Graham Hall, Minneapolis

From 1900–1915, the girls’ preparatory school Graham Hall catered to well-to-do Minneapolis families with an elite pre-college curriculum. The school also offered a general course of study and elementary education. Graham Hall was eventually reincorporated under a board of trustees as the Northrop Collegiate School, which, in turn, became a part of the Blake School.

In the summer of 1900, the Minneapolis Classical School, a college preparatory school for boys at 2244 Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, announced the opening of a girls’ department, to be called Graham Hall. The school’s principal, Arthur D. Hall, tapped Carrie F. Bartlett and Smith College graduate Zulema Ruble to be associate principals in charge of the girls’ division. Named after Ruble’s mother, Graham Hall was intended to prepare girls for Wellesley, Smith, Wells, Bryn Mawr, and other women’s colleges.

By the fall of 1902, the Minneapolis Classical School had ceased to use the names “Morgan Hall” and “Graham Hall” to refer to its separate boys’ and girls’ courses of instruction. That same fall, Ruble and Bartlett began to advertise Graham Hall as an independent girls’ preparatory school, at a “new and permanent location.” It would now comprise three buildings in what the school catalog termed “one of the best residence sections of Minneapolis,” which was on First Avenue between Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets.

Graham Hall offered three courses of study: a general course designed for girls “not desiring a college education,” a postgraduate course for its own alumnae, and a college preparatory course.

A women’s college like Wellesley, in Massachusetts, required its entering freshmen to present credentials in English, Latin, and mathematics, as well as an additional foreign language or chemistry or physics. Graham Hall structured its college preparatory curriculum accordingly. A Graham Hall girl enrolled in this course studied English, history, French, German, Latin, Greek, mathematics, science, reading and speaking, and physical training. Elective courses in bible studies, household economics, music, and psychology were also offered.

An all-female faculty taught all courses. Knowledge of Latin and Greek was essential for any girl aspiring to college, but Graham Hall also insisted that its students take gymnastics classes. Graham Hall athletics teams—especially basketball—practiced regularly and competed with other schools. Plays, dramatics, and music were also regular parts of school life.

Graham Hall maintained a Junior School, which enrolled students beginning at age six. Both girls and boys could attend through the fifth grade. These younger students received a foundational education in speaking, writing, and spelling, endured daily “mental arithmetic” drills, learned French or German, and began Latin by the seventh grade.

The cost of attending Graham Hall depended on the grade level and whether the student lived at school or at home. During the 1909–1910 school year, for instance, attendance in grades one through four cost $85 per year, while the “Academic Department”—high school—years were $150 per year. To live at school and attend classes cost $500 per year. Extra fees were charged for music lessons ($52 for a year’s worth of weekly piano lessons), laundry ($0.75 for a dozen pieces), a seat at church ($5), and lunch ($0.25 a day).

In 1910, co-founder Carrie Bartlett left the school; her interest was taken over by Alyda MacLain and Isoline Lang. Two years later, Zulema Ruble ended her connection with the school. As a condition of the contract that bought out her interest, Ruble agreed not to own, operate, or “in any wise be interested in or connected with any other private school in Minneapolis, Minnesota.”

MacLain and Lang were principals of the school for approximately two years. Louise Knappen, an associate principal, suggested that Graham Hall be reorganized under a board of trustees. She maintained her one-third interest in Graham Hall and remained until, in the summer of 1914, the all-male board purchased the interests of MacLain and Lang. At the end of the school year, Knappen departed to do graduate work at Columbia University. In the fall of 1915, Graham Hall became known as the Northrop Collegiate School, taking its name from Cyrus Northrop, president emeritus of the University of Minnesota. Following votes to merge by the boards of Northrop, Blake, and Highcroft Schools, Northrop became a part of the Blake School in 1972 .