Kentucky College for Women (KCW) can trace its origins back to 1854 when the state legislature granted a charter to "earnest Christian men who desired for the young women, not only of this community, but of the state at large, educational advantages similar to those afforded young men in the historic Centre College." The school was to be known as Henderson Female Institute. Opened in 1860, the school changed its name to Caldwell Female Institute in 1861. In the following years, the college underwent three more name changes: Caldwell Female College (1876), Caldwell College (1904), and Kentucky College for Women (1913). In 1925 KCW closed as an independent college for women, and reopened in the fall of 1926 as the Women's Department of Centre College, although both the men's and women's colleges would maintain separate campuses until 1962. While there are gaps in the Trustees minutes, they, along with the annual catalogs, provide the main source of information about the history of the college.
Caldwell College Board of Trustee minutes - 1858-1898 (PDF typed transcript)
- Henderson Female Institute
- 1858, 1860
- Caldwell Female Institute
- 1861, 1863, 1864, 1865, 1866, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874
- Caldwell Female College
- 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1886, 1887, 1889, 1890, 1893, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898, 1902, 1903
- Caldwell College
- 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1912
- Kentucky College for Women
- 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925