Calhoun Colored School
Encyclopedia
The Calhoun Colored School (1892–1945) was a private boarding and day school in Calhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama
, about 28 miles (45.1 km) southwest of Montgomery. Founded in 1892 by Miss Charlotte Thorn and Miss Mabel Dillingham in partnership with Booker T. Washington
, the Calhoun Colored School was first designed to educate rural colored
students according to the industrial school model. The school sponsored a land bank that helped 85 families buy land. It created a joint venture with the county to improve a local road so farmers could get their products to market. As the school developed, it raised its standards, created a large library, and offered more of an academic curriculum.
The principal's house, the only surviving original building, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places
in recognition of the school's importance in the history of education of African Americans. It is currently being redeveloped as a bowling alley for use by the blind
.
was still adjusting to the aftermath of the American Civil War
, Reconstruction and the Financial Panic of 1873. Many African Americans living in the rural
South
worked under the sharecropping system. The dependence of southern agriculture on cotton, whose price continued to drop, contributed to difficulties in their making economic progress. African Americans, then called "colored" or "Negro
", living in Calhoun (Lowndes County
), Alabama were subject to white political and social domination although they comprised the majority of the county's population.
Conservative white Democrats had regained power in the state legislature and begun to pass statutes that stripped African Americans from voter rolls or made elections so complicated they were effectively disfranchised. In 1901 the state passed a new constitution with provisions for requirements for voter registration that suppressed voting by blacks and tens of thousands of poor whites.
Lowndes County, in the Black Belt
, had been an area of large cotton plantations before the Civil War. Devoted to agriculture, in 1890 the county had the highest proportion of Negroes to whites in Alabama. Most of them were sharecroppers cultivating cotton.
Mr. Washington, a graduate of Hampton Institute and then president of Tuskegee Institute, spoke at Hampton Institute to recruit teachers to help with Alabama education. He spoke of the people of Calhoun and their great desire to educate their children. Hampton teachers Charlotte Thorn and Mabel Dillingham, white women from New England
, responded to his plea for help. They traveled with Mr. Washington to Calhoun to find a site and get a school built and operating.
Thorn and Dillingham used their extensive networks among friends and families to raise funds and receive donations of all kinds. They also used the Hampton Institute publication The Southern Workman to publicize frequent articles about the school and aid fundraising.
The Calhoun Colored School was developed according to the Hampton-Tuskegee model. First, students would receive a basic elementary education and then an industrial education at the high school level. This model envisioned community-based economic development for African Americans to prepare them for work in the rural areas in which most of them lived. It also prepared them for the limited number of jobs and types of employment locally available. Boys would become farmers and girls would become wives and homemakers, as well as laundresses, dressmaker
s, or domestic worker
s. The best students were encouraged to become teachers and work in the community or outlying areas to promote further education along the Hampton-Tuskegee model. There was a great push on to continue to improve literacy among both children and adults, and teaching was a high calling.
Second, the school was to be apolitical. The education was not designed to encourage African Americans to challenge the status quo. African Americans were offered a basic education that enabled them to return to their communities and support themselves within the system. Washington feared that if a colored school challenged the politics of the day, white citizens might refuse to allow it to open or would later shut it down. This was not the classical
type of education offered to many white students in the north. Highly educated African Americans such as W. E. B. Du Bois thought the Tuskegee model was too limited and did not support it. He argued for ensuring that the most talented students could get a full academic education, to advance the race.
In October 1892 Co-Principals Thorn and Dillingham met with 300 African Americans who wanted to learn more about their plans to start a school. Many of the adults who came to the first meeting would work on building the teachers' cottages, schoolhouses, barn, shop and dormitories that by 1896 comprised the full campus. N.J. Bell of Montgomery donated the initial 10 acres (40,468.6 m²) of land for the site of the school. By 1896 the school also had a working farm of 100 acre (0.404686 km²); 300 pupils, of which 40 were boarders; and 13 teachers.
The Hampton-Tuskegee model was based on educating African Americans to build their lives from basic skills. Essentially it conformed to white expectations of low aspirations for African Americans in the South during this period. It also related to the chiefly rural economy of Alabama, especially in the Black Belt. The idea of human agency or empowerment for change was not emphasized. Most white citizens and some African American citizens would not have supported such an idea then.
The founders, their community and board had two major ideas that went beyond the Hampton-Tuskegee model. Knowing that land ownership was as or more critical than education to enable African Americans to be self-supporting, in 1894 the school organized a land company. With a land bank containing more than 4000 acres (16.2 km²), they sold land in 40- to 60 acres (242,811.6 m²) tracts, with financing arranged by Northern friends of the school. In the first 13 years, the school issued 92 deeds for land to 85 people. The new landowners then could build real houses on their land. Their three- to eight-room houses were each better than the sharecroppers' cabins they had lived in before.
Although Calhoun was near a railway, freight charges were too high for small farmers. The school tried to get the roads improved so farmers could get their goods to market. It took nearly 40 years, but Thorn Dickinson, Miss Thorn's nephew, was able to arrange a joint venture with the county. Calhoun had been isolated by poor dirt roads that turned to slick clay in rain. Using skills earned at Williams College
and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT), Dickinson laid out the road, the school graded it, and the county surfaced with gravel what became Lowndes County Route 33.
Initially the school’s literacy
program included oral reading, elocution, rote memory, literature appreciation, and home, school, and community connections. Additionally, outside materials were brought in to appeal to student interests, extensive discussions about words were held, poems were memorized, students were given help with articulation and expression, and students were taught to write their thoughts and spell correctly. "Connecting school and home" and the emphasis on composition were in addition to the Hampton-Tuskegee model.
Later the literacy program included night classes for adults. These nongraded classes were part of the Hampton-Tuskegee model. The missionary committee led community outreach. Students and teachers went into the homes of freedmen to teach them to read and write, skills they eagerly worked for. Outreach included mothers’ meetings, Sunday afternoon church services, and holiday community celebrations on campus.
Donations of money and books, mostly by Northern supporters, created the library at the school. While the co-principals officially adhered closely to the two-pronged Hampton-Tuskegee model, their literacy practice revealed a much richer model of teaching.
The Calhoun Colored School (CCS) began as a strict follower of the Hampton-Tuskegee model, but the school eventually developed a classical education. This emphasized thinking and problem solving. It included a multifaceted literacy program. When CCS hired college-trained Academic Department heads, they began to use teaching methods and materials that followed national trends. As new teachers from outside CCS came to dominate the teaching force, they created a literacy program that resembled those at some of the better northern schools.
Despite good teaching methods, solid curriculum and quality materials, the students of CCS did not make the desired progress in literacy. While these students were living in poverty, they were interested in education and had family support. The social attitudes of that era may have limited the thinking of the faculty and staff. "…it hindered their ability to envision African Americans as users of literacy; that is, while minimal access to literacy was made available, opportunities to use literacy in meaningful ways were delimited."
From 1892-1945 there were six different Academic Department heads. Each brought improvements to the curriculum of the school. The first was Susan Showers (1896), who initiated literacy societies for students, home visits by teachers, single grade assignments for teachers, community socials, holiday celebrations, and evening religious services. (Partnering with the community was not part of the Hampton-Tuskegee model).
Clara Hart (1898) succeeded Susan Showers. She began the first free kindergarten at CCS, put reading instruction in every grade level, ensured the use of good literature for all the children, and furthered composition work.
Mabel Edna Brown (1907) was the first African American to work as Academic Department head. Her focus was to offer a more classical education, which was a major departure from the Hampton-Tuskegee model. She declared, "In all grades we are trying to raise the standards of thinking, accuracy, quickness, articulation, and correct expression." She doubled the time devoted to literacy instruction in the primary grades through the sixth grade, to comprise one-half of the school day. By 1909, the kindergarten was using games to teach reading, writing and math. The school also began to solicit donations of books written by African Americans for the school library.
Jessie Guernsey, who earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from New York City
's Columbia Teachers College
, came to Calhoun in 1912 to begin her tenure as Academic Department head. Under her leadership, high-interest grade-level books were used to teach reading. She also increased weekly recitations, and reinstated using creative writing to teach spelling and grammar. She continued literary societies, debates, musical training and social gatherings. The elementary grades began using state-adopted textbooks, while the secondary grades used more literature, newspapers and magazines. The school added another year of study, to include grade ten. The growth in curriculum and community outreach strained financial resources. At the same time the county-run elementary schools for African American children were becoming more and more popular. Many of the CCS graduates had become teachers in the county school system.
In the mid-1920s Edward Allen became the first man to be Academic Department head at CCS. He shifted the curriculum focus from teaching the basics of reading to teaching higher order thinking skills. This was a major departure from the Hampton-Tuskegee model. During Mr. Allen’s tenure, he managed to expand the library greatly, both in number and types of books.
In the late 1920s R. Luella Jones came to CCS. She emphasized making the curriculum more rigorous, both to earn accreditation and to ensure placement of graduates in institutions of higher learning. She added college preparatory classes like Latin, additional science and math classes, and made industrial arts an elective option. She also added grades eleven and twelve so that students could graduate from CCS. The library’s collection expanded to over 6,000 volumes.
reduced sources of support. In addition, increasing mechanization in agriculture decreased need for rural labor. The area population was reduced to the point that it was impossible financially to continue the school.
run by the Lowndes County
Board of Education.
The principal's house on County Route 53 is the last remaining structure from the original school. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places
in recognition of the important achievements of the school and the role it played in African-American education in Lowndes County.
Lowndes County, Alabama
Lowndes County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. It is named in honor of William Lowndes, a member of the United States Congress from South Carolina. As of the 2010 census, the population was 11,299...
, about 28 miles (45.1 km) southwest of Montgomery. Founded in 1892 by Miss Charlotte Thorn and Miss Mabel Dillingham in partnership with Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915...
, the Calhoun Colored School was first designed to educate rural colored
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
students according to the industrial school model. The school sponsored a land bank that helped 85 families buy land. It created a joint venture with the county to improve a local road so farmers could get their products to market. As the school developed, it raised its standards, created a large library, and offered more of an academic curriculum.
The principal's house, the only surviving original building, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in recognition of the school's importance in the history of education of African Americans. It is currently being redeveloped as a bowling alley for use by the blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
.
History
In 1891, the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
was still adjusting to the aftermath of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, Reconstruction and the Financial Panic of 1873. Many African Americans living in the rural
Rural
Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...
South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
worked under the sharecropping system. The dependence of southern agriculture on cotton, whose price continued to drop, contributed to difficulties in their making economic progress. African Americans, then called "colored" or "Negro
Negro
The word Negro is used in the English-speaking world to refer to a person of black ancestry or appearance, whether of African descent or not...
", living in Calhoun (Lowndes County
Lowndes County, Alabama
Lowndes County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. It is named in honor of William Lowndes, a member of the United States Congress from South Carolina. As of the 2010 census, the population was 11,299...
), Alabama were subject to white political and social domination although they comprised the majority of the county's population.
Conservative white Democrats had regained power in the state legislature and begun to pass statutes that stripped African Americans from voter rolls or made elections so complicated they were effectively disfranchised. In 1901 the state passed a new constitution with provisions for requirements for voter registration that suppressed voting by blacks and tens of thousands of poor whites.
Lowndes County, in the Black Belt
Black Belt (region of Alabama)
The Black Belt is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama, and part of the larger Black Belt Region of the Southern United States, which stretches from Texas to Maryland. The term originally referred to the region underlain by a thin layer of rich, black topsoil developed atop the chalk of the Selma...
, had been an area of large cotton plantations before the Civil War. Devoted to agriculture, in 1890 the county had the highest proportion of Negroes to whites in Alabama. Most of them were sharecroppers cultivating cotton.
Mr. Washington, a graduate of Hampton Institute and then president of Tuskegee Institute, spoke at Hampton Institute to recruit teachers to help with Alabama education. He spoke of the people of Calhoun and their great desire to educate their children. Hampton teachers Charlotte Thorn and Mabel Dillingham, white women from New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
, responded to his plea for help. They traveled with Mr. Washington to Calhoun to find a site and get a school built and operating.
Thorn and Dillingham used their extensive networks among friends and families to raise funds and receive donations of all kinds. They also used the Hampton Institute publication The Southern Workman to publicize frequent articles about the school and aid fundraising.
Hampton-Tuskegee model
Dressmaker
A dressmaker is a person who makes custom clothing for women, such as dresses, blouses, and evening gowns. Also called a mantua-maker or a modiste.-Notable dressmakers:*Cristobal Balenciaga*Charles Frederick Worth...
s, or domestic worker
Domestic worker
A domestic worker is a man, woman or child who works within the employer's household. Domestic workers perform a variety of household services for an individual or a family, from providing care for children and elderly dependents to cleaning and household maintenance, known as housekeeping...
s. The best students were encouraged to become teachers and work in the community or outlying areas to promote further education along the Hampton-Tuskegee model. There was a great push on to continue to improve literacy among both children and adults, and teaching was a high calling.
Second, the school was to be apolitical. The education was not designed to encourage African Americans to challenge the status quo. African Americans were offered a basic education that enabled them to return to their communities and support themselves within the system. Washington feared that if a colored school challenged the politics of the day, white citizens might refuse to allow it to open or would later shut it down. This was not the classical
Classical education movement
The Classical education movement advocates a form of education based in the traditions of Western culture, with a particular focus on education as understood and taught in the Middle Ages. The curricula and pedagogy of classical education was first developed during the Middle Ages by Martianus...
type of education offered to many white students in the north. Highly educated African Americans such as W. E. B. Du Bois thought the Tuskegee model was too limited and did not support it. He argued for ensuring that the most talented students could get a full academic education, to advance the race.
In October 1892 Co-Principals Thorn and Dillingham met with 300 African Americans who wanted to learn more about their plans to start a school. Many of the adults who came to the first meeting would work on building the teachers' cottages, schoolhouses, barn, shop and dormitories that by 1896 comprised the full campus. N.J. Bell of Montgomery donated the initial 10 acres (40,468.6 m²) of land for the site of the school. By 1896 the school also had a working farm of 100 acre (0.404686 km²); 300 pupils, of which 40 were boarders; and 13 teachers.
The Hampton-Tuskegee model was based on educating African Americans to build their lives from basic skills. Essentially it conformed to white expectations of low aspirations for African Americans in the South during this period. It also related to the chiefly rural economy of Alabama, especially in the Black Belt. The idea of human agency or empowerment for change was not emphasized. Most white citizens and some African American citizens would not have supported such an idea then.
Fundraising, land bank, and road building
Mabel Dillingham died of yellow fever in 1895. Her brother Rev. Pitt Dillingham worked with Charlotte Thorn as co-principal for several years after Mabel's death. He also helped by public speaking and lectures in the North to support fundraising.The founders, their community and board had two major ideas that went beyond the Hampton-Tuskegee model. Knowing that land ownership was as or more critical than education to enable African Americans to be self-supporting, in 1894 the school organized a land company. With a land bank containing more than 4000 acres (16.2 km²), they sold land in 40- to 60 acres (242,811.6 m²) tracts, with financing arranged by Northern friends of the school. In the first 13 years, the school issued 92 deeds for land to 85 people. The new landowners then could build real houses on their land. Their three- to eight-room houses were each better than the sharecroppers' cabins they had lived in before.
Although Calhoun was near a railway, freight charges were too high for small farmers. The school tried to get the roads improved so farmers could get their goods to market. It took nearly 40 years, but Thorn Dickinson, Miss Thorn's nephew, was able to arrange a joint venture with the county. Calhoun had been isolated by poor dirt roads that turned to slick clay in rain. Using skills earned at Williams College
Williams College
Williams College is a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams. Originally a men's college, Williams became co-educational in 1970. Fraternities were also phased out during this...
and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
(MIT), Dickinson laid out the road, the school graded it, and the county surfaced with gravel what became Lowndes County Route 33.
Literacy Program
Literacy
Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...
program included oral reading, elocution, rote memory, literature appreciation, and home, school, and community connections. Additionally, outside materials were brought in to appeal to student interests, extensive discussions about words were held, poems were memorized, students were given help with articulation and expression, and students were taught to write their thoughts and spell correctly. "Connecting school and home" and the emphasis on composition were in addition to the Hampton-Tuskegee model.
Later the literacy program included night classes for adults. These nongraded classes were part of the Hampton-Tuskegee model. The missionary committee led community outreach. Students and teachers went into the homes of freedmen to teach them to read and write, skills they eagerly worked for. Outreach included mothers’ meetings, Sunday afternoon church services, and holiday community celebrations on campus.
Donations of money and books, mostly by Northern supporters, created the library at the school. While the co-principals officially adhered closely to the two-pronged Hampton-Tuskegee model, their literacy practice revealed a much richer model of teaching.
The Calhoun Colored School (CCS) began as a strict follower of the Hampton-Tuskegee model, but the school eventually developed a classical education. This emphasized thinking and problem solving. It included a multifaceted literacy program. When CCS hired college-trained Academic Department heads, they began to use teaching methods and materials that followed national trends. As new teachers from outside CCS came to dominate the teaching force, they created a literacy program that resembled those at some of the better northern schools.
Despite good teaching methods, solid curriculum and quality materials, the students of CCS did not make the desired progress in literacy. While these students were living in poverty, they were interested in education and had family support. The social attitudes of that era may have limited the thinking of the faculty and staff. "…it hindered their ability to envision African Americans as users of literacy; that is, while minimal access to literacy was made available, opportunities to use literacy in meaningful ways were delimited."
Academic department heads
Clara Hart (1898) succeeded Susan Showers. She began the first free kindergarten at CCS, put reading instruction in every grade level, ensured the use of good literature for all the children, and furthered composition work.
Mabel Edna Brown (1907) was the first African American to work as Academic Department head. Her focus was to offer a more classical education, which was a major departure from the Hampton-Tuskegee model. She declared, "In all grades we are trying to raise the standards of thinking, accuracy, quickness, articulation, and correct expression." She doubled the time devoted to literacy instruction in the primary grades through the sixth grade, to comprise one-half of the school day. By 1909, the kindergarten was using games to teach reading, writing and math. The school also began to solicit donations of books written by African Americans for the school library.
Jessie Guernsey, who earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Columbia Teachers College
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, came to Calhoun in 1912 to begin her tenure as Academic Department head. Under her leadership, high-interest grade-level books were used to teach reading. She also increased weekly recitations, and reinstated using creative writing to teach spelling and grammar. She continued literary societies, debates, musical training and social gatherings. The elementary grades began using state-adopted textbooks, while the secondary grades used more literature, newspapers and magazines. The school added another year of study, to include grade ten. The growth in curriculum and community outreach strained financial resources. At the same time the county-run elementary schools for African American children were becoming more and more popular. Many of the CCS graduates had become teachers in the county school system.
In the mid-1920s Edward Allen became the first man to be Academic Department head at CCS. He shifted the curriculum focus from teaching the basics of reading to teaching higher order thinking skills. This was a major departure from the Hampton-Tuskegee model. During Mr. Allen’s tenure, he managed to expand the library greatly, both in number and types of books.
In the late 1920s R. Luella Jones came to CCS. She emphasized making the curriculum more rigorous, both to earn accreditation and to ensure placement of graduates in institutions of higher learning. She added college preparatory classes like Latin, additional science and math classes, and made industrial arts an elective option. She also added grades eleven and twelve so that students could graduate from CCS. The library’s collection expanded to over 6,000 volumes.
Closing years
Charlotte Thorn died on August 29, 1932. She led the school for more than 30 years following Mabel Dillingham's death from yellow fever in 1895. Although Calhoun continued as a private school for several more years, the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
reduced sources of support. In addition, increasing mechanization in agriculture decreased need for rural labor. The area population was reduced to the point that it was impossible financially to continue the school.
Present day
In 1943, the state of Alabama acquired the Calhoun Colored School. It serves as a predominantly African-American public high schoolSecondary education in the United States
In most jurisdictions, secondary education in the United States refers to the last six or seven years of statutory formal education. Secondary education is generally split between junior high school or middle school, usually beginning with sixth or seventh grade , and high school, beginning with...
run by the Lowndes County
Lowndes County, Alabama
Lowndes County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. It is named in honor of William Lowndes, a member of the United States Congress from South Carolina. As of the 2010 census, the population was 11,299...
Board of Education.
The principal's house on County Route 53 is the last remaining structure from the original school. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in recognition of the important achievements of the school and the role it played in African-American education in Lowndes County.