St. Aloysius High School for Girls was opened at the request of Rev.
Arnold Damen at Holy Family Parish on Maxwell Street in Chicago. The school brought in 500 girls when it opened in August
of 1867. The Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary from Dubuque, IA taught the girls at St. Aloysius in grades six
thru 12th, and were rewarded with their own convent in 1869.
The school grew to have annual enrollments of over 1,000 students from 1870, peaking at 1,200 somewhere
between 1885-1893. A number of St. Aloysius graduates went on to teach in Chicago public schools after they received training
at Chicago Normal College (which is known today as Chicago State University).
The Sisters of Charity passed the control of the school over to the Jesuit Fathers during the course
of time, and the latter group chose to close the high school in 1896 when the Jesuits were reorganizing their school system,
plus the neighborhood had changed in the time that the school had been opened. The building was later sold to the Chicago
Public Board of Education and used as Oliver Goldsmith School (named for the Anglo-Irish writer of the 18th Century).
