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Sarah Lawrence College DigitalCommons@SarahLawrence Women's History Theses Women’s History Graduate Program 8-2020 Reimagining Early Interracial And Coeducational College Administration: A Historical Analysis Of Matilda Hamilton Fee And Berea College Hannah Elizabeth McCandless Sarah Lawrence College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.slc.edu/womenshistory_etd Part of the Women's History Commons Recommended Citation McCandless, Hannah Elizabeth, "Reimagining Early Interracial And Coeducational College Administration: A Historical Analysis Of Matilda Hamilton Fee And Berea College" (2020). Women's History Theses. 51. https://digitalcommons.slc.edu/womenshistory_etd/51 This Thesis - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Women’s History Graduate Program at DigitalCommons@SarahLawrence. It has been accepted for inclusion in Women's History Theses by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@SarahLawrence. For more information, please contact [email protected]. REIMAGINING EARLY INTERRACIAL AND COEDUCATIONAL COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION: A HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF MATILDA HAMILTON FEE AND BEREA COLLEGE Hannah Elizabeth McCandless August 2020 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Women’s History Sarah Lawrence College i ABSTRACT Matilda Hamilton Fee was one of the founders and administrators at Berea College in Kentucky. Berea College opened in 1866 as one of the first interracial and coeducational colleges in the South. In the field of history, women are overlooked and treated as insignificant contributors to institutions of higher education. This research fills the gaps by exploring how Matilda and her husband, Rev. John G. Fee, built Berea College as an institution that valued educating all people regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status. Matilda’s role varied from wife and mother, to community organizer, to school administrator. As such, she was the first to navigate the complicated relationships between race and gender, southern politics and culture, and the role of religion in education. In this thesis, I discuss how Matilda Hamilton Fee’s involvement in the founding and early years of Berea College are both historically significant and grossly understudied. Additionally, this research shows how Matilda created and implemented school policies as the first president of the Ladies Board of Care. This research highlights women’s early roles in higher education administration and shows how critical women, and Matilda, were to the early survival of coeducational and interracial higher education. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to the Berea College Archives for providing me with a massive amount of support. Sharyn Mitchell, Research Services Specialist, Harry Rice, Sound Archivist, and Lori Myers-Steele, Collections Archivist, along with their extensive student staff, made so many copies for me and pulled so many boxes for me. This work would not have been possible without your dedication to preserving vital history. Thank you also to Caroline Miller and the Bracken County Historical Society for giving me access to and helping me find a plethora of primary sources documenting the early lives of Matilda Hamilton Fee and others in the community. Without it, I would have been at a loss. Thank you also to Caroline for her kindness and hospitality, showing me around the county and even taking me to the house that Matilda grew up in. Thank you also to the many people who let me stay in their homes during my research trips. A simple thank you is not enough for Dr. Nadeen Thomas, my thesis advisor, whose work with me on this project has been crucial. It was her elective, “Diversity and Equity in Education: Issues of Gender, Race, Class,” that led me to do research on Berea College in the first place. Several long discussions, numerous edits, and our shared love-hate relationship with institutions of education made the process both exciting and bearable. Nadeen encouraged me often, gave me tough love when necessary, and gave me a level of emotional support that I doubt I would have received at any other institution. Her commitment to my success went beyond my thesis, as our conversations about the history of higher education strengthened my interest in working in the field in the future. Thank you, Nadeen, for everything. Deep gratitude must also be extended to the Director of the Women’s History Graduate Program, Dr. Mary Dillard, for her editorial support throughout the entire thesis seminar year. She read several early and late drafts of my thesis and helped push me to dig deeper and to think iii outside of my scope of work. Her commitment to the program and to the individual experience and success of each student shines through in her thorough and thoughtful comments. Thank you to Tara James, the Assistant Director of the Women’s History Graduate Program. Not only was she a constant support to the program through organizing the Annual Women’s History Conference and speaking with incoming students, but she also worked with the program’s blog (the Re/Visionist) and with the Graduate Student Association. Tara made investing my nonacademic time in thoughtful programming easy, and allowed me and so many others a space to grow with our peers from other programs. To Dr. Lyde Sizer, the woman I consider a mentor, thank you for going on walks with me around campus while I vented about my life and we talked about everything under the sun. You always allowed me a place to decompress and your snack bag was always full of treats that made the day a little easier. Thank you to Margaret Note for her work in teaching my peers and me the basics of research methods. Even as someone who studied history as an undergraduate, her lessons made my writing better than it would have been otherwise. Thank you to Dr. Priscilla Murolo and Dr. Rachelle Rumph for your support of the program and your support outside of class time, even though I didn’t have a class with either of you! A huge thank you also to the history teachers and professors from high school through college. I count myself lucky to have had outstanding history teachers over and over again, constantly deepening my interest in the subject. And thank you to my friends and former coworkers at my undergraduate institution, Lindsey Wilson College. Their support got me where I am today, and so many were always a phone call away as I found myself wanting to talk about administration in higher education more often (and for when I missed home). iv To my cohort who has my heart. Friendships were forged in the trenches of writing and editing together. Thank you to Emilyn, Kathryn, Marian, Monet, and Monika for being kind, loving, supportive, and always checking in with me. Mary told us when we started this journey that we would become like family, and she was not wrong. I look forward to keeping our friendships alive as we continue to grow and learn. Thank you also to Madison and Vickie who we started this journey with, and good luck in your final year! A special thank you to my coworkers is necessary as I can’t imagine having worked anywhere else on campus while finishing this degree. Working in the Office of Student Involvement and Leadership while researching the history of women’s roles in the creation of Student Affairs as a profession was quite a treat. Thank you to Josh and Valerie for running an office where we could take our work seriously, and where our work was seriously fun. Thank you to my coworkers Shaelyn, Alex, and Amandeep. Creating programming with you all for the undergraduate students was a highlight of my time at Sarah Lawrence. The unexpected friendships that developed as a result of working together are friendships I will always value. To the wonderful people I lived with, thank you for being a second family to me. During my first year, my roommate Meagan was a constant support and continues to be a friend even as we now find ourselves several hundred miles apart. During my second year, I had the privilege of living with other graduate students from Sarah Lawrence. To Amanda, thank you for being an amazing housemate and friend. And thank you for supporting my eccentric holiday decorations. To Sidney, Destanie, Virginia, and Shaelyn, thank you for being the upstairs neighbors who always left your doors unlocked so I could hang out with your cats (and each of you). A special thank you to Sidney and Destanie for being my quarantine buddies for the first three months of the COVID-19 global pandemic. It was a strange time, but doing life with you two made things a v lot less frightening. And thank you to our basement apartment housemate, Trevor, for being a very laid-back person and for collaborating with us on grocery pick-ups during the pandemic. Last but not least, thank you to my family. My parents, Mary Beth and Murray, have always supported me, loved me, and encouraged me no matter what my dreams were. Thank you to my twin brother and best friend, Jesse, for giving me the pep talks I often needed. Thank you to my sister-in-law Sammie who constantly sent me cute pictures of dogs to cheer me up. To my life long best friend April for being a phone call away when I missed home, thank you. To my college roommate Emma, thank you for being a rock as I finished this work. Thank you to the women in my family who exude confidence and strength, and helped me find that same strength. To my grandmother, Diana, to my nana, Patricia, and to Kendrick, thank you for loving me, sending me kind words, and always saying “bless your heart” at just the moments when I needed to hear it most.

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