Mount Carroll Seminary was founded as a coeducational institution in 1853 by Frances Ann Wood, later Mrs. Shimer. After the Civil War, enrollment was limited to women. Rechartered in 1896 as the Frances Shimer Academy of the University of Chicago, the school pioneered a junior college program. It became coeducational again in 1950 and adopted a four-year program in liberal education in 1958. In that year, the Chicago affiliation was dissolved and the present name became official.