Charlestown Female Seminary

Charlestown Female Seminary
Charlestown Female Seminary
Location
	Charlestown, Massachusetts, Massachusetts; United States
Information
Type	Private, All-Female
Religious affiliation(s)	Christian
Established	1831
Founder	Dr. William Collier; Dr. Henry Jackson
Head of school	Mrs. Martha Whiting

Charlestown Female Seminary was a Christian school in Charlestown, Massachusetts.[1] Opened in 1830, the female seminary was the second school in Charlestown for young women.[2]

Background

The establishment of Charlestown Female Seminary was part of a movement to facilitate the education of young women that took root in the United States in the 1820s and 1830s. The movement started in 1814 with the establishment by Catherine Fiske, in Keene, New Hampshire, of the "Young Ladies Seminary."[upper-alpha 1] Another important early school was Emma Willard's Troy Female Seminary, opened in 1821 in Troy, New York.[2]

Charlestown became the site of a pair of what amateur historian Charles Zellner, of the Charlestown Historical Society, called the "earliest boarding schools" for young women. The first of these was the Mount Benedict Academy, a combined Roman Catholic convent and finishing school for young ladies, established in 1828 by Benedict Fenwick, Roman Catholic bishop of Boston. That academy was staffed by Ursuline nuns. Mount Benedict acquired a superior reputation, leading both Catholic and Protestant families to enroll their daughters there. Despite that acceptance, in 1834 the Academy was burned by an anti-Catholic mob.[2][3]

History

The Charlestown Female Seminary, located at 30 Union Street, was established by two First Baptist Church pastors, Dr. William Collier and Dr. Henry Jackson.[2] They opened the school in 1830, but in 1831 it was taken over by Martha Whiting,[1] "one of the pioneers of female education in America,"[4] on the suggestion of her pastor, Rev. Jackson.[1] Eventually, Seminary Street was named after the school.

Distinguished alumnae

Sophia B. Packard, American educator, co-founder in Atlanta, Georgia of the predecessor to Spelman College, a school for African American women, graduated from this school in 1850.[5]

Author Mary Hayden Pike matriculated in 1843.[6]

Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe (July 28, 1819 – February 9, 1906) was an early California settler, having sailed there in 1849 with her husband, Dr. Fayette Clapp. She taught for 24 years in the San Francisco Public Schools, from 1854 and retired in 1878. In 1838, Louise Clapp attended the female seminary in Charleston.[7] She was a United States traveler and author and a scientific writer on mining.[8]

Painter Ellen Harrington created paintings including a Portfolio of Exercises and Drawings Done while a student at the academy. They are in the possession of the Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Vermont 05482. The Parke-Bernet auction catalog states the works are "paintings and drawings [by her] ... as a pupil prior to August 1848; comprising her diploma, two sketchbooks, and six paintings, the latter appearing on the front and back cover of three composition books. The Shelburne Museum collection contains the diploma and three composition books, but not the two sketchbooks."[9][10]

Mary Livermore (December 19, 1820 – May 23, 1905) was an important person in the women's suffrage movement, an author and publisher.[11]

Rowena Felt Baldwin (December 4, 1823 -- December 16, 1885) was a pioneer in Protestant education in San Antonio, Texas. And, upon marrying John Vance on January 26, 1850, became a pioneer mercantile- and lodging-owner in Castroville, Texas. Her paintings were used in restoring the Landmark Inn State Historic Site. [12]

Notes

Emma Hart Willard opened the Middlebury Female Seminary in her home in Middlebury, Vermont the same year.

References

Whiting, Martha, 1795–1853; Badger, Catharine Naomi (1855). The teacher's last lesson: a memoir of Martha Whiting, late of the Charlestown female seminary. Consisting chiefly of extracts from her journal, interspersed with reminiscences and suggestive reflections. Boston, New York: Gould and Lincoln; Sheldon, Lamport & Blakeman. Retrieved 16 January 2012. at Internet Archive
Zellner, Carl (2003). "The Schools in Charlestown: An Historical Sketch". Charlestown Online.net. Archived from the original on February 4, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2012.
Alpert, Jessica, Anti-Catholic Violence In Charlestown, 176 Years Ago, Boston: WBUR Radio
Herringshaw, Thomas William (1901). Herringshaw's encyclopedia of American biography of the nineteenth century: Accurate and succinct biographies of famous men and women in all walks of life who are or have been the acknowledged leaders of life and thought of the United States since its formation. American publishers' association. p. 1004. Retrieved 21 January 2012.
Lefever, Harry G (Spring 2005). "The Early Origins of Spelman College". The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (47): 60–63. doi:10.2307/25073174. JSTOR 25073174.
Kunitz, Stanley; Haycraft, Howard (1938). "Pike, Mary Hayden (Green)." American Authors 1600 – 1900. New York: H. W. Wilson Company.
"Collection Title: Guide to the Louise A. K. S. Clapp Collection, 1834–1849". California State Library. Retrieved January 17, 2012.
Harvey, Joy Dorothy; Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey, eds. (2000). The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives from Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century (2 Volume Set) (Hardcover). 1. p. 259. ISBN 0-415-92040-X. Retrieved January 20, 2012. ISBN 978-0-415-92040-7
Parke-Bernet Galleries, Sale 744 (Feb. 23, 1946), lot 9. Shelburne Museum, 1994.
"Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture". Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved January 17, 2012.
Livermore, Mary. "I Am Woman: A Celebration of Womanhood". Retrieved January 22, 2012.
Memoirs of mary a. maverick : a journal of early texas. [Place of publication not identified]: Maverick Pub Co. 2015. ISBN 978-1595347343. OCLC 906122064.