To learn more about this collection please see the finding aid link found above, and/or visit the College and Lutheran Church Archives to use these primary sources.
Anderson, Minnie E. Photographs and Documents about Hope Academy, 1889-1896. LCA Collection 46. 5 folders and 1 oversize folder.
ABSTRACT:
The Photographs and Documents about Hope Academy collection consists primarily of images and commencement materials. Photographs in this collection are of two varieties: groups of students and teachers and portraits of individual faculty members. In addition, there are some writings about the history of the school, a Swedish-language newspaper from 1892 that is loaded with articles about the academy, and a very brief article concerning the school that was published in an alumni publication of Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.
Hope Academy was a parochial school for children of Swedish immigrants located in Moorhead, Minnesota. Religiously, the academy was affiliated with the Augustana Synod. The school began in 1888. There were eleven students in the first graduating class of 1891. Although children from Norwegian families were allowed to enroll, numbers remained low. Hope’s leaders faced a daunting challenge following the opening of Concordia College in 1891 and the subsequent exodus of the school’s Norwegian students. Declining enrolment proved too much for the school’s leaders to overcome, and the institution did not open during autumn 1896. Following the school’s closure, the building was dismantled and used to build several homes in the Moorhead area.
*Information obtained from the collection.
**According to Touring Swedish America Moorhead’s Bethesda Lutheran Church funded Hope Academy.
