Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University English Dissertations Department of English 5-3-2007 The Literary and Intellectual Impact of Mississippi’s Industrial Institute and College, 1884-1920 Sheldon Scott Kohn Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.edu/english_diss Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Kohn, Sheldon Scott, "The Literary and Intellectual Impact of Mississippi’s Industrial Institute and College, 1884-1920." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2007.edu/english_diss/15 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact scholarworks@gsu. THE LITERARY AND INTELLECTUAL IMPACT OF MISSISSIPPI’S INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE AND COLLEGE, 1884-1920 by SHELDON SCOTT KOHN Under the Direction of Dr.
Thomas McHaney ABSTRACT After a long struggle, the State of Mississippi founded and funded the Industrial Institute and College in 1884. The school, located in Columbus, Mississippi, was the first state-supported institution of higher education for women in the United States, and it quickly became a model for similar schools in many other states. The Industrial Institute and College was distinguished from other women’s colleges in the nineteenth century by the fact that its graduates were expected to be fully prepared to support themselves. This curriculum required students to complete coursework in both liberal arts and vocational training.
There was much conflict and controversy between factions that wanted the school to focus exclusively on either vocational training or liberal studies. Pauline Van de Graaf Orr served as Mistress of English from 1884-1913. Under her leadership, the Department of English set a high standard for its students. While there was considerable attrition among the students, many of whom were as young as fifteen and most of whom had no adequate secondary preparation, the Industrial Institute and College also graduated students, such as Blanche Colton Williams and Rosa Peebles, who went on to distinguished academic careers.
Frances Ormond Jones Gaither was the best fiction writer the school graduated. After finding some success as a writer of children’s books in the 1930s, Gaither wrote a trilogy of novels about the Old South in the 1940s. Follow the Drinking Gourd (1941) follows the establishment and development of the Hurricane Plantation in Alabama. The Red Cock Crows (1944) addresses the then- unexplored topic of a slave revolt in antebellum Mississippi.
In Double Muscadine (1949), a best-seller, Gaither explores the causes and consequences of miscegenation. INDEX WORDS: Industrial Institute and College, Mississippi State College for Women, Mississippi University for Women, Southern women, Higher education for women, Mississippi education, Annie Peyton, Pauline Van de Graaf Orr, Blanche Colton Williams, Rosa Peebles, Frances Ormond Jones Gaither THE LITERARY AND INTELLECTUAL IMPACT OF MISSISSIPPI’S INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE AND COLLEGE, 1884-1920 by SHELDON SCOTT KOHN A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2007 Copyright by Sheldon Scott Kohn 2007 THE LITERARY AND INTELLECTUAL IMPACT OF MISSISSIPPI’S INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE AND COLLEGE, 1884-1920 by SHELDON SCOTT KOHN Major Professor: Thomas McHaney Committee: Pearl McHaney Beth Burmester Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May 2007 iv DEDICATION I dedicate this work to Irina, my wife, and Nicholas, my son, for their understanding without limit and help without end. The dissertation quickly became a family focus, and we all worked hard to complete this project. I simply could never have done this without you two.
v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I express gratitude to Dr. Thomas McHaney, Dr. Pearl McHaney, and Dr. Beth Burmester, my professors, who were willing to let me pursue this study and whose dedication to its completion was in equal parts inspiring and devoted.
I could not imagine nicer people to work with. Bridget Pieschel at the Southern Women’s Institute of The Mississippi University for Women was almost an equal partner in this project from my first ideas about exploring the history of the Department of English at Mississippi University for Women to providing me with every assistance imaginable during the time I spent on campus conducting research in the archives. Her knowledge of the history of the W is encyclopedic, and she supported and encouraged me without fail throughout the entire process. Martha Swain graciously provided guidance and offered the benefit of her wisdom on the careers of Pauline Van de Graaf Orr and her students.
One of the most pleasant afternoons I spent was interviewing Mrs. Mary Ellen Weatherby Pope, now more than one hundred years young, about her undergraduate days (when Eudora Welty was also a student). Finally, my students inspired me through this process. As I researched and wrote about students and teachers of more than one hundred years ago, I realized how important the connection in the classroom always has been for both teacher and student.
They brought out the best in me. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………………… v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………. 1 2 A TRUE FAIR CHANCE FOR THE GIRLS: OVERVIEW OF HIGHER EDUCATION FOR WOMEN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY ……………………………………………………………. 5 3 “MEN AND WOMEN OF MISSISSIPPI, YOU HAVE A JEWEL!”: THE FOUNDING AND OPERATION OF MISSISSIPPI’S INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE AND COLLEGE ……………………….
51 4 MISTRESS OF ENGLISH: PAULINE VAN DE GRAAF ORR’S CAREER AT THE INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE AND COLLEGE, 1885-1913 ……………………………………………………. 251 POSTSCRIPT A FORGOTTEN MISSISSIPPI WRITER: FRANCES ORMOND JONES GAITHER’S NOVELS OF THE 1940S ……………………………………. 306 1 Introduction As a Confucian journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, this long study began with a single sentence. While a student in Dr.
Pearl McHaney’s Spring 2005 Eudora Welty seminar, I read the following sentence in One Writer’s Beginnings: “Mr. Lawrence Painter, the only man teacher in the college, spent his life conducting the MSCW girls in their sophomore year through English survey, from ‘Summer is y-comen in’ to ‘I have a rendezvous with Death’” (80). This sentence immediately captivated my imagination with the question of what it must have been like to be the only male professor at a Mississippi women’s college in the 1920s. Though I did not know it then, I had begun the scholarly journey that resulted in this study.
In fact, Mr. Painter was not the only male professor on campus (Kohn 13), and Welty’s claim must be seen as proof of her contention that memory “is subject to confluence” (OWB 104). My research on Mr. Painter led to my first trip to the campus of Mississippi University for Women, as the Industrial Institute and College (II&C) is now known, for research on Welty’s time as a student there.
Before my first trip, I was somewhat familiar with the school; my grandmother worked in the Infirmary as a nurse for several years, and my mother is a proud alumna. The more I looked at the college, the more I realized that the confluence of its history and the personalities of its presidents, faculty, and students forms one of the most compelling tales I know. After completing work on my seminar paper, which became my first publication on Welty, I began researching the story of the college’s founding and the people who made it what is was—and what it was 2 to become. Thomas McHaney and Dr.
Pearl McHaney were both quick to embrace the idea of such a study and graciously supported my idea from the beginning. In Chapter One, I offer an overview of the controversies surrounding the establishment of higher education for women in the nineteenth century. To appreciate the significance of the founding and early operation of the II&C, one must first understand that no historical event happens in a vacuum. The struggle to found the II&C expresses and reflects the controversies and challenges of that time.
Although there had been some experimentation with higher education for women before the Civil War, notably at Oberlin and Antioch in Ohio, the first true women’s college was Vassar, which opened in 1865. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, there was much debate about whether women were capable of withstanding the physical and intellectual challenges of higher education. Once those questions were settled in the affirmative, new questions arose about whether higher education interfered with women’s abilities to perform tasks that had been assigned to the traditional feminine sphere. There was ongoing debate as to whether education enhanced or detracted from a woman’s attractiveness and ability to make a good marriage.
The nature and purpose of the curriculum in women’s colleges remained a source of controversy well into the early twentieth century, when newer controversies erupted over the question of whether women should enter the workforce following graduation. Much existing scholarship on women’s higher education in the nineteenth century focuses on the elite Eastern colleges. For the most part, students who pursued higher education at these schools were the daughters of privilege, and Americans were interested in following their progress and challenges. 3 In Chapter Two, I focus on the struggle to found Mississippi’s Industrial Institute and College, using contemporary documents as much as possible, and on its operation.
While the Eastern schools debated the purpose and function of higher education for women, especially the question of whether women’s higher education should be academic or vocational, Mississippi established a school to provide women both a liberal arts education and industrial training. By 1884, when the Mississippi legislature founded and funded the II&C, it was clear to the enfranchised men that women needed to be educated to function in the emerging new world. Based on their experience in Reconstruction following the Civil War, Mississippians realized, perhaps quicker than people in more privileged parts of the country, the necessity of preparing women to be self-supporting. The II&C operated until 1920, when the legislature changed its name to the Mississippi State College for Women, in recognition of its academic purpose.
One of the most interesting personalities at the II&C was Pauline Van de Graaf Orr, and Chapter Three offers an exploration of her thirty-year career as the Mistress of English. As much as anyone, Orr set the tenor and tone for the II&C’s academic level and aspirations. Well-educated herself, Orr offered her students both challenges and dedication unheard of in Mississippi. Students came to the II&C as young as fifteen and often woefully unprepared for college-level work; as a result, attrition rates in Orr’s classes were astounding by our contemporary standards.
At the same time, Orr’s best students went on to enjoy highly successful academic and artistic careers. Students completing the collegiate course at the II&C were well-prepared for the rigors of graduate school at the finest schools in America. When Orr left the II&C in 1913, for reasons that remain somewhat unclear, there were howls of protest and ringing tributes 4 from her former students. Shortly before her death in 1954, the school gave Orr a fitting tribute when it named a building in her honor.
A particularly interesting experience I had during my research was reading the trilogy of Old South novels that Frances Ormond Jones Gaither published in the 1940s. I offer an analysis of this work as an Appendix to this study. Gaither, one of Orr’s students, is unquestionably the finest fiction writer the II&C graduated. Gaither wrote these novels as if she were an eyewitness describing events she herself observed.
Unfortunately, Gaither has been almost completely forgotten, and even dedicated students of Southern literature may never have heard of her. This study has been a labor of love for me, and I have learned much by exploring the fascinating story behind the founding and operation of the II&C. Much work remains to be done, but I hope that this study offers a beginning point of reference for anyone who, like me, finds the story of the II&C compelling and wants to know more.