Salem College and Salem Academy

The oldest female educational institution still operating as a women's college in the United States sits inside a historic Moravian district, which tells you something about what kind of place this is. Salem College traces its founding to April 22, 1772, when the Moravian community established a girls' school in Salem, North Carolina. Elisabeth Oesterlein, who had traveled from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was its first teacher. The school was run in its early years by the Single Sisters — the unmarried women of the Moravian community — who lived together and were economically self-sufficient, which was uncommon for women in the eighteenth century.

The institution opened to non-Moravians in 1804. Salem College is the 13th-oldest college in the nation and the first founded for women. That connection to the Moravian community has held for more than 250 years.

The record of who actually attended tells you what kind of institution this was willing to be. Moravian records show that two enslaved African-American girls were accepted at Salem in the late eighteenth century. In 1826, Sally Ridge, daughter of Cherokee leader Major Ridge, became the first American Indian student. Jane Ross, daughter of another Cherokee chief, also attended — and left Salem in 1838 to join her family on the Trail of Tears.

The oldest building on campus is the Single Sisters' House, originally constructed in 1785, and the oldest building in the United States dedicated to the education of women. It shares the campus with Salem Academy, which carries a North Carolina state historic marker.

Salem College has since announced a focus on health leadership, positioning itself as the only college dedicated to elevating women in that field. The campus remains inside Old Salem Historic District. That continuity — from a single room in a Moravian settlement to an operating college — is the reason to go.