" required  "suitable architecture" for women to live in - an argument she made loudly when raising funds for building women's schools because male supporters could safely get behind it - her dream for the Ipswich Female Seminary's facilities was much more ambitious.  Both she and Lyon tried to convince the seminary's trustees to endow a larger school with laboratory facilities and a boardinghouse, the same facilities available to men in colleges. When they did not succeed, and when Grant's health failed, Lyon left (with Grant's blessing) to build a new school that would be all they had dreamed of. 

The Ipswich school closed in 1876, but the first $1,000 for Mount Holyoke Female Seminary came from the women of Ipswich, and its philosophies originated largely from Grant herself. Other schools whose philosophies are directly traceable to Grant and the Ipswich Female Seminary include Wheaton, Oberlin and Tuscaloosa, which in turn influenced other schools like Wellesley and Vassar, which in turn influenced others around the world. 

Photo: Ipswitch Female Seminary, about 1850

Oswego College for Young Ladies



Oswego College (1891)



Oswego College for Young Ladies

Location: Oswego, Kansas, USA

Founded: Incorporated December 23, 1883. School opened on January 14, 1886.

Closed: Dates differ, but probably around 1910. Presbysterian records for the school extend until 1924.

There were apparently no more than three women's colleges that ever operated in the state of Kansas. (The College of the Sisters of Bethany is discussed in the post below this one.) St. Mary College is now co-ed. Oswego College for Young Ladies is the third, and like the College of the Sisters of Bethany, is now lost.

Oswego College was organized by Presbyterian clergy (all men) in Neosho County, and was under the jurisdiction of the Presbyterian Synod of Kansas. The school opened in a single "large brick residence," with Miss Louise Paull serving as principal. (Of course, a man was appointed as president.) Miss Paull continued in charge until the close of the spring term, in June 1887. Miss Susan H. Johnson was thereupon elected principal, and she served until the spring of 1893.

Just after Miss Paull left in the summer of 1887, a "fine" three-story frame building was built "at a cost of about $12,000, exclusive of furniture." The new building contained "chapel, recitation rooms, library, dormitories, dining room and kitchen."

It was not until 1898-99 that a woman, Miss Delia Proctor, succeeded to the college presidency. She was succeeded by Miss Margaret L. Hill, who served one year.

By the turn of the century, the College had developed into three departments: the preparatory or high school, the seminary ("which has a four-year preparatory course, with a fifth devoted to special subjects"), and the "college department, where courses were planned with special reference to subjects which represent the leading vocations for women, such as home economics, education, business science, art and crafts, music, etc."

However, by this time it was already clear by this time that the school had been mismanaged financially--probably for years. By the close of the school in 1900, the board of trustees "did not see their way open to provide a faculty for the next year," and the school was temporarily closed. Somehow, the school was able to muster some additional funding, but it continued to operate for just another decade or so.

Photo: "Oswego College, 1891."

College of the Sisters of Bethany



College of the Sisters of Bethany students (1916)

College of the Sisters of Bethany

Location: "A plat of ground bounded by Eighth, Tenth and Folk Streets, and Western Avenue," Topeka, Kansas, USA

Founded: Original charter granted for the "Episcopal Seminary of Topeka" on February 2, 1861. First session of the school opened on June 10, 1861. On July 10, 1872, the name of the institution was changed to the College of the Sisters of Bethany. Finally, the school was renamed Vail College (after Kansas Episcopoal diocese bishop Thomas Vail) on July 2, 1924.

Closed: 1928

As far as I can tell, there were never more than three women's colleges in the state of Kansas. Two of those colleges have closed, and one went co-ed (St. Mary's College in Leavenworth, Kansas--now known as the University of St. Mary--started admitting men in 1988) The College of the Sisters of Bethany (a/k/a Bethany College) is one of the lost ones.

The College was not named after an order of sisters, but to honor the sisters of Bethany, Mary and Martha, who represented "the two great classes of Christian womanhood, the contemplative and the active."

The school was organized by the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas, and like many women's colleges, the early leadership appeared to be entirely male. I don't see mention of a woman "principal"--not to be confused with the college "president"--until Miss Meliora Hambletin (or Hambleton) was elected by the Board in 1904. There is also reference to Mrs. Alice Howland Warwick servicing as principal in 1918.

Somewhat optimistically, the College was once billed as the "Wellesley of the West."

A 2003 article in the Topeka Capital-Journal provides the following description of the school:

From 10 to 35 students -- historical accounts differ -- enrolled in the college's first session, which began on June 10, 1861, in a building at Topeka Boulevard and Ninth Street. Five years later, enrollment had jumped to 101 students, and by 1885 had risen to 350.

Wolfe Hall, the college's main building at S.W. 9th and Polk, was constructed in 1871-1872. It was heated by stoves and lighted by coal oil lamps.

The institution was renamed the College of the Sisters of Bethany in July 1872 and moved to a 20-acre tract bounded by Polk, Western, 8th and 10th.

The school's motto was: "That our daughters may be as the polished corners of the temple." The fully accredited school welcomed both day and boarding pupils and offered classes from kindergarten through the second year of college, according to an Oct. 25, 1953, article in the Topeka Daily Capital.

Board was $5 a week, with laundry service costing an additional dollar.

Parents weren't allowed to send their daughters candles, cakes, pickles and preserves because they were "almost sure to be the precursor of headaches, heartburns, sour tempers and bad lessons till they are gone."
The students were asked to bring an umbrella, a pair of thick-soled shoes or overshoes, table napkins, towels, sheets, pillowcases, a dictionary, an atlas and a Bible, according to the newspaper account.

Subjects taught in the early years included ecclesiastical history, metaphysical science, Greek, Latin, history of Jewish antiquities, evidences of Christianity, moral philosophy, domestic economy and home duties, geometry, geology, chemistry, English, music, physical education, oil painting and elocution.

In the early 20th century, boys in kindergarten through grade three were allowed to attend. Eventually, the school stopped offering college courses and finally closed in 1928 because enrollment dropped after World War and it didn't have the money to stay open.

Almost half of its south grounds was sold to the Topeka Board of Education as the site of Topeka High School. Wolfe Hall was torn down in 1959, and part of its stone was used in a rock wall that stands north of Topeka High School and runs north to S.W. 8th.

Photo: Miss Marguerite Koontz's students rehearsing for the Sisters of Bethany College Alumnae May Fete. The performance took place in Central Park, Saturday, May 20, 1916. Georgia Neese, far left, was one of the older girls participating in the May Fete. The other participants were Elizabeth Hopkins, Margaret Ray, Jessie Burnett, Helen Lucus, Joanna Gleed, Beatrice Shakeshaft and one unidentified girl.