Ferry Hall School

It immediately became known as a school for daughters of the Midwestern social elite, and was supported by such figures as Speaker of the House James G. Blaine and Illinois Lieutenant Governor William Bross.

"[4] The Seminary was well known for the support of social justice and missionary work, and became notable for inviting such figures as Eugene V. Debs, photographer Jacob Riis, and a man from the National Peace Conference to speak at the school.

The film industry made much of Harlow's superior education: "To be admitted to Ferry Hall was a social achievement; to graduate from the school was a scholastic accomplishment".

Enrollment, which had been filled to capacity during the World War II, dropped off significantly; though some "suggested the school needed to reestablish its reputation through public relations and advertising," new headmistress Frances Wallace "stubbornly refused to try" these avenues.

[10] Ferry Hall's trustees stepped in and organized a major capital campaign that was intended to retire the mortgage still owed to Lake Forest College, eventually succeeding in the early 1950s.