Milwaukee-Downer College - Milwaukee, WI
N 43° 04.655 W 087° 52.718
16T E 428474 N 4769804
The Milwaukee Female Seminary was founded in 1848. In 1895 it merged with the Wisconsin Female College to become the Milwaukee-Downer College. They moved to this site in 1899. This college is located at 2512 E. Hartford Ave in Milwaukee, WI.
Waymark Code: WM5986
Location: Wisconsin, United States
Date Posted: 11/30/2008
Views: 9
34. MILWAUKEE-DOWNER COLLEGE, 2512 E. Hartford Ave., is a private school for women. Its eleven red-brick buildings in Tudor Gothic design stand on a wooded campus of 50 acres. In 1895 the school was founded through coalition of Milwaukee College, chartered under the auspices of the Congregational Church in 1851, and Downer College, chartered in 1855 at Fox Lake, Wisconsin. Milwaukee College, which had been started in 1848 as the Milwaukee Female Seminary, was reorganized in 1851 through the efforts of Catherine Beecher, sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and of Henry Ward Beecher, abolitionist author and preacher. Although primarily a liberal arts college, Milwaukee-Downer has pioneered in art, home economics, and occupational therapy.
---Wisconsin, A Guide to the Badger State, 1941
Today the college is part of the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. The Milwaukee-Downer moved to Appleton and joined with Lawrence College when UW purchased this property.
The marker reads:
| "MILWAUKEE-DOWNER COLLEGE |
On September 14, 1848, Mrs. William L. Parsons, the wife of a Congregational minister, opened the Milwaukee Female Seminary at the corner of Milwaukee and East Wells. Three years later it was chartered by the Legislature, thus placing Wisconsin in the vanguard of education at a time when colleges for women were almost unknown. A new building was erected at 1120 North Milwaukee Street.
In 1855 the Wisconsin Female College, later named Downer College, was chartered at Fox Lake. Both Schools experienced financial difficulties until they merged to become Milwaukee-Downer College in 1895. The two institutions combined their resources and moved in 1899 to this site which became a new campus of forty wooded acres.
When the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee purchased this campus in 1964, Milwaukee-Downer moved to Appleton to join Lawrence College and now is part of Lawrence University. |
| ERECTED 1965" |