1831 World Map by Marianne S. Fernald, Student at Charlestown Female Academy

This hand drawn map, a cartography school assignment, was created Marianne S. Fernald who signed the work M.A.S. Fernald/1831. It depicts the eastern and western hemispheres as perceived at the time. Included are geographic labels, including continents, regions, islands, and bodies of water. The bottom reads, Charlestown, Female Publick School..

Marianne S. Fernald (1816-1871), the daughter of William and Sarah Fernald, would have been a 14 year old student at the time she created this map as a student of the Charlestown Female Seminary.

The Charlestown Female Seminary was opened in 1830 at 30 Union Street and founded by 2 Baptist pastors, Dr. William Collier and Dr. Henry Jackson. For the citizens of Charlestown, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Boston, Massachusetts, this was the second school for girls. the first was Mount Benedict Academy, which was an Ursuline convent and finishing school. Both were tragically burned to the ground by a Nativist mob in 1834.

By May 9, 1831, the Charlestown Female Seminary was being run by Martha Whiting, one of the pioneers in female education. In her memoirs she states that there were about 40 pupils and 4 teachers; that later increased to 160 students.To prepare young ladies for "republican motherhood" or as teachers, they outfited the school with a telescope, a microscope with about 400 objects, and a set of transparent maps. They taught music, drawing, painting, penmanship, projection of maps, bookkeeping, English, American and ancient history, political economy, Latin and of course the scriptures. There were also special lectures of physiology and chemistry and philosophy. While the trustees were all men, Miss Whiting was appointed the first headmistress or Governess when she came from a school in Hingham, Ma She later became Director until her death in 1853.

Private female seminaries and academies catering to girls from wealthy and upper middle class families were common in the East and in urban areas of the United States during the first half of the 19th Century.

Where this page came from

This page was imported from Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Released by the Smithsonian Institution under CC0 through Smithsonian Open Access.

Nobody has written it yet — it is the source material at a new address, which is why search engines are asked to skip it and why no one earns from it. It is up for grabs: take it on, and it is yours to rewrite and to earn from.