East Tennessee Female Institute

The East Tennessee Female Institute was an all-female institution of higher learning that operated in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, from 1827 until 1911. Originally chartered as the Knoxville Female Academy, the school offered high school and college-level courses to the women of Knoxville and surrounding counties in the years before the University of Tennessee became coeducational. With the rise of free public education in Knoxville in the early 1900s, the institute, which was tuition-based, gradually declined.

Blount College, the forerunner of the University of Tennessee, was chartered in 1794, and was originally open to both males and females. By the time it was rechartered as East Tennessee College in 1807, however, it was an all-male institution, and Knoxville's leaders began making preparations to establish a school for the city's young women. The Knoxville Female Academy was chartered in 1811, but its trustees struggled for several years to raise enough money to hire faculty and rent a building in which to conduct classes.

In 1826, East Tennessee College made a much-publicized move to a permanent location atop Barbara Hill, and interest in the Knoxville Female Academy was reinvigorated. In April of the following year, the Knoxville Register called on the city's leaders to revive the academy, and by the end of the month the school's trustees had hired faculty (a principal and two instructors) and had made arrangements to hold classes in the home of physician and trustee Joseph Strong. The Reverend John Davis was named the first principal, and classes began on May 7, 1827.

In 1828, the school's trustees began raising funds for a permanent school building. Strong and Matthew McClung each donated their halves of the lot bounded by what is now Henley, Main, and Hill Avenue, while Charles McClung, John Crozier, and several lesser donors contributed money for the building, which was completed in 1829. After Davis resigned, Strong secured the services of Dartmouth graduate Joseph Estabrook, who led the academy until 1834 when he resigned to become president of East Tennessee College. The Knoxville Female Academy graduated its first class on September 30, 1831.

In 1841, the Methodist Episcopal Church took over patronage of the academy, and the Reverend David McAnally was installed as principal. McAnally helped to greatly increase the school's collections, and the school continued to grow under his leadership. On January 31, 1846, the Knoxville Female Academy was rechartered as the East Tennessee Female Institute, which had the power to confer degrees. Around the same time, the school's trustees began squabbling with the church's representatives, and the board voted to sever ties with the church in 1847.

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