Wheaton College is a private liberal arts college in Norton, Massachusetts. Wheaton was founded in 1834 as a female seminary. The trustees officially changed the name of the Wheaton Female Seminary to Wheaton College in 1912 after receiving a college charter from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It remained one of the oldest institutions of higher education for women in the United States until men began to be admitted in 1988. It enrolls 1,669 undergraduate students.

In 1834, Eliza Wheaton Strong, the daughter of Laban Wheaton, died at the age of thirty-nine. Eliza Baylies Chapin Wheaton, his daughter-in-law and a founder of the Trinitarian Congregational Church of Norton, persuaded him to memorialize his daughter by founding a female seminary.

The family called upon noted women's educator Mary Lyon for assistance in establishing the seminary. Lyon created the first curriculum with the goal that it be equal in quality to those of men's colleges. She also provided the first principal, Eunice Caldwell. Wheaton Female Seminary opened in Norton, Massachusetts on 22 April 1835, with 50 students and three teachers.

Lyon and Caldwell left Wheaton to open Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1837 (now Mount Holyoke College). After their departure, Wheaton endured a period of fluctuating enrollment and frequent changes in leadership until 1850, when Caroline Cutler Metcalf was recruited as the new principal. Metcalf made the hiring of outstanding faculty her top priority, bringing in educators who encouraged students to discuss ideas rather than to memorize facts. The most notable additions to the faculty were Lucy Larcom, who introduced the study of English Literature and founded the student literary magazine The Rushlight; and Mary Jane Cragin, who used innovative techniques to teach geometry and made mathematics the favorite study of many students.

Metcalf retired in 1876. A. Ellen Stanton, a teacher of French since 1871, served as principal from 1880 to 1897. She led the seminary during a difficult time, when it faced competition from increasing numbers of public high schools and colleges granting bachelor's degrees to women.

In 1897, at the suggestion of Eliza Baylies Wheaton, the trustees hired Samuel Valentine Cole as the seminary's first male president. Preparing to seek a charter as a four-year college, Cole began a program of revitalization that included expanding and strengthening the curriculum, increasing the number and quality of the faculty, and adding six new buildings.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts granted Wheaton a college charter in 1912, and the trustees changed the name of the school to Wheaton College. The Student Government Association was organized to represent the "consensus of opinion of the whole student body", and to encourage individual responsibility, integrity, and self-government. Wheaton received authorization to establish a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in 1932, twenty years after achieving college status.

Cole died unexpectedly in 1925 after a brief illness. During his career as president, Cole oversaw the expansion of the campus from three to 27 buildings, the growth of enrollment from 50 to 414, and the establishment of an endowment. On the campus, Cole Memorial Chapel is named after him.