Mount Carroll Seminary

The Mount Carroll Seminary was the name of Shimer College from 1853 to 1896. The Seminary was located in Mount Carroll, Illinois, in the United States. A pioneering institution in its time and place, the Mount Carroll Seminary served as a center of culture and education in 19th-century northwestern Illinois. Despite frequent prognostications of failure, it grew from 11 students in a single room to more than 100 students on a spacious campus with four principal buildings. Unusually for the time, the school was governed entirely by women, most notably the founder Frances Wood Shimer, who was the chief administrator throughout the Seminary's entire existence.

The Mount Carroll Seminary was established before there were any graded public schools in Mount Carroll, and at a time when the need for education was not widely perceived by the pioneer population. In the 1850s, along with the nationwide boom in primary education, there was also a trend towards women's higher education through seminaries and normal schools, particularly in the Midwest. However, such institutions were considered an unusual phenomenon in western Illinois. At the time there were few teacher training institutions in the region at all, and there was widespread opposition to higher education for women. In addition, the novelty of women succeeding in business was a source of considerable hostility from the local community. From the time of its founding, there were frequent predictions that the seminary would fail.

The charter for the Mount Carroll Seminary was granted by the Illinois General Assembly on June 18, 1852. This act had been drafted by Judge John Wilson, then clerk of the Carroll County court and a strong advocate of education, and was submitted by State Representative William T. Miller of Mount Carroll. The original board of trustees had nine members including Wilson.

The Seminary now existing on paper, it was necessary to find teachers. Judge Wilson corresponded with Isaac Nash, a wealthy farmer in Saratoga County, New York. Boarding in Nash's house at the time were Frances Wood (later Frances Shimer) and Cindarella Gregory, recent graduates of the New York State Normal School. Wood was at the time suffering from tuberculosis, and seeking a change of climate. The two were persuaded to be the founding teachers of the new seminary.

...
Wikipedia