Cherokee Female Seminary

Cherokee Female Seminary
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Front of the building
Location	Northeastern State University campus, Tahlequah, Oklahoma, United States
Coordinates	35°55′13″N 94°58′12″W / 35.92028°N 94.97000°WCoordinates: 35°55′13″N 94°58′12″W / 35.92028°N 94.97000°W
Built	1889[1]
Architect	C.E. Illsley
NRHP Reference #	73001558[2][3]
Added to NRHP	April 5, 1973

Cherokee Female Seminary graduating class of 1902, photographed by Jennie Ross Cobb (Cherokee)

The Cherokee Female Seminary, (not to be confused with the first Cherokee Female Seminary), serves as the centerpiece of Northeastern State University, located in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, United States. The building was constructed to replace the original Cherokee Female Seminary that burnt to the ground Easter Sunday 1887. The Cherokee Council chose to rebuild the school on a 40-acre (160,000 m²) site north of Tahlequah, near Hendricks Spring.^[4] Two years later, on May 7, 1889, the dedication ceremonies were held in honor of the new building. The Female Seminary was owned and operated by the Cherokee Nation until March 6, 1909 when the State Legislature of Oklahoma passed an act providing for the creation and location of Northeastern State Normal School at Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and for the purchase form the Cherokee Tribal Government of the building, land, and equipment of the Cherokee Female Seminary. At the start of the next academic year, on September 14, the first classes were held at the newly created Northeastern State Normal School, now Northeastern State University.^[1]

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.^[5]

Northeastern State University

Seminary Hall is the oldest building on NSU's campus and in 1994 the building was completely restored. 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 is featured three Indian murals painted in the 1930s as a WPA project by Kiowa artists Stephen Mopope and Jack Hokeah and Pawnee artist Albin Jake.^[6]

See also

• Lulu M. Hefner
• Cherokee Male Seminary
• Female seminaries
• Women in education in the United States

References

1. "What We're Celebrating". Northeastern State University. 2008-02-14.
2. National Park Service (2009-03-13). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
3. "Oklahoma Historical Society State Historic Preservation Office".
4. Chavez, Will (2015-05-05). "Little-known Cherokee Female Seminary facts shared". Cherokee Phoenix (in English and Cherokee). Retrieved 2015-09-27.
5. "Academies & Seminaries Women's Education Home Page". William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan. Retrieved January 17, 2012.
6. "Northeastern State University's historic Seminary Hall". Communicators Council. 2008-02-14.

External links

• Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) No. OK-23, "Cherokee Female Seminary, Northeastern Oklahoma State University Campus, Tahlequah, Cherokee County, OK"