Wesleyan Female College (Wilmington)

Wesleyan Female College of Wilmington, Delaware, USA, was a college for women that operated from 1837 to 1885. Reverend Solomon Prettyman founded the institution in 1837 as the Wesleyan Female Seminary, with the support of the Philadelphia and Baltimore Conferences of the Methodist Church. The school started on Market Street in 1837, moved to a new building at Ninth Street and Market Street in 1838, and built a building of its own in 1839 on French Street near Sixth Street. The general location of the school is now occupied by One Alico Plaza. In 1841, the school was chartered under the name of "Wesleyan Female Collegiate Institute". By 1842, it had 111 students and nine instructors. Some complained about the growing intellectual rigor of the school. For example, an 1847 editorial in The Delaware Gazette noted the many courses in academic subjects but "heard nothing of the class upon making bread, puddings, and pies..." A literary magazine called The Female Student and Young Ladies Chronicle was published by the school from 1844 to 1849. In 1851, after a period of decline, the board of trustees took over control from Prettyman for the Methodist Episcopal Church. The school was renamed the "Wesleyan Female College" in 1855. Enrollment started to decline during the 1870s, probably due in part to the opening of the Wilmington Conference Academy, a secondary school which went co-ed

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