In 1852, 250 girls attended Science Hill Female Academy. Students were primarily from Kentucky as well as Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Iowa, Texas, and California.
Tevis advocated for equal education in science for women. Despite advice to "let Chemistry alone" as a subject better suited for men, Tevis built a chemistry lab a Science Hill in the early 1850s.
"Chemistry is especially requisite for the successful progress of our inquiries and researches into the nature of those things whence we derive the means of our comfort, our happiness, our luxuries, our health, and even our existence...In an an experimental science, where truth lies within our reach, we should make use of our sense and judge for ourselves."
-Julia Ann Hieronymus Tevis
