Milwaukee-Downer College

Milwaukee-Downer College
Active	1851–1963
Type	Women's College
Location	Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Milwaukee-Downer College was a women's college, later a normal school (and, for some of its history, a girl's high school) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

History

It began as the Milwaukee Female Seminary founded by Mrs. W. L. Parsons, wife of the pastor of the Free Congregational church. It opened on Sept. 14, 1848, in a house in downtown Milwaukee. Two years later Catharine Beecher and her associate Mary Mortimer became connected with the Seminary. Beecher, a reformer and eldest sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe, had designed "The Beecher Plan" for educating women through the college level for professions. She was invited to launch her plan in Milwaukee and came there first in April, 1850. "The Beecher Plan" focused on four professions most open to women: teaching, child care, nursing, and "conservation of the domestic state". The school was incorporated in March, 1851, as the Milwaukee Normal Institute and High School, and moved to new quarters. In 1852, through the influence of Beecher, $17,894 was received from her friends in the East and the American Woman's Educational Association; Milwaukeeans raised another $13,540; and a permanent home for the school was commissioned on the corner of Juneau Avenue and Milwaukee Street (near the site later to be occupied by the Milwaukee School of Engineering). The school opened there in the fall of 1852, though the building was not yet finished.^[1] By act of the legislature the name was changed in April, 1853, to Milwaukee Female College. In March of 1876 the name was changed to Milwaukee College.

Merger

In July of 1895, Milwaukee College merged with Downer College of Fox Lake, Wisconsin to become Milwaukee-Downer College with Milwaukee College's Ellen Clara Sabin as president. A new site was chosen on a tract of about ten acres on the northern end of the city of Milwaukee, halfway between Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee River. Two buildings (Merrill and Holton Halls) were constructed, and were first occupied in September, 1899, when Milwaukee-Downer opened in its new quarters. In 1901 a residence hall for students in the college department was completed. According to the report of the state superintendent of public instruction for 1906 the college had 356 students, 32 instructors, and owned property valued at $354,787.^[2]

In 1910, the Milwaukee-Downer Seminary high school was separated from the College (prior to that date it was the pre-collegiate section of the College), although a separate corporation was not obtained until 1933.

Leadership

Milwaukee-Downer was led by only two presidents through most of its history: Ellen Clara Sabin from 1895 to 1921 and Lucia Russell Briggs from 1921 to 1951. Enrollment peaked under Briggs at 444 in the 1946-47 scholastic year. She was succeeded by John B. Johnson, a political science professor with teaching and administrative experience at only one place, Park College in Parkville, Missouri, before coming to Milwaukee-Downer. Under Johnson, the number of men on the faculty increased in almost every year, and the residence halls were closed to women faculty. Johnson also initiated a policy of hiring part-time, ad hoc faculty to teach one or two courses. Enrollment declined in almost every year, from 278 in 1951-52 to a low of 176 in 1962-63.

In 1964, the college agreed to a consolidation with Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin. The 43-acre (170,000 m²) campus was sold to the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and the remaining 49 female students and 21 faculty members transferred to Lawrence. Buildings and land from its former campus still form part of the present-day campus of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

Mentions in fiction

A visit to a chum who is a day student at the college and seminary (rather lightly disguised as "Browner College" in Milwaukee) plays a role in the novel Betsy in Spite of Herself, an 1907 book in the Betsy-Tacy girl's book series by Maud Hart Lovelace.

Non-fiction

• Kieckhefer, Grace Norton. "Milwaukee-Downer College History, 1851-1951." Milwaukee-Downer College Bulletin, 33:2,1950.
• Stephens, Carolyn King; illustrated by Judith King Peterson. Downer Women, 1851-2001. Milwaukee: Sea King Publications, 2003.

References

1. ^ Watrous, Jerome A., ed. Memoirs of Milwaukee County: from the earliest historical times down to the present, including a genealogical and biographical record of representative families in Milwaukee County. Madison: Western Historical Association, 1909; p. 424-425
2. ^ Watrous, Jerome A., ed. Memoirs of Milwaukee County: from the earliest historical times down to the present, including a genealogical and biographical record of representative families in Milwaukee County. Madison: Western Historical Association, 1909; p. 425

External links

• The Milwaukee-Downer Woman
• Downer College played role in novel
• History of University School of Milwaukee and predecessor institutions