Schools for Girls and the Salem Society for the Higher Education of Women
2 Chestnut Street

In her 1886 advertisement for The Studio at 2 Chestnut Street, “Miss Mary S. Cleveland” and “Miss Chattarina W. Agge” promised to “open their School for Young Ladies and Girls” on Wednesday, September 15. The second half-year would begin on February 14 with a vacation of two weeks at Christmas time “besides the usual holidays during the year.” Tuition was one hundred dollars per year for girls over twelve and eighty dollars for those who were younger. No one under the age of eight would be “received.” A “prompt and regular attendance at school [was] earnestly desired” by the instructors.⁷¹

Salem’s early and deep commitment to education has been well documented, including the city’s progressive ideas on educating African Americans, girls, and women. Another early Salem school for girls was Henry Kemble Oliver’s School for Young Ladies (1841) at 25 Federal Street, where students learned “reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, English grammar, geography, the elements of Latin and French, with plain needlework”; then, students moved on to “English composition, history, natural and moral philosophy, use of the globes (following astronomy), drawing, algebra, French and Latin, ornamental needle work”; and finally, “book-keeping, geometry, natural history, chemistry, botany, logic, rhetoric, intellectual philosophy, the Spanish language and painting.”⁷² Other schools included Abigail Allen’s school (mid-1700s), Susannah Babbidge’s school for boys and girls (late 1770s), Lydia Babbidge’s school for young ladies (late 1700s to about 1800), Paulina Read’s school and the Salem Female School (early 1800s), the Female School on Vine Street (1830s), Webb and Farley’s School for Young Ladies (1850s), Martha F. McKown’s Home School for Girls (mid-1800s), Tabitha Ward’s school (mid-1800s, see S33), Abbott’s School for Young Ladies (1860s), Miss Howe’s kindergarten, located above Mechanic Hall (late 1800s), Caroline H. King’s and Jane and Elizabeth Phillip’s school (late 1800s), Miss Hazard’s and Miss Woodward’s school (1890s), and Hamilton Hall School (1890s-early 1900s). Salem’s interest in educational opportunities laid the groundwork for the establishment of the fourth Normal School in Massachusetts, later renamed Salem State College (see S38).

As educational opportunities for women increased nationwide, a group of women founded the Salem Society for the Higher Education of Women in 1897 to support young women who wished to continue their education beyond secondary school but who needed financial assistance. Applicants had to demonstrate that they were serious about completing their college career and finding work afterward. They further had to promise to help other young women once they were established. This way, the Society believed, their work would benefit young women both in and beyond Salem.

Notes
71. Organizational brochure of The Studio, 1886.

72. Broadside of the Henry Kemble Oliver School for Young Ladies, 1841.