Milwaukee-Downer College - History

History

It began as the Milwaukee Female Seminary founded by Mrs. W. L. Parsons, wife of the pastor of the Free Congregational church. It opened on Sept. 14, 1848, in a house in downtown Milwaukee. Two years later Catharine Beecher and her associate Mary Mortimer became connected with the Seminary. Beecher, a reformer and eldest sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe, 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". The school was incorporated in March, 1851, as the Milwaukee Normal Institute and High School, and moved to new quarters. In 1852, through the influence of Beecher, $17,894 was received from her friends in the East and the American Woman's Educational Association; Milwaukeeans raised another $13,540; and a permanent home for the school was commissioned on the corner of Juneau Avenue and Milwaukee Street (near the site later to be occupied by the Milwaukee School of Engineering). The school opened there in the fall of 1852, though the building was not yet finished. By act of the legislature the name was changed in April, 1853, to Milwaukee Female College. In March 1876 the name was changed to Milwaukee College.