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Anna Peck Sill and the Rise of Women's Collegiate Curriculum

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Anna Peck Sill and the Rise of Women's Collegiate Curriculum Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 1985 Anna Peck Sill and the Rise of Women's Collegiate Curriculum Lucy Townsend Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Townsend, Lucy, "Anna Peck Sill and the Rise of Women's Collegiate Curriculum" (1985). Dissertations. 2411. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/2411 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1985 Lucy Townsend ANNA PECK SILL AND THE RISE OF WOMEN'S COLLEGIATE CURRICULUM by Lucy Forsyth Townsend A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Loyola University of Chicago in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 1985 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Several persons have made significant contributions to this dissertation. My adviser, Dr. Diane Schiller, gave many practical suggestions and encouragement. Dr. Joan Smith provided invaluable historical and editorial guidance through every phrase of this project. Dr. Robert Cienkus gave assistance in the later stages of my dissertation development. Special thanks go to Father Michael Perko for suggesting theological and historical sources; Mrs. Joan Surray for making the archives of Rockford College readily available; and Dr. Robert Irrmann for helping me at the Beloit College Archives. The interest, expertise, and friendliness of all these scholars is much appreciated. Many other archivists offered prompt, efficient service including those of the Town of Burlington, New York; Williston Memorial Library Archives, Mount Holyoke College; County of Wyoming Library, Warsaw, New York; Illinois State Historical Library; Swan Library Local History Archives, Albion, New York; Wheaton Graduate School College Archives; and University of Illinois Archives. Gail Borden Library and its genealogist, Mrs. Marge Hetzel, of Elgin, also ii provided much assistance. Most of all I am grateful to my husband, Jim, for supporting and encouraging me in all phases of this project. iii PREFACE In the spring of 1926, Jane Addams of Hull House stood before a class of women receiving their B.A. degrees from Rockford College in Illinois. "Here we are at the beginning of the last lap of our first century," she said. "A certain challenge is coming to educated women of the world which would not exist in the seventy-five years just finished." The challenge of which Addams spoke resulted from an intense struggle peculiar to the nineteenth century. Women like Mary Lyon, Emma Willard, and Zilpah Grant Banister worked relentlessly to provide American women with the higher education they had previously been denied. The institutions they founded were called female seminaries, a well defined type after 1775 and influential until around 1870. A lesser known women's educator named Anna Peck Sill founded a female seminary in the bustling frontier community of Rockford, Illinois. When Sill was born in 1816 most American girls were taught only the rudiments of learning. Even when they did manage to master the classical languages necessary for admittance into a college, they were denied entrance because of their sex. Yet Sill refused to remain unlearned. Using her two iv dollars a week earned from teaching in a New York district school, she attended one of the newly opened seminaries in frontier New York. Throughout the rest of her life, whether teaching or administering Rockford Female Seminary, she battled against poverty, ill health, and obscurantism to overcome the sexual barriers to higher education. Anna Sill's seminary existed for thirty-three years before the Board of Trustees considered its curriculum rigorous enough to warrant the awarding of college degrees. In the first group of students to receive the coveted Bachelor of Arts degree stood the woman who would speak at the school's seventy-fifth anniversary. This young woman, Jane Addams, received the Nobel Peace Prize forty-two years after Anna Sill's death. Jane Addams never forgot the struggle of her forebears. "I beg of you," she said to the 1926 graduates of Rockford College, "sometimes to remember the old seminary which turned out some of us in the older days." This paper is that remembrance. It tells the story of Anna Peck Sill's struggle to provide a collegiate education for the daughters of the western frontier. v VITA The author, Lucy Forsyth Townsend, is the daughter of Frank J. Forsyth, Jr., and Dolores (Webber) Forsyth. She was born 16 September 1944 in Pikeville, Kentucky. She attended the Pikeville College Training School in her home town and the public elementary schools of Stevenson, Alabama and Belle Meade, New Jersey. She graduated second in her class from Marine City High School, Marine City, Michigan, in June 1962. In June 1964 she graduated with high honor from Port Huron Junior College, Port Huron, Michigan; and received the B.A. (with honor) in English (education) from Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan. She received a teaching assistantship to Memphis State University, Memphis, Tennessee, and graduated with an M.A. in English literature in August 1970. In 1979 she graduated with an M.A. in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California. She has taught writing and literature at community college and university levels. She has also taught elementary school and served as a children's Christian education director. She belongs to the Society for Educational Biography; Presbyterian Historical Society; the vi American Association of University Women, Elgin Branch; American Educational Research Association; Alpha Gamma Delta Society, International; the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development; and the Cultural Foundations Association of Loyola University. Representing Loyola University's Graduate School, she was awarded the 1884 President's Medallion. She has published curriculum, fiction, poetry, drama, feature, and historical articles. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .. ii PREFACE . .iv VITA. .vi Chapter I. EARLY LIFE . • . 1 An Introduction • . • . • . • 1 Family Background . • 3 Education • . 10 Teaching Experience . • . 15 Footnotes . • 25 II. THE BEST LAID PLANS .. 31 Meeting on the Chesapeake . 31 A Pioneer Missionary. 34 Settling the Rock River Basin . 39 The Beloit Conventions. 41 Only on Paper • . • . 46 Footnotes . • . • . 52 III. ON HER OWN RESPONSIBILITY .. 58 Putting Down Roots. • • • . 58 Classes Begin . • 61 Frontier Conditions . • . 63 Educational Aims. • • . 64 Curriculum. 71 Instruction • . • . • . • . 77 Uncertain Times . • . 80 Footnotes . 82 viii TABLE OF CONTENTS CONT. Page IV. ON PROBATION • • . 87 Public Examinations . • . • • • 87 The Interim Minister. • • . • • • 90 The Final Decision. • . 93 A Victory of Sorts. • • • • • . • • • • 95 Gaining Ground. • • 97 Education for Men and Women . • . 100 President Aaron Lucius Chapin . 106 Hostile Forces • • • • . • • 108 Laying the Cornerstone. 110 Footnotes • . • • . • • . • . • . • • • 112 V. A COLLEGE IN THE MAKING. 118 A Frontier Teacher. • . • . • . • 118 Moving to Chapel Hall . • . • • . • • 122 A Second Trip East. • . 124 The Graduates of 1854 • . 126 Tending to the Business of the Seminary . 128 Footnotes • . • • • . 133 VI. CURRICULUM IN THE MAKING 137 Carving Out an Identity •...... 137 The Preparatory Department ••.••••• 141 Normal and English Department . • . 143 Collegiate Course •.••.....•.• 145 Language and Literature ....•.••. 148 Mathematics . • • . • . • . 151 Science • • • . • . 153 Social Sciences . • . • • . 156 Mental and Moral Science. • •. 157 Domestic Training . • • • . 159 Footnotes . • • . • • • . • • • . 161 VII. STORM CLOUDS GA'rHERING 166 Making Steady Progress. 166 Zilpah Grant Banister . • • • 167 The Visit •.....•••. 169 Written in Love? .... 169 The Evaluation Analyzed 172 Aftermath . • . • . • 178 In Search of a President. 180 Bye-Laws ..••..•• 182 Course of Instruction . 183 Academic Course • . • . 184 ix TABLE OF CONTENTS CONT. Page Collegiate Course ••. 184 Long-Term Implications •. 185 Footnotes • • . 186 VIII. NOT TO GROW IS TO DIE. 190 A New Era in Education. 190 Seminary in Bloom . 191 The Burdensome Debt . • • . 192 The Emerging Campus • . • . • 196 Executive Projections . 198 The Railroad Affair • 199 Quality Education? .•• 205 Expanding the Curriculum. 208 The Collegiate Course ••. 210 Loosening the Reins . 216 A College in Name?. 221 Footnotes . • . 224 IX: THE BEST HELPERS OF ONE ANOTHER. 231 A Seminarian of the 1870s • . 231 What About All This Religion? . 234 Better Than a High School? ...•. 238 Higher and Higher . 240 Like Male Colleges •.•. 247 Other College Rites •..... 249 The Women's Voice ..•...•. 252 In Search of Equality • 253 A Potent Force . • • . 257 The Final Push .....•. 261 Footnotes • 267 X: WINDING DOWN .••. 274 The Graduation of 1882 ••....••.• 274 Divided Ranks •.........•• 275 Still an Old Fashioned Seminary . 278 Resignation • . • . • • • 281 A New Principal . • . • • . 283 Sill Hall . • . •. 286 Last Days . • 289 Postscript. 290 Footnotes • • . 292 BIBLIOGRAPHY 297 x CHAPTER I EARLY LIFE An Introduction On a spring day in 1849, a tall woman in her early thirties
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