Young Ladies' School
Where Women Connected to Southwestern Learned Before the Ladies Annex
The Young Ladies’ School was established by people associated with Southwestern in 1878 due to the demand for a post-seconday educational program for the daughters of Southwestern faculty as well as the townspeople, preachers, and significant town leaders. A retrospective Megaphone article from Thursday, October 13, 1977 describes how plans for a “ladies' program” connected to the University were discussed and insisted upon from the beginning. The Young Ladies School met temporarily in the basement of the First Presbyterian Church of Georgetown until the Ladies Annex building was officially ready for use.
The church still stands today on at 703 South Church Street and is known as the First Presbyterian Church of Georgetown. In another Megaphone issue on Monday, January 2, 1939, the article subtitled, “Georgetown’s Contribution” briefly encapsulates how the city significantly aided the University in this endeavor. The article states that the First Presbyterian Church of Georgetown made it possible for the first girls to enter Southwestern and beginning in September of 1878, the church was available for their use until the Ladies Annex was completed.
The establishment of the Young Ladies’ School serves as a kind of pre-history of Southwestern’s approach to educating women, so it is vital to the history of the University itself. It shows how the community came together and demanded that the daughters of prominent townspeople in town be educated.
