Floral College
Robeson County, Robeson County, North Carolina
Marker Inscription
Floral College. One of earliest colleges for women in the South, 1841-78. Centre Presbyterian Church, formerly the college chapel, is 150 yards north.
Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
The Story
Chartered in 1841, Floral College was one of the earliest colleges for women in the South, operating until 1878. It offered higher education to young women decades before most American institutions would admit them at all. The former college chapel survives as Centre Presbyterian Church a short distance north.
Why it matters
Women's colleges founded before the Civil War were pioneering exceptions in a nation that largely denied women higher learning, and Floral College was among the South's first.
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