{{unreferenced, date=July 2014
The Bible Normal College of
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...
was a training school for
Sunday school
A Sunday school is an educational institution, usually (but not always) Christian in character. Other religions including Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism have also organised Sunday schools in their temples and mosques, particularly in the West.
Su ...
teachers. It started in 1885 as part of the
School for Christian Workers The School for Christian Workers was a school established by Rev. David Allen Reed in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1885 to prepare young men for work as Sunday school superintendents, secretaries of Young Men's Christian Associations, pastors, lay ...
in
Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ...
. In 1889, it became the first American seminary to accept women. In 1897, it moved to Hartford, sharing the resources of the Hartford Seminary but remaining legally distinct.
Its name became the Hartford School of Religious Pedagogy and later The Hartford School of Religious Education and in 1913, federated itself with the Hartford Seminary and the Hartford School of Missions (later renamed the Kennedy School of Missions). The three schools, together with the Institute of Church and Community legally merged in 1961 to become the Hartford Seminary Foundation.