Lawrence University Archives/Gift of Katherine Field
The four men and three women of Lawrence University's first graduating class were pioneers in several senses of the word: Wisconsin was still on or near "the frontier" in 1857. Lawrence had only been in business since 1849 and didn't actually offer courses at the college level until 1853. And, higher education for women was still a tentative and controversial venture when it was done by women's colleges; even more suspicion and skepticism surrounded the coeducational notion of educating men and women together (or, at least, on the same campus; in the early days, most if not all classes were taught separately for men and women).
You'd probably like to know the names of these pioneering folks, and we'll tell you what we can. It's been nearly 150 years, after all, and even institutional memory has its occasional lapses.
In the image on the right, the three women are Francena Kellog Buck, Adelaide Grant Carver, and Lucinda Darling Colman (for whom Colman Hall on the Lawrence campus is named).
Identifications for the men are not quite so forthcoming. With one exception, we know their names but not the order in which they are pictured. The man seated at left is Henry Colman (future husband of Lucinda); the others, not necessarily in order, are Allen Jeffrey Atwell, Justin Martyr Copeland (whose personal copies of these graduation ambrotypes are the ones that have come to the Lawrence archives), and William Dolphin Storey. An educated guess is that Copeland is the other man seated.