Ward Seminary
Nashville, Tennessee
1865-1913
E-Travel
Internet Archive has copies of the Iris, the school yearbook, from 1898 to 1913. School news appeared in the Nashville Banner. The history of the school appears in All-Girls Education from Ward Seminary to Harpeth Hall, 1865-2015 by Mary Ellen Pethel. The logo is from the 1912 Iris.
History
Ward Seminary was created by Presbyterian minister, Dr. William E. Ward and his wife Eliza Hudson Ward, opening six months after the end of the Civil War. As a finishing school. it had a dual goal of providing a classical education while promoting the fine arts and ladylike behaviors that would produce a cultured wife and mother. Classes opened in September 1865 for thirty young ladies, enrollment reaching 46 by spring.
Ward Seminary was an instant success story. Pethel notes, “In 1877 the Educational Bureau in Washington, D.C., ranked Ward Seminary among the top three educational institutions tor young women in the nation.” In 1885 the Nashville American refers to the school as “the Vassar of the South.” In 1887 enrollment stood at 350.
The 1912 Iris shows 116 students in grades 9-12, with an additional 36 in Sub-freshman, Intermediate and Primary classes, and 22 more classified as “College Preparatory” students. Total class rolls list 486 students. This suggests that more than half the students were enrolled in one of the non-academic tracks—music, art, expression, domestic science or domestic art.
Most high school students (76%) came from Tennessee. Nine other states—Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama and Kentucky—furnished enough students to form state social clubs.
The life of the school can be seen in the clubs and societies. These included a Dramatic Club, a German Club, and a Cotillion Club, in addition to a Y.W.C.A. chapter. Ward Seminary also had chapters of ten national sororities, each with between six and 23 members. Many of the young ladies had “beau” from Vanderbilt University.
After the death of Dr, Ward (1887) and his wife (1900) the seminary retained the name but passed to the control of the Presbyterian Cooperative Association. In 1913 Ward Seminary merged with Belmont College, a similar and neighboring girls’ school. The new entity took the name of both schools—Ward-Belmont College, becoming the first accredited junior college in the South.
The Ward Seminary building complex. Image from the 1913 Iris. Accessed 9-19-2024 https://archive.org/details/iris1913ward/page/n9/
Bricks and Mortar
In March 1866 Dr. Ward purchased property at 15 Spruce Street for his growing school. The renovated building stood four floors above a basement. It contained 170 dormitory and school rooms, in addition to a chapel measuring 104 by 40 feet, a recitation/dining hall and rooms for art and music. To attract young ladies from the best families, the building contained modern school furniture including new pianos. The grounds were graded for croquet and a ten-pin alley. In 1879 a second building was added, providing 20 more rooms, including rooms for chemistry and physics. In 1907 the school added an annex called “Ward Place,” two miles away.
In 1924 the last of the Ward Seminary buildings were razed.
Sports
School Colors: Gold and White.
Basketball colors: Scarlet and White
Dr. Ward was a believer in “Mens sana in corpore sano.” His students were required to spend two hours each week in the gymnasium or three hours in outdoor sports. Ward Seminary had one of the first fully equipped gymnasiums in Nashville. The Iris shows that students had four sports-based clubs for tennis, boating, swimming and basketball, involving almost every seminarian.
When the school added the Ward Place in 1907, Pethel notes that most students preferred to walk the two miles rather than spend money for public transportation.
In 1897 a team from Ward played in one of the first women’s basketball games in Nashville, losing to the Vanderbilt co-eds 0-5. (Forty years later the Banner recalled that the Seminarians had “roundly trounced” the Vanderbilt girls.) The Ward team later defeated a team from the normal school 4-3. In 1902 the Banner reported that Ward was to be part of a Young Ladies’ League of Nashville schools. While newspapers reported that Ward often played both Vanderbilt and a Y.W.C.A. team, the league apparently did not make.
The 1897 basketball team. Image from the 1898 Iris. Accessed 9-18-2024 https://archive.org/details/iris1898ward/page/62
Note: Images are used in accordance with their “terms of use” as I understand those terms. Recopying or republishing these images may be restricted or forbidden.