AKA: Academy of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary #2, International District, Seattle, WA

Structure Type: built works - public buildings - schools; built works - religious structures - churches

Designers: [unspecified]

Dates: constructed 1884, demolished 1908

3 stories

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903 South King Street
International District, Seattle, WA 98104

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The Academy building #2 occupied the east side of 9th Avenue, between Jackson Street and King Street. The address is approximate, as the site has been covered over by Interstate Five.

Overview

This second, wood-frame building for the Holy Names Academy, the school administered by the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, served students from 1884 until 1908. It functioned both as a boarding and a day school.

Building History

This Second Empire building was the second home of a Catholic school for girls; the first academy was established in 1880 in residence rented for the purpose. An advertisement in Polk's Seattle City Directory, 1895, (p. 11) indicated that the Academy of the Holy Names School was "a boarding and day school for girls," and stated: "Thorough instruction is given in all the English branches, art, music, elocution and modern languages. Plain sewing and every variety of fancy needlework taught without extra charge, stenography and typewriting are among the elective studies." The mention of the teaching of sewing indicated how important this was for young women at a time before widely-available, inexpensive, mass-produced clothing. Additionally, the teaching of typing and stenography was indicated, suggesting its growing importance as a field of employment for young women in the 1890s. Corporate bureaucracies grew and became standardized in their business practices during the 1890s, and the new methods of typing and stenographic note-taking became critical skills in the many new office buildings of the time.

Demolished; torn down in Spring 1908 as part of the Jackson Street Regrading Project; another Holy Names Academy building opened in Capitol Hill in 1908;

PCAD id: 8114