Milwaukee College

[3] Two years later, Catharine Beecher and her associate Mary Mortimer, who had worked with Lucy at Le Roy Female Institute, became connected with the Seminary.

"The Beecher Plan" focused on four professions most open to women: teaching, child care, nursing, and "conservation of the domestic state".

To meet this need, supplied previously only by small private schools, the "Milwaukee Female Seminary" was opened on the September 14, 1848, by Mrs. L. A. Parsons, whose husband, Rev.

[5] In the second year, the school opened in more commodious quarters on the corner of Milwaukee and Oneida streets, with an enlarged corps of instructors and a Board of Trustees.

At this time, Catharine E. Beecher, having a deep interest in the proper education of women, obtained contributions in the Eastern States for the establishment of schools for girls, with the plan of a faculty of co-equal teachers, sustained by endowments, each being the head of a given department.

Money collected at the East and expended for library and apparatus, for part purchase of land, teachers' salaries, and various expenses connected with the college totaled US$17,894.

[5] In 1863, the continued pressure of adverse times occasioned the withdrawal of the ladies in charge, and Prof. S. S. Sherman assumed the control of the college.

Through the efforts of the Trustees, repairs and improvements were made in the buildings, the library increased, and philosophical, chemical and astronomical apparatus added.

In the following year, an addition was made in the rear of the main building, for use as a gymnasium, the expense defrayed by subscriptions amounting to US$3,000.

[5] The Trustees, after long and careful consideration, entered into arrangements which resulted in the installment of Prof. Charles Samuel Farrar, formerly of Vassar College, as president of the institution.

This class, assembling each week during the Winter, proved a stimulus to research and a strong influence in the guidance of interest in art.

[5] In 1879, an additional building was erected on the college grounds, containing a large hall for elocutionary and gymnastic exercises, two studios for the art department and other rooms.