Boscobel College for Young Ladies was a college in Nashville, founded in 1889 as the Nashville Baptist Female College by the Tennessee Baptist Convention. The college operated for twenty-five years — until 1916. One of its founding objectives was to provide the lowest possible cost for higher-education of young women. The school, at its peak in the 1890s, had over 100 female students, many of whom were boarders. In 1898, Boscobel advertised its literary faculty and music and art advantages as unsurpassed, and promised to prepare young ladies for life's work and its duties.
The property
The campus was built around an East Nashville mansion, formerly owned by Anna Shelby Williams. The mansion was constructed of blue-burned brick with marble mantles from Italy and stood atop a tree-covered hill overlooking the Cumberland River. The campus covered ten wooded acres on Sevier Street near South Seventh Street, south of Sylvan Street. Boscobal was the same name given to the property by John Shelby, who built the original mansion for his daughter, Anna Shelby Williams. In June 1917, the property became home to the National Baptist Seminary and Missionary Training School, which functioned until 1931. In 1940 the buildings were razed and sold for scrap. Much of the site of the old school is now the James A. Cayce Homes, Nashville 's oldest and largest public housing development.
Closing of the college
Boscobel College closed in 1916 on account of the East Nashville fire. Other local schools for females closed during this same era: Radnor College in 1914, Buford College in 1920, Columbia's Athenaeum college in 1907, and Franklin's Tennessee Female College in 1913.
1897: Henry G. Lamar, Sr. was also a professor at Boscobel; before 1997, he had been the business manager for Southern Female University in Birmingham, Alabama
1997–: Miss C. Janes; previously had been principals at Southern Female University in Birmingham, Alabama
1997–: Miss E. Janes; previously had been principals at Southern Female University in Birmingham, Alabama
1892–1897: Minnie Gattinger, instructor of German and drawing at Boscobel; she studied with German-born Nashville artist, George Dury and German-born American artist Carl Christian Brenner at the Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and the Académie Delécluse, Paris; exhibited works at the Salon des Champs-Élysées, 1896; was instructor of art at Judson Institute, 1891–1892; became director of the art department at Peabody College for Teachers in 1897. Her father, Augustin Gattinger, MD, married Josephine Dury in 1849 — sister of George Dury; George Dury was the brother of her father's wife.
1898–: Maud Sallee
Former students
1895–1896: Margaret Graves
Agnes Shepard Bates ; music teacher in Earlington, Kentucky. She studied post graduate music Boscobel, although the institution had no "official" graduate program. Before attending Boscobel, she taught music at Bethel University.
