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 Charlestown Female Seminary, located at 50 Philip Street, in a building constructed in 1871 by architect John Henry Devereux.

Both were on the faculty Gaston College, Dallas, N.C.[5] A third notable alumna was Sarah Campbell Allan (1861–1954), who went on to become a physician in spite of educational and professional barriers she encountered as a woman.

As a doctor, for 11 years Allan worked with female patients at the South Carolina Hospital for the Insane in Columbia and taught anatomy and physiology to nursing students.

[7] The writer, lecturer, and artist, Louise Hammond Willis Snead, was a student at Charleston Female Seminary, and also had charge of the painting and drawing classes.