10 comments

  1. This information is incorrect.

    1. According to History of higher education of women in the South prior to 1860, Neale Publishing Company, New York. 1909. These are the locations of four female schools in Tuscaloosa starting in the early 1830’s. Please note the Alabama Institute address and the Stafford Plaza address. – The Alabama Institute was on Ninth street and Twenty-second avenue;
      Washington and Lafayette was on Tenth street and Twenty-fourth avenue;
      Wesleyan Academy was on Fourth street and Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth avenues.
      The Athenaeum was on East Major street; You can read the book here. http://archive.org/stream/historyofhighere00blanrich/historyofhighere00blanrich_djvu.txt

  2. Okay. I was thinking of the Tuscaloosa Female Academy that was located on Queen City Avenue and 6th Street. It was originally the home of Dr. John Drish. In the old days, female’s had to have their own institutes for higher education because they weren’t accepted into the University at the time. Very interesting Tuscaloosa history.

    1. There was some thought of letting girls attend classes at the University of Alabama from the Institute, but it never happened. Several professors form UofA gave guest lectures at the Institute. It’s sad that it took so long for girls to be accepted at UofA. That’s why you seldom see biographies on women before the 1900’s. Most everything was written by men because they were given a better education and of course they wrote what interested them, their male contemporaries, war etc. We have a big gap in a woman’s viewpoint before 1900.

    2. http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Journal-of-Sarah-Haynsworth-Gayle-1827-1835,5743.aspx I attended a lecture by Sarah Wiggins about the life of Sarah Haynsworth Gayle. She was the wife of John Gayle, Alabama’s 7th Governor and the mother of Amelia Gayle Gorgas. She wrote extensive journals that give a rare women’s viewpoint of society in Alabama from 1827-1835.

  3. […] purchased by private parties, and in 1876 re-sold to Prof. Alonzo Hill, who opened in it the “Tuskaloosa Female College.” The school started with about 100 scholars, one-third boarders, and eight teachers. The […]

  4. […] female colleges in the South: the “Alabama Central Female College,” and the ” Tuskaloosa Female College.” The University High School for boys, in addition to its local patronage, draws a large […]

  5. […] A recent school census shows that this population is on a steady increase, and even without any marked industrial awakening it would continue to grow, on account of its fine agricultural surroundings, large commercial territory, and superior educational and social advantages It has two of the largest and best equipped female colleges in the South: the “Alabama Central Female College,” and the ” Tuskaloosa Female College.” […]