“Built on Christian Principles”: Archaeologies of St. Mary’s Hall, a New Jersey Female Seminary

Abstract

The archaeology of academic institutions provides an opportunity to examine gender construction, women’s education, and identity creation. Documentary, landscape, institutional, and gender archaeologies were all employed in the examination of a 19th-century female seminary in Burlington City, Burlington County, New Jersey. Originally operating as a Quaker female seminary between 1829 and 1836, the school was later purchased by Bishop George Washington Doane in 1837 and reconstituted as an Episcopalian secondary school for teenage girls, known as St. Mary’s Hall. It continues to operate today, though as a coeducational institution known as Doane Academy. Archaeology at St. Mary’s Hall/Doane Academy sheds light on 19th-century academic curricula, institutional goals, female agency, and the ways students negotiated the discipline of boarding-school life as they strove to create their own identities and forge important friendships. Data examined include archived student letters, annual institution catalogs and registers, recovered school supplies, existing and former school buildings, and discarded personal items.