OTTUMWA_1870_01_FI0014062_1875c

horse and carriage

The first building on UNI’s campus was originally an orphanage constructed in 1869 to house children of Iowa Civil War soldiers. After seven years as an orphan home, the building was repurposed as the Iowa State Normal School, which opened in 1876. In its first year, the Normal School enrolled 155 students; two-thirds were women, some of whom were as young as 16, and many had already taught in schools, These students came from over thirty Iowa counties, and a few traveled from as far as Pennsylvania and New York. Tuition was free for students who were studying to become a teacher, signed a “certificate of good moral character,” and committed to teaching in Iowa. Otherwise, tuition cost $2 each month (roughly $60 in today’s money). Course offerings included teaching, English, math, science, history, and art/music. During the Normal School’s first year, both students and faculty lived and learned in Central Hall. The 2nd floor housed women students only, plus two women teachers and Principal Gilchrist and his family (his wife, Hannah, and nine children). The 3rd floor housed both men and women, as well as Professor David Wright (math and literature), whose main job upstairs was to keep the sexes separate ( in his diary he wrote that students saw their separation as a “tremendous joke”). Men and women were banned from privately talking, walking, dining, riding in trams, or visiting with each other. Occasionally students were caught and expelled or forced to apologize publicly in front of the entire school. The next year the Normal School men were all moved to the Chapel (renamed North Hall), making the separation of sexes easier for faculty to manage. However, North Hall was an “abominable” place to live, with no indoor toilets or drinking water. Students learned from six professors, whom they gossiped about regularly. Professors Moses Bartlett (classics and science) and W. N. Hull (drawing, penmanship, and speech) were “dignified and kindly”; Professor David Wright (mathematics), a bachelor, could never sit still longer than 5 minutes and his students admired him for being “short and to the point”; Professor Ida McLagan (instrumental and vocal music) looked “very sweet and dainty”; Miss Ensign (history and science) styled her hair “just a little awry”; and Principal Gilchrist “always shouldered his dignity as he came through the door, often wiping the ink from his fingers as he advanced.” One professor, Edgar Wales Burnham, was sadly forced to leave after his first year. He specialized in opera and became mired in a scandal after a newspaper exposé outed him as trans. Burnham was forced to leave the Normal School and the state of Iowa. By the end of the 1870s, the Iowa State Normal School enrolled more than 200 students and a new culture of off-campus boarding houses emerged. For entertainment, students put on plays, engaged in public debates, wrote for the school newspaper (The Student Offering, 25 cents); and attended public lectures. Governor Gear visited campus in 1878, a grand occasion, and Professor Hull publicly recorded his voice using a new photographic recording machine sometime during the same academic year.

1870

The first building on UNI’s campus was originally an orphanage constructed in 1869 to house children of Iowa Civil War soldiers. After seven years as an orphan home, the building was repurposed as the Iowa State Normal School, which opened in 1876. In its first year, the Normal School enrolled 155 students; two-thirds were women, some of whom were as young as 16, and many had already taught in schools, These students came from over thirty Iowa counties, and a few traveled from as far as Pennsylvania and New York. Tuition was free for students who were studying to become a teacher, signed a “certificate of good moral character,” and committed to teaching in Iowa. Otherwise, tuition cost $2 each month (roughly $60 in today’s money). Course offerings included teaching, English, math, science, history, and art/music. During the Normal School’s first year, both students and faculty lived and learned in Central Hall. The 2nd floor housed women students only, plus two women teachers and Principal Gilchrist and his family (his wife, Hannah, and nine children). The 3rd floor housed both men and women, as well as Professor David Wright (math and literature), whose main job upstairs was to keep the sexes separate ( in his diary he wrote that students saw their separation as a “tremendous joke”). Men and women were banned from privately talking, walking, dining, riding in trams, or visiting with each other. Occasionally students were caught and expelled or forced to apologize publicly in front of the entire school. The next year the Normal School men were all moved to the Chapel (renamed North Hall), making the separation of sexes easier for faculty to manage. However, North Hall was an “abominable” place to live, with no indoor toilets or drinking water. Students learned from six professors, whom they gossiped about regularly. Professors Moses Bartlett (classics and science) and W. N. Hull (drawing, penmanship, and speech) were “dignified and kindly”; Professor David Wright (mathematics), a bachelor, could never sit still longer than 5 minutes and his students admired him for being “short and to the point”; Professor Ida McLagan (instrumental and vocal music) looked “very sweet and dainty”; Miss Ensign (history and science) styled her hair “just a little awry”; and Principal Gilchrist “always shouldered his dignity as he came through the door, often wiping the ink from his fingers as he advanced.” One professor, Edgar Wales Burnham, was sadly forced to leave after his first year. He specialized in opera and became mired in a scandal after a newspaper exposé outed him as trans. Burnham was forced to leave the Normal School and the state of Iowa. By the end of the 1870s, the Iowa State Normal School enrolled more than 200 students and a new culture of off-campus boarding houses emerged. For entertainment, students put on plays, engaged in public debates, wrote for the school newspaper (The Student Offering, 25 cents); and attended public lectures. Governor Gear visited campus in 1878, a grand occasion, and Professor Hull publicly recorded his voice using a new photographic recording machine sometime during the same academic year.