Uppsala högre elementarläroverk för flickor

Uppsala högre elementarläroverk för flickor (Uppsala High Elementary College for Girls) or Högre Allmänna läroverket för flickor (Higher Public College for Girls), commonly and informally referred to as Magdeburg, was a Swedish school and college for females in Uppsala, active from 1865 to 1968.

The school was founded in 1865 by Maria Henschen, a student of the educational pioneer Cecilia Fryxell, two years after the school and female seminar of the educational pioneer Jane Miller Thengberg had closed down, and it was initially called Henschenska flickskolan (Heschen Girls' School) after its founder. It was a pioneer institution as the first girls' school in Sweden with 8th classes, and by including chemistry, physics and natural science, which was at the time not regarded to be suitable subjects for female students: the introduction of such subjects in a girls' school initially met with hard resistance from school inspectors.

In 1870, the school was moved to new and larger localities and formally renamed Uppsala högre elementarläroverk för flickor or Högre Allmänna läroverket för flickor. The supporters of the new school was Claes Hultkrantz, Per Adolf Geijer and Hugo Hildebrandsson, while Carl David af Wirsén, Pontus Wikner, Henning von Scheele and Salomon Eberhard Henschen was among its teachers: Maria Henschen herself finances the institution and remained its principal until her marriage in 1878. From 1873, when women in Sweden were allowed to attend university, it functioned as a college, and after 1874 it was given financial governmental support.

The school incorporated most other schools for girls in Uppsala: in 1883, the Krookska skolan (1863-1883) was incorporated, and in 1889 the then eldest girls' school in Uppsala, Nisbethska skolan (1849-1889), also became a part of it. In 1902, it became a part of the Magdeburg Foundation, and was thereafter mostly known as Magdeburg. As the rest of the girls' schools in Sweden, the school became a part of the communal school system and government run in 1928, and finally closed in 1968. Uppsala högre elementarläroverk för flickor represents a very typical Swedish girls' school of its time as well as the female educational history in Sweden: founded by a private person in the middle of the 19th-century; after 1873 functioning as a college for females on their way to university; after 1874 receiving governmental support; becoming a governmental school from 1928, and abolished in the 1960s.