SC015 Shimer College Catalogues

Shimer College catalogues cover two different Shimer campuses. From 1862 to 1978, Shimer was located in Mt. Carroll, Illinois. The campus later moved to Waukegan, Illinois. The 1979 catalogue was the first one published in Waukegan. The final catalogue, from 2006, was from Shimer’s final year at Waukegan before moving again, this time to rented space on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus in Chicago.

The titles of the catalogues also indicate different names for the college. In the 1862 catalogue, Shimer was still called the Mt. Carroll Seminary. By the next catalogue in the collection, from 1896, the name had changed to Frances Shimer Academy. In 1908, it was called the Frances Shimer Academy and Junior College. By 1910, the school was called the Frances Shimer School. By 1932, the school was renamed Frances Shimer Junior College, shortened to Frances Shimer College by 1941. It was not until the 1956-1957 catalogue that the college was referred to as Shimer College.

The curriculum at Shimer saw many changes throughout the publication of the catalogues as well. Beginning as a coeducational seminary school, Shimer became a girls’ finishing school by the close of the American Civil War. In 1950, the school underwent major changes. Now coeducational, it adopted the Great Books curriculum it would carry on through the end of the catalogue collection. It was also in 1950 that Shimer began its early entrance program, which allowed students to leave high school early and begin education at the college level. The early entrance program was still in place when the final Waukegan catalogue was published in 2006.