Florence University for Women

Florence University for Women

Education

Florence University for Women was also known as Baptist University and Hawthorne's College. Work began on the college in 1890 by the Florence Educational, Land, and Development Company headed by J.B. Hawthorne. The building had three floors, 88 bedrooms, a chapel that could seat 750, a dining hall, sixteen classrooms, and a gym.The school was going to be a Baptist university if a $100,000 endowment could be paid within the first year. After the endowment was not paid the school was given to Rev. L.D. Bass to establish a secular school named Southern Female University. It opened in 1891 with 20 teachers and about 100 students. Although Bass advertised the school as a secular institution, the student body consisted of mostly Baptist girls. After only two years the college moved to Birmingham and the building sat vacant. In 1908 the president of Southern Female College in Lagrange, Ga, M.W. Hatto purchased the building. Hatto had the building renovated and reopened the school as Florence University for Women. Less than 3 years later the building burned, along with all of the students belongings, because of faulty electrical wiring. Only the seniors were able to finish their degrees after being sent to a school in Kentucky. The building was insured, but only for $16,000.

Claire Eagle, University of North Alabama

Text:
William Lindsey McDonald, A Walk Through The Past: People and Places of Florence and Lauderdale County, Alabama. (Bluewater Publications, 2003), 92-93.
“Florence University is Burned to the Ground,” The Tri-Cities Daily, March 2, 1911.
Image: University of North Alabama Archives and Special Collections

Alabama Cultural Resource Survey

1890-1911

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