The Peabody Education Fund was established by George Peabody in 1867, after the American Civil War, for the purpose of promoting "intellectual, moral, and industrial education in the most destitute portion of the Southern States." The main purpose of the fund was to aid elementary education by strengthening existing schools. Because it was restricted from founding new schools, it largely did not benefit freedmen in the South; only 6.5% of its disbursements went to schools for Black students in its early years. [1] The gift of foundation consisted of securities to the value of $2,100,000, of which $1,100,000 were in Mississippi State bonds, afterward repudiated.
The original trustees of 1867 were William M. Ewarts; George A. Riggs; William Alexander Graham; Charles MacAlister; John H. Clifford; David G. Farragut; George N. Eaton; George Peabody; Hamilton Fish; Ulysses S. Grant; William Aiken Jr.; Robert C. Winthrop; George P. Russell; Charles P. McIlvaine; William C. Rives; Samuel Wetmore. In 1869 an additional $1,000,000 was given by Mr. Peabody, with $384,000 of Florida funds, also repudiated later. [2]
"The fund introduced a new type of benefaction in that it was left without restriction in the hands of the trustees to administer. Power to close the trust after thirty years was provided on condition that two-thirds of the fund be distributed to educational institutions in the Southern states." [3]
The rules of the Peabody Education Fund were strict, allowing for the distribution of about $80,000 per year over a period of thirty years. By the time of the termination of the fund in 1898, about $2,500,000 had been distributed. In 1875, the trustees of the Peabody Education Fund founded the Peabody Normal School of the South which promptly became the Peabody Normal College (1875-1911). It was maintained in connection with the University of Nashville and supported by annual donations from the Peabody Education Fund. In 1910 the Peabody College for Teachers was organized. Placed adjacent to Vanderbilt University, the college opened its doors on June 14, 1914 for summer school. In September 1915, four new buildings had been completed at a cost of $750,000. The Peabody Education Fund was dissolved in 1914. [4]
The Southern Education Foundation, a not-for-profit foundation, was created in 1937 from the Peabody Education Fund and three funds intended to support education for blacks: the John F. Slater Fund, the Negro Rural School Fund, and the Virginia Randolph Fund. [5]
Daniel Coit "D. C." Gilman was an American educator and academic. Gilman was instrumental in founding the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale College, and subsequently served as the second president of the University of California, Berkeley, as the first president of Johns Hopkins University, and as founding president of the Carnegie Institution.
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau, was a U.S. government agency of early post American Civil War Reconstruction, assisting freedmen in the South. It was established on March 3, 1865, and operated briefly as a federal agency after the War, from 1865 to 1872, to direct provisions, clothing, and fuel for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and their wives and children.
George Peabody was an American financier and philanthropist. He is often considered the father of modern philanthropy.
George Foster Peabody was an American banker and philanthropist.
James Davis Porter was an American attorney, politician, educator, and officer of the Confederate Army. He served as the 20th Governor of Tennessee from 1875 to 1879. He was subsequently appointed as Assistant Secretary of State during President Grover Cleveland's first administration, and Minister to Chile in Cleveland's second administration.
Vanderbilt Peabody College of Education and Human Development is the education school of Vanderbilt University, a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1875, Peabody had a long history as an independent institution before merging with Vanderbilt University in 1979. The school is located on the Peabody Campus of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. The academic and administrative buildings surround the Peabody Esplanade and are southeast of Vanderbilt's main campus.
William Hooper Councill was an American former slave and the first president of Huntsville Normal School, which is today Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University in Normal, Alabama.
Frederic Ward Putnam was an American anthropologist and biologist.
The Southern Education Foundation (SEF) is a not-for-profit foundation created in 1937 from four different funds — the Peabody Education Fund, the John F. Slater Fund, the Negro Rural School Fund, and the Virginia Randolph Fund. Their main goal is to promote quality education for traditionally disadvantaged students, including the poor and African Americans. SEF provides research, policy analysis and programming in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. Raymond C. Pierce is the current president.
The John F. Slater Fund for the Education of Freedmen was a financial endowment established in 1882 by John Fox Slater for education of African Americans in the Southern United States. It ceased independent operation in 1937, by which time it had disbursed about $4,000,000.
The General Education Board was a private organization which was used primarily to support higher education and medical schools in the United States, and to help rural white and black schools in the South, as well as modernize farming practices in the South. It helped eradicate hookworm and created the county agent system in American agriculture, linking research as state agricultural experiment stations with actual practices in the field.
Barnas Sears was an American educational theorist and Baptist theologian.
University of Nashville was a private university in Nashville, Tennessee. It was established in 1806 as Cumberland College. It existed as a distinct entity until 1909; operating at various times a medical school, a four-year military college, a literary arts college, and a boys preparatory school. Educational institutions in operation today that can trace their roots to the University of Nashville include Montgomery Bell Academy, an all-male preparatory school; the Vanderbilt University Medical School; Peabody College at Vanderbilt University; and the University School of Nashville, a co-educational preparatory school.
Virginia Estelle Randolph was an American educator in Henrico County, Virginia. She was named the United States' first "Jeanes Supervising Industrial Teacher" by her Superintendent of Schools, Jackson Davis, and she led a program funded by the Jeanes Foundation to upgrade vocational training throughout the U.S. South as her career progressed. Her work is widely associated with vocational education. Two schools of the Henrico County Public Schools system were named in her honor and in 2009 Randolph was posthumously honored by the Library of Virginia as one of their "Virginia Women in History" for her career and contributions to education.
This is a selected bibliography of the main scholarly books and articles of Reconstruction, the period after the American Civil War, 1863–1877.
The Jeanes Foundation, also known as the Negro Rural School Fund or Jeanes Fund, helped support education and vocational programs for African American in rural communities from 1908 to the 1960s. It was founded by Anna T. Jeanes with help from Booker T. Washington in 1907.
The civil rights movement (1865–1896) aimed to eliminate racial discrimination against African Americans, improve their educational and employment opportunities, and establish their electoral power, just after the abolition of slavery in the United States. The period from 1865 to 1895 saw a tremendous change in the fortunes of the Black community following the elimination of slavery in the South.
Peabody Academy was established in 1880 in Troy, North Carolina, by the American Missionary Association (AMA) for the sole purpose of educating African Americans of Montgomery County, North Carolina. The Negro boarding school attracted students from all of the surrounding rural areas including towns now known as Biscoe, Mount Gilead, Candor, Pekin, Star, in addition to Troy, North Carolina. Peabody Academy was the only institution, at the time, that served the educational needs of African Americans.
Hollis Burke Frissell was an American chaplain and college president. He served as the second president of Hampton Institute.
History of education in the Southern United States covers the institutions, ideas and leaders of schools and education in the Southern states from colonial times to about the 2000s. It covers all the states and the main gender, racial and ethnic groups.