Education in Evanston 1855-69
In fall 1855, three institutions of higher education opened their doors in the township that would soon be known as Evanston.
Just two years earlier, the founders of Northwestern University had selected the site, impressed by its bucolic setting and its distance from the temptations of Chicago. They purchased over three hundred acres of farmland along Lake Michigan, simultaneously laying the groundwork for their school and the town that would surround it.
Northwestern University had built a frame building on the corner of Davis Street and Hinman Avenue to use until it could afford to construct an appropriately stately structure on the land designated for the campus. Several blocks north, Garrett Biblical Institute’s Dempster Hall was the first (and only, at the time) building on that land. The unaffiliated North-Western Female College was located on land deeded from the University at Lake Street and Chicago Avenue.
Dempster Hall, Garrett Biblical Institute building, circa 1870
The University and the Biblical Institute were affiliated, and their boards of trustees shared several members. The University’s mission was to prepare men of all denominations to become educated Christian citizens; Garrett served the college men who wished to enter the Methodist ministry. The Female College offered to provide “Young Ladies of the Northwest” with a “thorough Collegiate Education near home, and amid such rural seclusion as will secure every possible guaranty for health, morals, and refinement.” The Female College, however, did not award college-level degrees.
All three institutions were founded by Methodists, and many early Evanston residents, most of whom were Methodists, were attracted to the new community by its educational opportunities for their children—male and female—and the fact that the University’s charter prohibited the sale of alcohol within four miles of campus.
The Casket and Budget newsletter, volume 1, number 1, 1858
The North-Western Female College
Due to traditional assumptions that women were intellectually inferior to men and that their roles should be limited to the domestic sphere, many people believed anything more than rudimentary schooling for women unnecessary, unfeminine, and even unhealthy. By the 1850s, this attitude was changing, and academies and seminaries for women proliferated around the United States, especially in the Northeast and the expanding West. The schools, often called fem-sems, offered French, music, painting, and needlework as well as math and science; some East Coast schools evolved into the first women’s colleges. Many of the Midwestern women’s academies, including a number of Methodist institutions, were founded and recognized by religious denominations.
William P. Jones Jr. and his brother John W. Jones both graduated from Methodist colleges and were strong advocates of women’s higher education. After touring East Coast institutions to study appropriate curricula, the brothers founded the North-Western Female College using John’s personal fortune (partially gained during the California gold rush). The college’s first building, which welcomed 84 students in fall 1855, burned to the ground in December 1856. To raise money to rebuild it, William traveled throughout Illinois, lecturing on Indian lore and giving poetry readings. His lectures also included “A Plea for the Better Education of Woman” to raise money to help women afford to attend the Female College. A new building was erected on the site of the original structure and opened in October 1857. Also in 1857, William married Mary Hayes, who had been educated at Mount Holyoke, which was founded in 1837—and was one of the East Coast women’s seminaries that set the example for women’s liberal arts education.
The college offered “preparatory” (middle- and high-school level) courses to women (day and boarding students) and men (day students only), as well as three to four years of “collegiate” coursework for women only. Reflecting the contemporary model of East Coast women’s seminaries (and far from the traditional finishing school curriculum of decorative arts and deportment), the college’s “practical, thorough, and extensive” collegiate program of instruction included courses in classical languages and literature, natural sciences, grammar, arithmetic, and history along with “ornamental branches” such as music and drawing. The curriculum closely resembled the program undertaken by the men a few blocks away at Northwestern University, but without the reward of a college degree. The Female College’s graduates received “laureates” of literature, arts, or science or the honorary titles of Mistress of Science or Arts. The first graduating class in 1859 consisted entirely of valedictorian Frances -Willard and salutatorian Margaret McKee. A few blocks away, Northwestern University’s first graduating class numbered five.
North-Western Female College stereopticon cards, circa 1870. A card would be placed in a stereopticon viewer, which combined the pair of photographs on each card to create a 3-D image
North-Western Female College stereopticon cards, circa 1870. A card would be placed in a stereopticon viewer, which combined the pair of photographs on each card to create a 3-D image
To safeguard the “health, morals, and refinement” of the women, the college’s administrators assiduously regulated boarding students’ conduct. Women could not leave the grounds after 7 p.m., miss church services on Sunday, run on the stairs, or talk during study hours; a 30-minute walk each day was mandatory. University men nicknamed the Female College the “Jones Nunnery.” The women did, however, participate in “polite” sports (such as croquet and skating) and formed the Minerva literary society. In 1858, Female College students boasted that they had published Evanston’s first printed newspaper, the Casket and Budget. (It apparently only lasted for one issue.)
Although William Jones’s plan for the grandiose college building depicted on the cover of an 1858 circular was never realized, the North-Western Female College continued to serve the growing population of Evanston, as well as offering its coursework to women from “abroad”—meaning anywhere outside Evanston—who boarded at the school.
1855–56 North-Western Female College catalog. Women would follow a curriculum very similar to that offered to Northwestern men students.