The Norfolk College for Young Ladies was a finishing school in Downtown Norfolk, Virginia that operated from 1880 to 1899.
Active | 1880–1899 |
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Building as Hotel Lee, with retail stores on ground floors, ca. 1940 |
The college was chartered on Feb. 20, 1880 and opened with 125 students. John L. Roper was president of the college's board.[1] The school was founded to reduce the flow of young women leaving Norfolk for their education.[2] It was located at the northwest corner of Granby and Washington Streets; in 1887 Washington Street was renamed "College Place".[3] In 1899, Mary Washington College took over the building for a few years.[4][5]
In 1905 the building reopened as the Algonquin Hotel,[3] one of several downtown hotels newly built or converted to accommodate the crowds of visitors expected for the Jamestown Exposition in 1907. Over the years, the building operated as a hotel under various names. In 1918, it became the Hotel Edward, and in 1936 the Hotel Lee.[3] Until the 1960s, the ground floor was the location of various retail stores on Granby St., including a People's Drug Store.[6] After a 1983 fire, the building was demolished.[3]
The school's former location on "College Place" is now part of the Norfolk campus of Tidewater Community College.
Alumna
edit- Kate Langley Bosher (1882), best-selling novelist
References
edit- ^ Yarsinske, Amy Waters (2015). Norfolk Through Time. Arcadia Publishing. p. 36. ISBN 978-1-63500-001-6.
- ^ Johnson, Joan Marie. Southern Women at the Seven Sister Colleges, p. 47 (2008)
- ^ a b c d "College Place". Norfolk Public Library. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
- ^ Norfolk: The First Four Centuries, p. 248 (1994)
- ^ (28 September 1899). Mary Washington College: It Opened Yesterday With Bright Prospects, Virginian Pilot
- ^ Photo of building with People's Drug Store in ground floor retail space on Granby, ca. 1940; building marquee is "Hotel Lee"