Mary Sharp College

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|name = Mary Sharp College

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|established = 1851–1896

|type = Women's college

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|city =Winchester, Tennessee

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|country = USA

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Mary Sharp College (1851–1896), first known as the Tennessee and Alabama Female Institute, was a women's college, located in Winchester, Tennessee. It was named after the abolitionist Mary Sharp.{{cite web|url=http://members.cox.net/jessecorn/MarySharp/Biography.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040419092507/http://www.members.cox.net/jessecorn/MarySharp/Biography.htm |archive-date=2004-04-19 |url-status=dead |title=Mary Sharp Project - Biographical Notes |accessdate=2015-04-16 }}

History

The college was first chartered in 1850 and was directed by Dr. Zuinglius Calvin Graves and the Baptist Church. It "was the first women's college in the United States to offer degrees equivalent to those offered at men's colleges." [http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=843 Mary Sharp College], Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture{{cite book|title=Women's Colleges in the United States: History, Issues And, Challenges|author1=Harwarth, I.|author2=DeBra, E.|author3=Maline, M.|date=1997|publisher=Diane Publishing Company|isbn=9780788143243|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uUV5RaZFFA0C|page=3|accessdate=2015-04-16}}

Graves offered a radical curriculum. He patterned the classical curriculum at Mary Sharp College after those offered at Amherst College, Brown University, and the University of Virginia. He emphasized religious and moral training and required every student to attend chapel. Students at Mary Sharp, unlike those at other female colleges and academies, studied algebra, geometry, and trigonometry; Latin and Greek; English literature, grammar, and composition; ancient, English, and American history; philosophy and rhetoric; geography and geology; and botany, chemistry, astronomy, and physiology.

The college awarded its first degrees in 1855. The economic depression of the 1890s led to its closure in 1896.

Notable people

= Teachers and administrator =

Edwin M. Gardner (1845–1935) Confederate veteran and painter
Adelia Cleopatra Graves (1821—1895), educator, author, poet
Zuinglius Calvin Graves Jr. (1816–1902) Baptist preacher and educator, the first President of Mary Sharp College
Mary Louise Nash (1826-1896), American educator and writer

= Alumni =

Annie Somers Gilchrist (1841–1912), writer
Eva Munson Smith (1843–1915), composer, poet, author

References

External links

[https://web.archive.org/web/20080921213623/http://frank.mtsu.edu/~library/wtn/colleges/msharp.html Bibliography of texts on Mary Sharp College]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080831101409/http://members.cox.net/jessecorn/Mary.shtml The Mary Sharp Project]

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Category:Former women's universities and colleges in the United States

Category:Universities and colleges established in 1851

Category:Female seminaries in the United States

Category:Defunct private universities and colleges in Tennessee

Category:History of women in Tennessee

Category:1851 establishments in Tennessee

Category:Winchester, Tennessee