Milwaukee-Downer College

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Milwaukee-Downer College was a women's college (and, for some of its history, a girl's high school) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Two of the early founders were nationally known: Increase Lapham, father of the U.S. Weather Bureau, and Catherine Beecher, reformer and eldest sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Beecher had designed "The Beecher Plan" for educating women through the college level for professions. She was invited to launch her plan in Milwaukee and came there first in April, 1850. "The Beecher Plan" focused on four professions most open to women: teaching, child care, nursing, and "conservation of the domestic state". Beecher suggested a new name for the Milwaukee school which emphasized the first field, teaching. The new school was chartered in 1851 as "Milwaukee Normal Institute and High School." Although commonly referred to as Milwaukee Female Seminary, the name was changed to Milwaukee Female College in April of 1853 and then changed to Milwaukee College in March of 1876. In 1895, it merged with Downer College of Fox Lake, Wisconsin to become Milwaukee-Downer College. In 1910, the Milwaukee-Downer Seminary high school was separated from the college (prior to that date it was the pre-collegiate section of the college), although a separate corporation was not obtained until 1933.

It was led by only two presidents through most of its history: Ellen Clara Sabin from 1895 to 1921 and Lucia Russell Briggs from 1921 to 1951. Enrollment peaked under Briggs at 444 in the 1946-47 scholastic year. She was succeeded by John B. Johnson, a political science professor with teaching and administrative experience at only one place, Park College in Parkville, Missouri, before coming to Milwaukee-Downer. Under Johnson, the number of men on the faculty increased in almost every year, and the residence halls were closed to women faculty. Johnson also initiated a policy of hiring part-time, ad hoc faculty to teach one or two courses. Enrollment declined in almost every year, from 278 in 1951-52 to a low of 176 in 1962-63.

In 1964, the college agreed to a consolidation with Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin. The 43-acre campus was sold to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the remaining 49 female students and 21 faculty members transferred to Lawrence. Buildings and land from its former campus still form part of the present-day campus of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

[edit] Mentions in fiction

A visit to a chum who is a day student at the college and seminary (rather lightly disguised as "Browner College" in Milwaukee) plays a role in the novel Betsy in Spite of Herself, an 1907 book in the Betsy-Tacy girl's book series by Maud Hart Lovelace.

[edit] Non-fiction, available through libraries of Lawrence University or University Wisconsin.

Kieckhefer, Grace Norton. Milwaukee-Downer College History, 1851-1951. Milwaukee: Milwaukee-Downer College Bulletin, 33:2,1950.

Stephens, Carolyn King; illustrated by Judith King Peterson. Downer Women, 1851-2001. Milwaukee: Sea King Publications, 2003.

[edit] External links

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