Saint Mary's College: First Women's College of the Great Lakes
Near South Bend, Indiana
Across the road from the University of Notre Dame sits one of the oldest and most significant women's colleges in the American Midwest. Saint Mary's College was founded in eighteen forty-four by the Sisters of the Holy Cross, a French religious order that Father Edward Sorin had invited from Le Mans to help staff his new university. Four sisters arrived in Indiana in eighteen forty-three and opened their first school the following year in Bertrand, Michigan, about six miles away.
In eighteen fifty-five the college moved to its present site under the leadership of Mother Angela Gillespie. Saint Mary's was the first women's college in the Great Lakes region, at a time when higher education for women was considered a radical proposition. For generations its students took classes in the same disciplines as Notre Dame men, crossing the road to collaborate on theater, music, and eventually shared academic programs.
Today Saint Mary's remains an independent Catholic liberal arts college, educating roughly sixteen hundred undergraduate women.
