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Michigan Female Seminary

Education for Women


The Michigan Female Seminary was established in 1856 under the auspices of the Presbyterian Synod of Michigan. Located on a 31 acre bluff overlooking Gull Road and what is now Riverview Drive, the Seminary stood as a landmark in the city for more than half a century, and provided a high quality education for the young women of the area.

Origin

Michigan Female Seminary, c.1880. Schuyler C. Baldwin photo (Local History Room)

The seminary movement began in 1727, and by 1871 there were over 162 such schools across the country. The Michigan Female Seminary was patterned after one located in Mount Holyoke, Massachusetts and soon came to be known as the “Mount Holyoke of the West.” Although at its peak it could accommodate 100 girls, the average enrollment was nearer to 60.

Curriculum

The school day began for the girls at 7:00 in the morning when the maid awakened them with a ringing bell. Required academic subjects included the histories of Greece, Rome, and England, botany, geology, ethics, American and English literature, math, and foreign languages. Additional classes in the Bible, art, culture, and cooking were also taught. Music was a specialty of the school and by 1900 the seminary owned fifteen pianos. Concerts were given both at the school and in town by the girls and by visiting pianists. The curriculum was so strong that graduates were admitted to the University of Michigan with the equivalent of two years college credit.

Sunday Activities

Each girl was required to attend church every Sunday at the Presbyterian church in the center of town. The entire student population walked to church, and in the afternoon they rewrote the sermon. School rules dictated that the girls were “not to make or receive calls on the Sabbath, nor are they expected to spend a Sunday away from the Seminary during term time.”

Tragic Death

In 1899, one of the Seminary students was killed in a tragic accident, crushed to death in the school’s elevator shaft. Theodora VanHoute was 25 years old, the daughter of a Holland pastor. She and her sister Jeanette had come to the school in the September 1898 as employees, but they had also each taken at least one class there. Theodora was listed as the elevator operator. On March 7, about 9:30 pm, Theodora was making her way from the library on the main floor back up to her room. She called the elevator, but when the doors opened, the car was actually positioned at the floor below. Not noticing—perhaps still lost in her book?—she stepped through the doors and on to the top of the car. Other residents in the building reportedly heard her screams as the car traveled upward and crushed her against the beams at the top of the shaft. The Seminary made no reference to the death in any of its publications, no memorial or official statement about Theodora ever appeared. Newspapers around the state picked up the news, but misspelled her name as “VanHouten.” Theodora’s story faded away and was forgotten for over a hundred years, until a KPL researcher came across the story on Kalamazoo Gazette microfilm.

End of Seminary

Enrollment steadily declined from 1900 until the school finally closed in 1907, only forty years after it had opened. The building was torn down in 1935, and some of the original building materials were used to construct St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church on the same site. The church is still in use.

 

Written by Martha Lohrstorfer, Kalamazoo Public Library Staff, 1999. Last updated by Ruth Wilson 27 June 2022.

Sources

Books

Compendium of history and biography of Kalamazoo County, Mich.
Chicago: A. W. Bowen & Co., [1906]
H 977.417 F53, pages105-106


Articles

“A Michigan landmark passes”
Michigan History, Winter 1936, volume 20, page 59

“Michigan Female Seminary”
Michigan History, March 1961, volume 45, page 57

“Crushed in an elevator”
Kalamazoo Gazette, 8 March 1899


History Room Files

History Room Subject File: Michigan Female Seminary


Other Collections

Western Michigan University Regional History Collections: Michigan Female Seminary

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