Cherokee Female Seminary | |
Location | Northeastern State University campus, Tahlequah, Oklahoma, United States |
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Coordinates | 35°55′13″N94°58′12″W / 35.92028°N 94.97000°W |
Built | 1889 [1] |
Architect | C.E. Illsley |
NRHP reference No. | 73001558 [2] [3] |
Added to NRHP | April 5, 1973 |
The Cherokee Female Seminary was built by the Cherokee Nation in 1889 near Tahlequah, Indian Territory. It replaced their original girls' seminary, the first Cherokee Female Seminary, that had burned down on Easter Sunday two years before. The Seminary was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. [4]
The Cherokee Council chose to rebuild the school on a 40-acre (160,000 m2) site north of Tahlequah, Oklahoma near Hendricks Spring. Two years later, on May 7, 1889, the dedication ceremonies were held in honor of the new building. The school was modeled after other female seminaries of the time. [5] The Female Seminary was owned and operated by the Cherokee Nation until March 6, 1909, after Oklahoma had been admitted as a state as in 1907, and tribal land claims were extinguished. At this point, the state converted the seminary into a normal school. [6]
The Cherokee Nation ran both a male and female seminary in this territory, showing the importance placed on education within the Nation. Female seminaries were a larger cultural movement across the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, by which time they had taken over the role played traditionally by the boarding school, which had offered a more family-like atmosphere.
The Cherokee Female Seminary was located in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, a small city near the Ozark Mountains. Tahlequah was also home to the Cherokee Male Seminary and public schools and was the capital of the Cherokee Nation. [7]
The Seminary consisted of a large building on a hill that housed up to 175 students plus staff and stewards. At the new site's creation in 1889, the building had electric lights, steam-powered heating, and water supplied from a local spring. It housed a parlor, a library, a kitchen, a chapel, and bedrooms. [7] The staff included teachers and a medical superintendent as Cherokee social progress placed an increasing emphasis on providing quality healthcare alongside education. [8]
The Cherokee Female Seminary in Tahlequah was designed after Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts and its first two teachers were alumni of the school, Ellen Whitmore and Sarah Worcester. [5] Miss Florence Wilson served as the principal of the Cherokee Female Seminary at both its original and rebuilt site from 1875 to 1901. She is regarded by many of the teachers and alumni as the most influential figure in the school's history. [7]
The seminary began by offering the four high school years and eventually expanded to grades 1-12, with grades 1-5 becoming the "primary department" and 6-8 the "preparatory department". [9]
High School students took the following courses over four years: English, US History, Physiology, Arithmetic, Latin, Botany, Algebra, General History, Geometry, Physics, Civics, and Chemistry. Instrumental and vocal music were offered for an additional charge. [7]
The seminary also had a large focus on Christianity and its principles were widespread in the curriculum. Church attendance was mandatory for students. [9] Students were also taught domestic skills, like sewing, as endorsed by the US federal government. [8]
The Cherokee Nation increasingly valued education throughout the 17th century and set aside proceeds from land cessions to the United States in 1819 to be invested in education for their children. [7] The Cherokee Female Seminary was established alongside the Cherokee Male Seminary during the annual session of the Cherokee Nation's National Council in November 1846. The Female Seminary opened to students in 1850, one year before the Male Seminary. [5]
After a fire burned down the original site, a new building opened in 1889. According to the Cherokee Advocate newspaper, up to three thousand people attended the reopening celebrations in a precession that totaled a mile long. [10]
When the state converted the seminary into a normal school, the new State Legislature of Oklahoma passed an act providing for the creation of Northeastern State Normal School at Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The act also authorized the purchase of the building, land, and equipment of the Cherokee Female Seminary from the Cherokee Tribal Government. At the start of the next academic year, on September 14, the state held its first classes at the newly founded Northeastern State Normal School, primarily intended to train teachers of elementary grades. The institution has been developed over the decades and is now Northeastern State University, offering a range of curriculum and graduate programs. [11]
What is now called Seminary Hall, in honor of the Cherokee Seminary, is the oldest building on NSU's campus. It was built in 1889 by St. Louis architect C.E. Illsley, who designed it in the Romanesque Revival style, complete with fortress-like turrets flanking the main entrance and a clock tower that resembles a church steeple and rises two stories above the rest of the building. [12] In 1994, the building was completely restored.
The building was renovated and upgraded in 2020, with the work aided by a $4 million grant from the Cherokee Nation. [12] That work included using salvaged wood and brick from the 1800s to match the original building materials where needed, and replacing aluminum window frames from a prior renovation with custom wood frames typical of the period. In addition, half-octagon-shaped roof dormers were added, as they were drawn in the original architect's plans. [12]
The building now houses classrooms along with academic and faculty offices. It was the first campus classroom building wired for multimedia instruction. At the main entrance of the building are three murals painted in the 1930s as a WPA project by Stephen Mopope, Jack Hokeah (both Kiowa), and Albin Jake (Pawnee). [13]
The first class to graduate from the Cherokee Female Seminary had two students, Tennie Steele Fuller and Belle Cobb. Belle returned back to the Seminary to teach before studying medicine. [7]
Lulu Hefner was an Oklahoman businesswoman who attended the Seminary. She is remembered as the first female oil operator in Oklahoman history. [14]
Prior to her further education, Rachel Caroline Eaton attended the first inception of the Seminary, before it burned down. She is believed to be the first indigenous Oklahoman woman to earn a Ph.D. She later returned to teach at the new Cherokee Female Seminary. [15]
Cherokee County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2020 census, the population was 47,078. Its county seat is Tahlequah, which is also the capital of the Cherokee Nation.
Park Hill is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in southwestern Cherokee County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 3,909 at the 2010 census. It lies near Tahlequah, east of the junction of U.S. Route 62 and State Highway 82.
Tahlequah is a city in Cherokee County, Oklahoma located at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. It is part of the Green Country region of Oklahoma and was established as a capital of the 19th-century Cherokee Nation in 1839, as part of the new settlement in Indian Territory after the Cherokee Native Americans were forced west from the American Southeast on the Trail of Tears.
Fort Gibson is a town in Cherokee and Muskogee counties in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The population was 4,154 at the 2010 census, an increase of 2.5 percent over the figure of 4,054 recorded in 2000. It is the location of Fort Gibson Historical Site and Fort Gibson National Cemetery and is located near the end of the Cherokees' Trail of Tears at Tahlequah.
Northeastern State University (NSU) is a public university with its main campus in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The university also has two other campuses in Muskogee and Broken Arrow as well as online. Northeastern is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of Oklahoma as well as one of the oldest institutions of higher learning west of the Mississippi River. Tahlequah is home to the capital of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and about 25 percent of the students at NSU identify themselves as American Indian. The university has many courses focused on Native American linguistics, and offers Cherokee language Education as a major. Cherokee can be studied as a second language, and some classes are taught in Cherokee for first language speakers as well.
The Cherokee Heritage Center is a non-profit historical society and museum campus that seeks to preserve the historical and cultural artifacts, language, and traditional crafts of the Cherokee. The Heritage center also hosts the central genealogy database and genealogy research center for the Cherokee People. The Heritage Center is located on the site of the mid-19th century Cherokee Seminary building in Park Hill, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tahlequah, and was constructed near the old structure. It is a unit of the Cherokee National Historical Society and is sponsored by the Cherokee Nation, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, and other area tribes. The center was originally known as Tsa-La-Gi but is now known as the Cherokee Heritage Center.
Bacone College, formerly Bacone Indian University, is a Private college in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Founded in 1880 as the Indian University by missionary Almon C. Bacone, it was originally affiliated with the mission arm of what is now American Baptist Churches USA. Renamed as Bacone College in the early 20th century, it is the oldest continuously operated institution of higher education in Oklahoma. The liberal arts college has had strong historic ties to several tribal nations, including the Muscogee and Cherokee. The Bacone College Historic District has been on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Muskogee County, Oklahoma since 2014.
Sequoyah High School is a Native American boarding school serving students in grades 7 through 12, who are members of a federally recognized Native American tribe. The school is located in Park Hill, Oklahoma, with a Tahlequah post office address, and is a Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) grant school operated by the Cherokee Nation.
William Wirt Hastings was an American politician and a U.S. Representative from Oklahoma.
The Cherokee National Capitol, now the Cherokee Nation Courthouse, is a historic tribal government building in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Completed in 1869, it served as the capitol building of the Cherokee Nation from 1869 to 1907, when Oklahoma became a state. It now serves as the site of the tribal supreme court and judicial branch. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961 for its role in the Nation's history.
The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education is the agency of the government of Oklahoma that serves as the governing body of the Oklahoma State System of Higher Education, which is the largest provider of higher education in the state of Oklahoma. The State System consists of all institutions of higher education in Oklahoma that are supported by direct legislative appropriations from the Oklahoma Legislature.
The first Cherokee Female Seminary was a boarding school opened by the Cherokee Nation in 1851 in Park Hill, Oklahoma. On Easter Sunday 1887, a fire burned the building, but the head of the school, Florence Wilson, made sure all the girls got out. Two years later, in 1889, the new Cherokee Female Seminary reopened and still stands just north of Tahlequah.
The Cherokee Male Seminary was a tribal college established in 1846 by the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory. Opening in 1851, it was one of the first institutions of higher learning in the United States to be founded west of the Mississippi River.
Dr. Isabel Keith Baker was a former educator in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Throughout her 43 years as an educator, Baker taught in several Oklahoma schools, retiring as Professor Emeritus from Northeastern State University in 1994. Baker served on the Oklahoma State University A&M Board of Regents from 1991 until 1999. She played a major role in the renovation of Willard Hall, the home of OSU's College of Education. During her career and throughout her life, Baker has been recognized as a champion of gender equity. In the 1980s, Baker ran for Congress and was defeated by Republican candidate, Tom Coburn.
Jennie Ross Cobb is the first known Native American woman photographer in the United States. She began taking pictures of her Cherokee community in the late 19th century. The Oklahoma Historical Society used her photos of the Murrell Home to restore that building, which is now a museum. Trained as a teacher, Cobb worked as a florist in Texas before returning to Oklahoma to spearhead the restoration of the Murrell Home.
Mary Adair is a Cherokee Nation educator and painter based in Oklahoma.
Isabel "Belle" Cobb was a Cherokee physician and educator best known for being the first woman physician in Indian Territory.
Eliza Missouri Bushyhead Alberty was a Cherokee businesswoman, school administrator and educator.
Ellen Rebecca Whitmore was the first principal teacher at the Cherokee Female Seminary in modern-day Oklahoma and later served as a missionary in Hawaii.