Oberlin's Women: A Legacy of Leadership & Activism

Althea Rosina Sherman

Althea Rosina Sherman (1853-1943, OC 1875) was an educator, artist, and ornithologist. She graduated from Oberlin College in 1875 with a B.A. in fine arts. She continued her education at the Art Institute of Chicago before earning an M.A. from Oberlin College in 1882. Working as an art teacher, Sherman taught at Carleton College in Minnesota before studying at the Art Students’ League in New York City in 1885. She continued teaching as the supervisor of drawing in the Tacoma public schools until 1895, when she returned to her hometown of National, Iowa to care for her parents. After her father died in 1896 and her mother passed away in 1902, Sherman continued living at her family home with her sister.  During that period, she took an interest in ornithology. She set up special birdhouses to view birds’ nests on the property, which enabled her to remove baby birds to measure their weights. She fashioned wooden bird blinds and special laboratory equipment to help research the birds she saw, including their habitats, eating habits, and population growth or decline. Sherman kept journals and created sketches that recorded all of her research, and in 1912 she published her first article. Over the course of her career Sherman published more than seventy articles and notes about the local landscape around her home with a particular regard for ornithology. For her work, she was made a member of the American Ornithologists’ Union in 1912, which limited membership to one hundred people. She was only the fourth woman who received the honor. For more information about Althea Sherman, see these videos:
 

Links to YouTube video about Sherman's birdwatching tower: 
1) History for Lunch – Althea R. Sherman’s Chimney Swifts’ Tower
2) Althea Sherman Tower
 

Sources:

Boyle, Barbara. "History for Lunch - Althea R. Sherman's Chimney Swifts' Tower." State Historical Society of Iowa, October 4, 2016. YouTube video, 54:37. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOjBnI2QDn8&t=14s

Love, Orlan. “Restoration of historic bird observation tower advances.” The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, IA), December 27, 2012. https://www.thegazette.com/2012/12/27/restoration-of-historic-bird-observation-tower-advances

Iowa Outdoors. "Althea Sherman Tower." Iowa Public Broadcasting Service, May 23, 2018.YouTube video, 6:55. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moPnEidmFR4&t=36s

Student File (Althea Sherman), Alumni & Development Records, O.C.A.

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