Shimer Great Books School is a Great Books college that is part of North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. Prior to 2017, Shimer was an independent, accredited college on the south side of Chicago, originally founded in 1853.
Samuel James Campbell was a prominent banker, businessman and civic leader in Mount Carroll, Illinois, in the first half of the 20th century. He operated several farms that raised Angus cattle and owned the Kable News Company of Mount Morris, Illinois, a national distributor of magazines. He headed the boards of trustees of Shimer College for more than 20 years, and was also chairman of the board at Beloit College.
Shimer College was founded in 1852, when the pioneer town of Mt. Carroll, Illinois, lacking a public school, incorporated the Mt. Carroll Seminary with no land, no teachers, and no money for this purpose.
Frances Shimer, born Frances Ann Wood, was an American educator. She was the founder of the Mount Carroll Seminary, which later became Shimer College, in Mount Carroll, Illinois. She was also the sole proprietress of the school from 1870 to her retirement in 1896.
Henry Shimer was a naturalist and physician in Mount Carroll, Illinois. He was also a teacher at the Mount Carroll Seminary, which later became Shimer College; he was the husband of the seminary's founder, Frances Shimer.
William Parker McKee (1862–1933) was an American educator and Baptist minister. He served as the chief executive of Shimer College from 1897 to 1930, a position known at the time as "Dean". During this period the school was known by turns as the Frances Shimer Academy, Frances Shimer School, and Frances Shimer Junior College. The second executive of the college following its founder Frances Shimer, Dean McKee was also the second longest-serving executive in Shimer's history. He oversaw the rebuilding of the campus following the fire of 1906, and the commencement of the junior college program shortly thereafter.
Don P. Moon is an American academic administrator, minister, and former nuclear reactor physicist. He was the president of Shimer College from 1978 to 2004, and has been on the faculty of Shimer College since 1967.
Floyd Cleveland Wilcox was the third president of Shimer College, serving from 1930 to 1935. His leadership, though marked by controversy, saw the school through the most difficult years of the Great Depression. He oversaw the transition of the school's curriculum from a two-year to a four-year junior college program.
Aaron John Brumbaugh was a higher education administrator and professor of education, and the sixth president of Shimer College.
The Mount Carroll Seminary was the name of Shimer College from 1853 to 1896. The Seminary was located in Mount Carroll, Illinois, in the United States. A pioneering institution in its time and place, the Mount Carroll Seminary served as a center of culture and education in 19th-century northwestern Illinois. Despite frequent prognostications of failure, it grew from 11 students in a single room to more than 100 students on a spacious campus with four principal buildings. Unusually for the time, the school was governed entirely by women, most notably the founder Frances Wood Shimer, who was the chief administrator throughout the Seminary's entire existence.
Theodore Weld Pepoon was a Republican Nebraska politician and publisher, living and working in Pawnee County and nearby areas. He is principally remembered for his work on reforming Nebraska's agricultural laws and for his stint in the 1880s as publisher of the Falls City Journal.
The Mount Carroll Historic District is a designated historic district in the Carroll County, Illinois town of Mount Carroll, which is the county seat. The district is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), and is one of a total of six sites in the county included on the Register.
Humphrys Henry Clay Miller, or H.H.C. Miller (1845–1910), was an American attorney, and civic leader and three-term president of the village board of Evanston, Illinois. His first name is also frequently spelled Humphrey or Humphreys. He was the first Evanston mayor to be popularly elected.
Jerome "Jerry" Kristian was a theoretical and observational cosmologist, and the first to provide observational evidence of quasar host galaxies.
Henry William Neikirk (1839–1911) was a Colorado gold miner, banker, and Republican politician, serving in the Colorado General Assembly from 1879 to 1881. He was also instrumental in establishing the University of Colorado.
Virginia Dox was a 19th-century American missionary, educator, and explorer in the Intermountain West, and later a noted public speaker and fundraiser for educational institutions including Whitman College and Berea College. Under the auspices of the New West Education Commission, she founded schools in Idaho and New Mexico. She was the first white woman to explore the Grand Canyon, and also the first white woman to visit the Havasupai. Her vivid depictions of Western life earned her the nickname of "the female Bret Harte".
Joseph Morris Rea (1846–1895), often known simply as J. Morris Rea, was an Iowa attorney and politician. He served in the Iowa State Senate from 1893 to 1895.
Henry Winfield Haldeman, familiarly known as Harry Haldeman, was a banker, physician and two-term mayor of Girard, Kansas, in the late 19th century. He was the husband and stepbrother of banker Alice Haldeman, stepbrother of social reformer Jane Addams, father of radical publisher Marcet Haldeman-Julius. He suffered throughout his life from poor health aggravated by alcoholism.
Bina Deneen (1868–1950), born Bina Maloney, was the first two-term first lady of Illinois, and the first to give birth in the Illinois Executive Mansion. She was the wife of Charles S. Deneen. Known at the time as "the ideal wife for a governor" for her calm and unassuming style, she was also an active participant in her husband's campaigns, and in the woman's club movement.
Annie Marion MacLean (1869–1934) was a pioneering American sociologist of the women's Chicago School, and is sometimes referred to as the "mother of contemporary ethnography". She was one of the first women to pursue a professional career in sociology.
