Lutherville Female College was founded by Drs. John G. Morris and Benjamin Kurtz in 1853, and was located near Baltimore. The charter granted by the legislature authorized the conferring of diplomas of graduation. In 1856, an amendment to the charter authorized the institution to confer the usual collegiate degrees on women of merit and distinction in literature and science. Dr. David Bittle, a leading Lutheran educator in Maryland and Virginia, brought the issue of higher education for women to the Maryland Synod in his 1851 “ Plea for Female Education” to awaken the church “to her true position and responsibility in the great educational movements of the age.” This period, just before and after the Civil War, saw the founding of over 30 seminaries for women, most in the South. In 1909, the Lutherville school, called Maryland Female College since 1895, was no longer listed in the Lutheran Almanac. None of the women’s schools exist today, although all ELCA colleges are co-educational.   View Slideshow