Term: Milwaukee-Downer College
Definition:
Milwaukee Female College was founded in 1851 by Catherine Beecher. Wisconsin Female College was founded in 1855 to educate women and in 1889 changed its name to Downer College in honor of Judge Jason Downer. The two merged in 1895 to become Milwaukee-Downer College, led by presidents Ellen Clara Sabin (1895 to 1921) and Lucia Russell Briggs, (1921 to 1951). In 1964, Downer's 43-acre eastside Milwaukee campus was sold to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
View a related article at Wisconsin Magazine of History Archives.
[Source: McBride, Genevieve. On Wisconsin Women. (Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, 1993)]
