The Penn State Abington campus was originally developed in the mid-19th century as a private girls' school.

This school, initially known as the Chestnut Street Female Seminary, was founded in 1850, when the education of girls began to receive attention and new institutions were established.

The school was founded by teachers Mary Bonney and Harriette A. Dillaye in Philadelphia, serving girls from the ages of 12 through 18.

He learned that Bonney and Dillaye were seeking expansion space for their school, which continued to attract new students.

Bonney and Dillaye appointed two associate principals, Frances Bennett and Sylvia Eastman, to take on some of the responsibility for operations.

She sold the school's property in Cheltenham Township, and bought 54 acres (220,000 m2) of land in what Sutherland called the "beautiful park section in the hills of Rydal."

Soon after the move, the Rydal School, was constructed on the grounds in order to accommodate additional elementary grades.

In this early twentieth-century period, Amelia Earhart was studying as an upper school student in preparation to attend Bryn Mawr.

She established her renown as a solo airplane pilot in the early aviation days, but disappeared in 1937 on an around-the-world flight.

Earhart did not graduate from the Ogontz School, leaving months before the ceremony in order to enlist as a nurse's aide at Spadina Military Hospital in Toronto, Canada.

Furnishings included a painting by Thomas Moran, an American artist to whom Jay Cooke had advanced money in 1873.

Penn State Abington features a large library, modern laboratories, and computer facilities.

It had an indoor swimming pool but it did not meet current standards and the space was converted for use as a lecture hall.

The Lares Union Building was built in 1923 as the personal residence of Abby A. Sutherland, president of the Ogontz School.

This building features classrooms and a lecture hall, laboratories, a computer lab, and academic offices.