Prof. Ole G. Felland, librarian and
teacher, and Mrs. Thea Felland (1898)

The Felland family with friends,
ca. 1899.

Ladies' Hall overflowing: past
and current residents, spring 1911

Georgina Dieson Hegland, Preceptress, breaks ground for new women's residence, May 24, 1911

Mohn Hall, the new ladies' hall, May 23, 1912

The college's only women's dormitory

Ladies' Hall served as the college's only women's dormitory for over thirty years. Its faculty apartment was occupied from 1883 to 1901 by the family of Prof. O. G. Felland, whose many photographs provide a unique visual record of the college from the 1880s to the 1920s. The limited space and amenities of Ladies' Hall were, however, always inadequate: most women students boarded in town. Reservations about co-education within the college's founding Norwegian-American community delayed construction of a more adequate facility for some time. Fund-raising and publicity efforts by students, alumnae, and friends — including the staged Felland photograph "Ladies' Hall Overflowing" (1911) — finally bore fruit in the construction of a new women's dormitory, the original Mohn Hall, in 1911-12.