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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74-20,887

FLETCHER, Juanita D., 1918- AGAINST THE CONSENSUS: OBERLIN COLLEGE AND THE EDUCATION OF AMERICAN NEGROES, 1835-1865.

The American University, Ph.D., 1974 Education, higher

University Microfilms, A XERQ\Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan

(J) Copyright, 1974,

by

Juanita D. Fletcher

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. AGAINST THE CONSENSUS: OBERLTN COLLEGE AND THE EDUCATION OF AMERICAN~NE^gE?7 T53?-T5F5

by

Juanita D. Fletcher

Submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of The American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree

of

Doctor of Philosophy

in

Education

Major Emphasis: Higher Education

Signatures of Committee:

Chairman: John Abernatny-"Smith, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Ed.

I Professor o. ucatio

Harvey c A Moore, Ph.D. Bernard A. Hodinko, Dean of the College Professor of Education b: V / ? / 7 Y 1 ------§terlingDTwETtley”, EO). Professor of Education

1974

The American University Washington, D. C. 133 AMEBICM UNIVERSITY LIBP.A3

W s

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page ABSTRACT ...... (1)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... i

Chapter

I. INTRODUCTION...... 1

II. EDUCATION OF AMERICAN NEGROES PRIOR TO 1860...... 26

III. OBERLIN...... 71

IV. THE PROFITS OF ABOLITIONISM...... 117

V. ABOLITIONISM AT OBERLIN...... 157

VI. ANTEBELLUM NEGRO STUDENTS AT O B E R L I N ...... 200

VII. OBERLIN !S PROGENY AND THE EMERGENCE OF A SOCIAL CLASS...... 241

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 286

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To Edward

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study was made possible through the generosity

and cooperation of many people. Although space does not

permit me to single out some for the thanks which they

deserve, all can take the completion of the work as an

indication that their efforts were not entirely wasted.

Dr. John Abernathy Smith, the chairman of my commit­

tee, always managed somehow to adjust his own busy schedule

to my erratic hours--frequently over cups of coffee in his

home--and gave me the benefit of his counsel as the work

progressed. I have profited greatly from Professor Smith's

perceptive advice and criticism. I am also grateful to the

members of my committee, Dr. Edith H. Grotberg, Dr. Bernard

Hodinko, and Dr. Sterling D. Whitley, for their constant

interest, much-needed encouragement, and patient understand­

ing.

Particular gratitude goes to Dr. Paul P. Cooke,

President of the District of Columbia Teachers College and

to the Board of Higher Education, Washington, D. C., for

granting me intermittent leave to conduct this research.

And Dr. Charles Walker Thomas, Dean of Students at the

District of Columbia Teachers College and graduate of

Oberlin, has constantly exhibited his interest, assurance

and support.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Especially warm appreciation for assistance, advice

and courtesy far beyond the call of duty is due Mr. W. E.

Biggleston, archivist of Oberlin College, and Miss Gertrude

Jacob, assistant archivist. They generously gave me access

to material in the archives, helped me find my way through

manuscript collections during the time which I spent at

Oberlin and then answered my urgent written and telephoned

requests for information promptly and with impressive effi­

ciency and friendliness. The staff of the Oberlin College

Library was also immediately responsive to my needs and pro­

vided me with valuable assistance.

The staff of the Library of Congress helped me

gather materials and provided me with study facilities. I

am singularly obliged to Mr. Herbert C. Davis, assistant head

of Stack Services; Mr. Wiley D. Boyd; and Mr. Theodore

Cassell. The assistance which I received from Dr. Dorothy

Porter and Mrs. Charlotte Price at the Howard University

Library is greatly appreciated, as is the special help given

to me by Mr. Walter B. Williams, Chief Librarian of the

District of Columbia Teachers College, and the generosity of

Mrs. Phyllis Gibbs Fauntleroy, who shared manuscripts and

personal papers of the Gibbs family with me.

My daughter, Patricia Fletcher Malveaux, served as

my assistant in several instances— one being to help with the

research for Chapter II at the Schomberg Collection of Negro

History in the Countee Cullen Branch of the New York Public

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Library. My friend and personal gadfly, Dr. Jean H. Braden,

relieved me of many tedious tasks in preparing manuscript for

final copy. To both of them, and to numerous friends and

colleagues who have given me much practical help, I express

my sincere gratitude. Some who deserve special mention are

listed below: The staff of the Dean of Students at the

District of Columbia Teachers College— including my student-

assistant, Miss Marzell Jennings; Dr. Matthew J. Whitehead;

Dr ...Kenneth F. Woods; Dr. James Braden; Dr. Robert G.

Williamson; Mrs. Helen B. Smith; Miss Barbara Kraft; and

Mr. Arthur R. LaBrew. To my friend, Mrs. Martha Engstier,

who typed the final copy of this manuscript, goes my sincere

gratitude.

Finally, I am grateful to my entire family— partic­

ularly my husband, Edward--for their tolerance, patience,

constant support, and, most of all, their sense of humor.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

When the federal census was taken in 1830, almost

thirteen million people lived in the United States. Of

these, 2,009,143 were American blacks held in slavery by

whites and allowed few basic human rights. Although an

additional 319,599 blacks were classified as free, they

were held in bondage as securely as slaves by legislated

restrictions.^ Treated as pariahs and concentrated for the

most part in budding urban centers, these free blacks had

no access to the social, economic, and political institu­

tions of the new nation. They were, with some exceptions,

necessarily and primarily concerned with survival in a

society which did not view them as legitimate members.

It was during the 1830's that Oberlin, a small strug­

gling institution of higher learning in a white, religious,

pioneer settlement on an Ohio frontier broke a cultural

tradition that had existed in America for two hundred years.

The settlers invited qualified black students to enroll in

their institution on terms of social and intellectual

% egro Population, 1790-1915, Department of Commerce, U. S. Bureau of the Census (Washington, D.C., 1918), pp. 25- 53. 1

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2

equality with whites. The social and political repercus­

sions of their action were immediate and far-reaching.

The story of the founding and early development of

Oberlin is told with eloquence, sensitivity, and a scholarly

regard for documentation by Robert S. Fletcher in his magnif- 2 icent institutional study, A History of Oberlin College.

The landmark decision made at Oberlin whereby Negroes were

admitted to the institution is interpreted by Fletcher as it

related to the institution— as an affirmation of academic

freedom. Indeed, in each of the histories written before

Fletcher's work, the decision is seen from the point of view

of its effect on Oberlin. As yet there has been no study of

the impact which the comparatively early admission of a

significant number of blacks to college had on the future of

black Americans or on the position of black leadership in

America.

This study examines the educational and social expe­

rience of black students who attended Oberlin College prior

to the Civil War and traces the influence of the institution

on American cultural, intellectual, and political development

through an analysis of the careers and life-styles of these

alumni. In considering all these aspects of the Oberlin

decision, many critical questions are raised that require

o Robert S. Fletcher, A History of Oberlin College From Its Foundation Through the Civil W a r , 2 vols. (Oberlin, Ohio, 1943).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3

investigation.

The first questions that come to mind are concerned

with the educational background of Negro students. Oberlin

made no special concessions for blacks in admitting them

--the admissions requirements for black students were exactly

the same as those for white students. With most American

Negroes in slavery and free Negroes firmly barred from oppor­

tunities for educational, cultural, and economic advancement,

how could Negroes qualify for admission to college? Or was

the Oberlin decision made simply as an expression of prin­

ciple? The issue of whether or not to admit Negroes was

hotly debated in several sessions of the trustees and caused

apprehension and controversy in a previously unified commu­

nity; therefore it seems that Oberlin expected qualified

Negroes to apply for admission. Where did they expect qual­

ified Negroes to come from? Did they know of exceptional

blacks who had somehow managed to acquire lower level edu­

cation? Where educational opportunities available to

Negroes prior to the Civil War?

The obvious difficulty with which the decision was

made suggests more questions about Oberlin itself. Why was

Oberlin considering the admission of blacks at that particu­

lar time? During the 1830's the overwhelming majority of

white Americans viewed blacks as intellectually inferior

beings, prone to be criminals, and unfit for American citi­

zenship. Yet, Oberlin invited blacks into the college on

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4

terms of intellectual and social equality. Did Oberlin

actually conceive of blacks as equals? Was the decision

made because of religious beliefs, or did Oberlin hope to

gain some material advantage? Or was it perhaps both?

What circumstances motivated Oberlin to admit Negroes to

the college?

From the day of its founding in 1833 Oberlin had a

scandalous reputation. Not only did the institution flout

long established traditions of propriety and respectability

by offering higher education to women, but it also violated

all contemporary conceptions of Christian virtue and decency

by its policy of educating young adult male and female stu­

dents together. Two years later, Oberlin defied deeply

rooted taboos by adding blacks--notorious for their alleged

bestiality--to the melange of students. The general public

perceived the situation at Oberlin to be a shocking disgrace

to the nation. With such an infamous reputation, how was

the institution able to attract students? Did the college

become mainly a haven for a few radical whites and some

exceptional blacks? Or did the enrollment increase and the

institution become one of the largest and most influential

of its time, not because of the scandalous interpretations

but in spite of them? What effects did the admission of

blacks have on Oberlin?

The college further alienated the public by partici­

pating in the most unpopular crusade of the time--antislavery

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5

reform. Yet, the good will of the public was vital, for

Oberlin was but one of the many small colleges founded during

the nineteenth century which were entirely dependent on phil­

anthropists for their survival. Competition for money was

fierce, and many a college had to choose between catering to

the dictates of altruists or folding financially. Was

Oberlin ever forced to accede to the demands of philanthrop­

ists in the choice of faculty or mission in order to maintain

solvency? How did Oberlin acquire and maintain competent

personnel and adequate financial support?

During the 1830's the social assumption of the

natural inferiority of the black race was a most effective

deterrent to Negro education. It not only fully justified

the physical enslavement of blacks, but also gave pragmatic

sanction to isolating free blacks from American culture.

The theory of black inferiority also determined the self

concept of what was conceivably the majority of Negroes,

undermining their confidence and limiting their goals. Thus,

whites were acculturated into a superior role, and blacks

into a subordinate position. Given such patterns of accul­

turation, were whites and blacks capable of accepting the

Oberlin College mandate of social and intellectual equality?

Did white professors use the same criteria in evaluating the

academic performance of white and black students? Or did

preconceived ideas of the ability of blacks predetermine the

reactions of white professors, making them either hyper­

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6

critical or paternalistic? Did the institution offer faculty

positions to blacks? Were black and white students either

forced or coerced into associating with each other? Did

blacks participate fully in the social life of the college

and use college facilities without discrimination? Did

blacks expect preferential treatment? Did they form them­

selves into a protective circle--looking warily out on

campus life but never a part of it? How did blacks and

whites interact at Oberlin College?

Finally, critical questions arise about the meaning

of the Oberlin experience to Negroes. Black Oberlin alumni

had reached the higher levels of education at a time when

the majority of their race was illiterate--whether slave or

free. Did the careers of these educated blacks reflect their

Oberlin training? Was the type of education that they re­

ceived at Oberlin one which prepared them to work toward the

betterment of conditions for Negroes, or did black Oberlin

alumni identify mainly with whites? Did education make

them more acceptable to the general white public but es­

trange them from their own race? Were they able to earn a

living? Were professional fields open to them? Most ante­

bellum black Oberlin alumni were still young after the Civil

War; yet black leadership during Reconstruction has been

traditionally criticized for its puerility and impotence. Did

black Oberlin alumni make any significant contributions to the

social, political, cultural, and educational institutions

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7

of their time?

These questions, crucial not only for Oberlin but

for American society in the nineteenth and twentieth cen­

turies, may be summarized as the main focal points of this

study:

What educational opportunities were available to Negroes

prior to the Civil War?

What circumstances motivated Oberlin to admit Negroes to

the college?

How did Oberlin acquire and maintain competent personel

and adequate financial support?

What effects did the admission of blacks have on the

mission of the college?

How did blacks and whites interact at Oberlin College?

Did black Oberlin alumni make any significant contri­

butions to the social, political, cultural, religious and

educational institutions of their time?

They will be explored in Chapters II to VII of this study.

The scope of this study is principally the span of

years between 1835, when black students were first admitted

to Oberlin, and 1865— a terminal year selected due to changes

brought about as a result of the Civil War. The nature of

the questions, however, makes it necessary to go back before

1835. Further, the study extends in some instances into

the twentieth century since the careers of many Negroes

educated prior to the Civil War were at their peaks during

and after Reconstruction and their influence can be

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. perceived even beyond that period.

At this point a few words of definition and explan­

ation may be helpful. Consensus, in the strictest sense,

means unanimity or general agreement in matters of opinion.

In recent usage consensus means unified or convergent

ideation among a group of people. As used in this study

the word refers to consensus omnium, or the universal accord

of majority or public opinion— which was such a powerful

force in nineteenth century America that it determined polit­

ical philosophy, moral standards, and religious affiliation.

Thus, obeisance to the will of the people was as much a part

of the national character as the idealized belief in democ­

racy and the equality of all men. Alexis de Tocqueville, in

his penetrating critique of America, was disconcerted by

Americans' predilection for "finding truth on the side of

the majority," and viewed the will of the people as an omnip­

otent, tyrannical, absolute sovereignty. He further observ­

ed: "The majority in the United States takes over the busi­

ness of supplying the individual with a quantity of ready­

made opinions and so relieves him of the necessity of forming 3 his own.

In the title of this study consensus is used in

specific reference to the universal belief among white

3 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. George Lawrence and ed. J. P. Mayer (New York, 1969), pp. 246-435.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9

Americans of the 1830's in white supremacy, Negro inferior­

ity, and in the preordained destiny of America as a white

man's country. The extent of this majority opinion is re­

flected in contemporary laws and customs throughout the

nation restricting and excluding Negroes from the American

process. The popular assumption is also apparent in the

profusion of nineteenth century literature, which used

Biblical reference, the prestigious "science of ethnology,"

and expert observation to prove that Negroes were, indeed,

inferior.

The word Oberlin as used in this study deserves

seme explanation. From 1833 to approximately 1840, Oberlin

the college and Oberlin the colony were so intimately asso­

ciated that it is difficult to differentiate between the

two. Consequently, between those dates, unless specifically

indicated, Oberlin refers to both colony and college. After

1840 the colony had evolved into a village or town, and

the college had developed its own independence and identity.

Gown took over the leadership from town. Therefore, in

referring to events that took place after 1840, Oberlin

means the institution of higher learning, except where the

reference is clearly political or geographical in relation­

ship to the town. By way of further explanation: Oberlin

College was called Oberlin Collegiate Institute until 1850.

In the text of this study Oberlin Collegiate Institute or

Oberlin is used for events prior to 1850; after that date

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10 Oberlin College or Oberlin is used. Oberlin College is

used in the title to simplify the identification of the

institution, which has been known by that name for now over

100 years.

In this study the word education is used to mean

the formal instruction offered by nineteenth century

American institutions of higher learning which were in the

process of changing from the traditional classical system of

Greek, Latin, and mental discipline into the more intellec­

tually liberalized elective system and functional curricula

designed for social and political utility. The new ap­

proaches were, for a wide variety of reasons, more likely

to be found in the hundreds of small colleges such as

Oberlin which were started during the nation-wide boom in

college founding. Education, also has a larger meaning.

It is necessarily used in this study with reference to the

process by which free blacks and slaves were acculturated

into American society. The different social classes which

developed within the slave and free black population pro­

duced modifications and embellishments of the controls that

governed the acculturation process. Formal instruction,

therefore, ran the gamut from basic literacy to specialized

courses in European universities. Instruction of slaves

was likewise diversified, ranging from their learning

rudimentary work-skills in the fields to developing special­

ized skills such as engineering, glass-blowing, carpentry,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 11

business management, mechanics, barbering, and domestic

arts.

The term, American Negroes in this study applies to

persons of some African ancestry who were either born in or

were permanent residents of the United States and who identi­

fied themselves as citizens, but who, by virtue of skin-

color and/or ancestry were classified by the dominant race

in the United States as persons of low-status, incapable of

being assimilated into the societal community of the nation,

and not entitled to full citizenship.

Negro, black, and--when quoted from contemporary

sources— colored, are used interchangeably throughout the

text of this study. Since at one time or another each of

the three words carried overtones of derogation and since

usage from one generation of Negroes to the next seems to

be mainly a matter of personal or age-group preference, no

attempt is made to be au courant. Black has been used so

effectively in America to define innate inferiority when

referring to race that the word is offensive to many who

prefer to be called Negroes. To others, Negro is odious

because it is a racial term and because it is so readily

slurred by white Southerners into "nigra,11 which is often

felt by speaker and listener to be synonymous with the

epithet "nigger." Yet Negro--granted capitalization in the

1940's— persists in literature and in the titles of such

authoritative publications as The Journal of Negro History

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12

and the Negro History Bulletin. Colored, popularized among

black people and abolitionists during the nineteenth century

as an equivalent of the highly respectable term "people of

coloris preserved today in the name NAACP, among blacks

in rural districts, and among many of the age 40-and-over

black and white people of all social classes. Yet colored

angers many young black Americans of today who find the word

a euphemism for white paternalism. In keeping with the "new"

revolution in racial pride they define black as "beautiful"

--in perfect agreement with John S. Rock, a black Boston

physician, who predicted in an address titled "Black Pride"

in 1858: "When the avenues of wealth are opened to us we

will then become educated and wealthy, . . . and black will 4 be a very pretty color. Although the three words are

filled with ambivalences and emotions for both whites and

blacks, they are used in this study as purely descriptive

terms without emotional connotations. Afro-American, how­

ever, is not used, partly as a matter of personal preference

on the part of the writer and partly because the phrase

seldom occurs in the nineteenth century.

Accepted methodology for historical research was used

in this study. Primary sources— literature written during

the chronological period under consideration--were collected,

read, and interpreted as they reflect interrelationships and

^John S. Rock, Liberator, Mar. 12, 1858.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13

influences. Secondary sources--works written by recognized

historians--were also used as important resources for this

study. Critical reading of the varied views and interpreta­

tions of these scholars gave focus to the main issues and

problems of the period, and stimulated fresh perceptions.

As always with historical research, the central task is the

construction of the narrative which conveys analysis and

interpretation of past events. From this point of view,

argument becomes a part of method.

This study would have been virtually impossible

without the ready access of a wealth of primary sources in

the Oberlin College archives and library. These sources

include such original documents and collections as private

papers, letters, reminiscences, college records, personal

letters and notes from students, necrologies, and minutes

and records of antebellum campus organizations. The Robert

S. Fletcher file in the Oberlin College Archives was ex­

tremely helpful. The file contains cross-filed, catalogued,

typewritten copies of thousands of documents and papers

dating from the founding of Oberlin through the Civil War,

and permits easy access and perusal of material which would

otherwise have been far more difficult to obtain and read.

Personnel in the archives and library proved to be another

bonus. Through their efficiency, familiarity with resources,

and interested cooperation, they saved this researcher count­

less hours of searching.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. i 14

An abundance of primary sources such as the Mary

Church Terrell Papers, the Tappan Papers, valuable collec­

tions of black biographies, abolitionist literature, and

records of national antislavery societies are also readily

available in the Library of Congress. In the Moorland

Foundation Room of the Howard University Library signif­

icant contemporary books, articles, manuscripts, and the

very serviceable file of journal articles containing bio­

graphical material aided research considerably, as did the

sources on the slave trade and slavery in the Schomburg

Collection of the New York Public Library. Information

about early Oberlin obtained in sources in the Amistad

Research Center of the American Missionary Association

Archives in New Orleans was also helpful.

The recent boom in reprints of documents relating

to the complex social, religious, and political movements

of the nineteenth century and to Negro biography was an

extremely important asset to this study. An impressive

number of documents, hitherto unpublished manuscripts, and

other literature of the time--much of which has lain fallow,

unread, and almost forgotten for over 100 years— has sud­

denly become available in clear, easily read form and prom­

ises to be a wellspring of information about black Americans

and their legitimate place in the development of American

society.

Many important secondary sources have also been

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15 reprinted. Robert S. Fletcher's History of Oberlin, for

example, was reprinted by Arno Press in 1971. Aside from

being a stimulating history of an institution, the book is

a valuable study of the social forces which left a lasting

imprint on American society. Fletcher, an alumnus of

Oberlin and a professor of history at the institution for

many years, took excellent advantage of the historical

resources on campus and wove into his account of Oberlin

an intricate study of the social assumptions, moves, and

counter-moves of this period of expansion in America. One

chapter, "The Students--The Oppressed Race," is devoted to

early black students at the institution. It is an inter­

esting chapter, filled with clues for further research,

but only faintly suggesting in the final paragraph the

extent of the social impact which Oberlin made by admitting

blacks to the institution before the Civil War.

Another recent reprint which was vital to this study

is the important first major work of the pioneer black his­

torian, Carter G. Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior

to 1861: A History of the Colored People of the United

States from the Beginnings of Slavery to the Civil War

(1915; rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times,

1969). Indeed, this study relied heavily on Woodson's

works--most of which have been reprinted within the past

five years. Although Woodson's interpretations are in many

respects understandably dated, the results of his precise

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16

scholarship were a valuable guide. Further, this study

doubtlessly would have been impossible were it not for the

persistence and dedication of Carter G. Woodson's life-work.

As founder of the still vigorous Association for the Study

of Negro Life and History in 1915— now called the Association

for the Study of Afro-American Life and History--and of the

Journal of Negro History a year later, Woodson provided a

repository for the continued study of black Americans during

the many years when such studies were deemed irrelevant to

the history of the nation.

Other helpful secondary sources were works on the

history of Oberlin such as James H. Fairchild, Oberlin: The

Colony and the College (Oberlin, Ohio, 1883); Delavan L.

Leonard, The Story of Oberlin: The Institution, the Commu­

nity, the Idea, the Movement (Boston: The Pilgrim Press,

1898); E. H. Fairchild, Historical Sketch of Oberlin College

(Springfield, Ohio: Republic Printing Co., 1868); Frances

J. Hosford, Father Shipherd's Magna Charta: A Century of

Coeducation in Oberlin College (Boston: Marshall Jones Co.,

1937); and an unpublished PhD dissertation which goes into

detail on the political aspects of antislavery ideology at

Oberlin, Clayton S. Ellsworth, "Oberlin and the Anti-Slav­

ery Movement Up to the Civil War," Cornell University, 1930.

Many articles on the early history of Oberlin pro­

vided a great deal of information and inspiration. A few

of them were written by Geoffrey Blodgett, a graduate of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Oberlin in 1953, and currently Professor of history at the

institution. Blodgett's delightful and sensitive article,

"John Langston and the Case of Edmonia Lewis," Journal of

Negro History, LIII (July, 1968), 201-18, is of particular

interest because it concerns two of Oberlin's early black

alumni, and his witty "Myth and Reality in Oberlin History,"

Oberlin Alumni Magazine. LXVIII (May/June, 1972) presents an

interesting play between the "radical" action of nineteenth

century Oberlin students in behalf of fugitive slaves and of

Oberlin students in October, 1967, when they captured a Navy

recruiter and staunchly withstood the water from a fire hose.

Two particularly valuable articles on early black alumni were

written by W. E. Bigglestone, currently Archivist at Oberlin

College. Although the first is concerned with post-Civil War

Oberlin, it explores the changing racial attitudes and social

interaction between the races at the institution: W. E. Bigg­

lestone, "Oberlin College and the Negro Student, 1865-1940,"

The Journal of Negro History, LVI, (July, 1971), 198-219.

The second article: William E. Bigglestone, "Straightening

a Fold in the Record," Oberlin Alumni Magazine, LXVIII,

(May/June, 1972), 11, was of utmost importance to this study

in that it deals with— identification of the first Negroes to

enter Oberlin.

Historical commentaries on social movements and

their leaders include works such as Whitney R. Cross, The

Burned-over District: The Social and Intellectual History

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of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850

(Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1950), an excel­

lent study of the role of religion in transplanting New

England culture to western lands. Classic in its scholarly

thoroughness and literary style, it captures the infectious

excitement characteristic of the revival circuit during the

nineteenth century and is indispensable as bo .kground for

antebellum Oberlin College. Another study of religious

forces is Charles I. Foster, An Errand of Mercy: The Evangel­

ical United Front. 1790-1837 (Chapel Hill: The University of

North Carolina Press, 1960). Foster focuses on religion as

an instrument for transmitting British ideas to the western

lands of the United States. As studies of the influence of

religious leaders on the political, economic, and social

issues of the period, the following can scarcely be ignored:

Charles C. Cole, Jr., The Social Ideas of the Northern

Evangelists, 1826-1860 (New York: Columbia University Press,

1954); John R. Bodo, The Protestant Clergy and Public Issues,

1812-1848 (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press,

1954). A basic secondary source on missionary work in the

Old West and its relationship to transmission of the culture

of New England is Colin Brummitt Goodykoontz, Home Missions

on the American Frontier With Particular Reference to the

American Home Missionary Society (Caldwell, Idaho: The

Caxton Printers, 1939). Daniel A. Payne, History of the

African Methodist Church (1891; rpt. New York: Arno Press

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and the New York Times, 1969), is an excellent source for

documentation on the origins of American black organized

religion.

The following are invaluable as contemporary sources

for information about the social conditions of the time,

particularly the antislavery movement, slavery, and the free

Negro: Fannie Jackson Coppin, Reminiscences of School Life

(Philadelphia: African Methodist Book Concern, 1913); Levi

Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, the Reputed President

of the Underground Railroad (1876; rpt. New York: Augustus

M. Kelley, Publishers, 1968); Theodore Dwight Weld, American

Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (1839;

rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968);

Harriet Martineau, The Martyr Age of the United States

(1839; rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times,

1969); and m o t h e r book by Martineau, Retrospect of Western

Travel, 2 vols. (1838; rpt. New York: Haskell House Publish­

ers Ltd., 1969). Secondary commentaries on antisalvery,

abolitionism, and related issues include the absorbing

landmark study by Gilbert H. Barnes, The Antislavery Impulse,

1830-1844 (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1933), although,

as has been noted by others, the book lacks balance due to

the author's emphasis on Western abolitionism to the exclu­

sion of Garrisonians. Barnes also ignores the importance of

the Negro abolitionists. Dwight L. Dumond, Antislavery

Origins of the Civil War in the United States (New York:

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Harper, 1960) follows Barnes's emphasis, but the book is

particularly valuable for the chapter on the liberty Party.

Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1969) is sometimes inclined to be sketchy,

but gives an animated account of the vital part which black

abolitionists played in the movement. Louis Filler, The

Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860 (New York: Harper, 1960)

contains an interesting summary of current interpretations

of abolitionism and an excellent bibliographical essay;

Martin Duberman, ed., The Antislavery Vanguard: New Essays

on the Abolitionists (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University

Press, 1965) is a valuable collection of new data and new

interpretations of abolitionism. Russell B. Nye, Fettered

Freedom: Civil Liberties and the Slavery Controversy, 1830-

1860 (East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State College Press,

1949) examines freedom as expressed by the nation's leaders

and as lived by its people. The chapter, "Abolitionism and

Academic Freedom" was most helpful to this study.

Studies on slavery which were excellent for back­

ground information were: a work which is generally consid­

ered to be a definitive description of slavery in America

by Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in

the Ante-bellum South (New York: Vintage Books, 1956); the

very provocative and controversial study by Stanley M.

Elkins, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and

Intellectual Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

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1959); and, as a sourcebook, the documentary study of Negro

slave revolts and resistance to slavery in the United States

by Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts (New York:

International Publishers, 1969). For the local story of

slavery in a state bordering Ohio, a helpful book was J.

Winston Coleman, Jr., Slavery Times in Kentucky (Chapel Hill:

University of North Carolina Press, 1940)— although slavery

takes on the character of a lark in some passages.

Two studies of black institutions of higher learning

are worthy of mention: the excellent centennial history of

Howard University by Rayford W. Logan, Howard University:

The First Hundred Years, 1867-1967 (New York: New York Uni­

versity Press, 1969) and George Ruble Woolfolk, Prairie View:

A Study in Public Conscience, 1878-1946 (New York: Pageant

Press, 1962), which contains valuable information despite

the author's tendency to clutter his work with trivialities.

Much biographical material was used. Some of the

excellent sources came from necrologies and files in the

Oberlin Archives. Biographies of antislavery leaders that,

in addition, contain impressive discussions of nineteenth

century issues are the delightful, detailed, and scholarly

work by Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan and the Evangel­

ical War Against Slavery (Cleveland: The Press of the Case

Western Reserve University, 1969); Merton L. Dillon, Benjamin

Lundy and the Struggle for Negro Freedom (Urbana, 111: Uni­

versity of Illinois Press, 1966); and Walter H. Merrill,

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Against Wind and Tide: A Biography of William Lloyd Garrison

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963). Although en­

tirely anti-Garrison and in need of revision, Benjamin P.

Thomas, Theodore Weld: Crusader for Freedom (New Brunswick,

N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1950), is still a vital

account of Weld and his contemporaries. William E. Farrison,

William Wells Brown, Author and Reformer (Chicago: The Uni­

versity of Chicago Press, 1969) is an illuminating discussion

of black reformers, as is the biography of another black

abolitionist by Victor Ullman, Martin Delaney: The Begin­

nings of Black Nationalism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971).

Autobiographies and biographies of black people who had

personal or familial ties with Oberlin were indispensable

to this study. One of the fuller autobiographies was John

Mercer Langston, From the Virginia Plantation to the National

Capitol, or the First and Only Negro Representative in Con­

gress from the Old Dominion (Hartford, Conn: American Pub­

lishing Company, 1894). An important source was the excel­

lent account of a black family by Roger M. Williams, The

Bonds, An American Family (New York: Atheneum, 1971). Al­

though not related directly to Oberlin, Allan Peskin, ed.,

North into Freedom: The Autobiography of John Malvin, Free

Negro - 1795-1880 (Cleveland: The Press of Western Reserve

University, 1966) is an absorbing account of the ij.fe and

times of a fugitive slave in Ohio. Of particular interest

is Malvin's comparison between antebellum Cincinnati and

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Cleveland.

Among the many other works which were valuable to

this study are George M. Williams, History of the Negro Race

in America from 1619 to 1880 (New York: G. Putnam and Sons,

1883), Alfred P. Young, ed., Dissent: Explorations in the

History of American P^adicalism (Northern Illinois University

Press, 1968), E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family in the

United States (Chicago, 1939), Howard K. Beale, A History of

Freedom of Teaching in American Schools (New York, Charles

Scribner's Sons), and Charles S. Johnson, The Negro College

Graduate (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1938). The classic written by

Gunnar Myrdai. An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and

Modern Democracy, 2 vols. (New York, 1944), and the study by

Buell G. Gallagher, American Caste and the Negro College

(New York, 1966), point up many previously overlooked re­

lationships between white social institutions and black;

Charles H. Wesley, In Freedom's Footsteps: From the African

Background to the Civil War (New York: Publishers Co., 1968)

is a good, general history. Books concerned with white-

black attitudes such as Winthrop Jordan, White Over Black:

American Attitudes Toward the Negro 1550-1812 (Baltimore:

Penguin Books, 1969) and George M. Fredrickson, The Black

Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Char­

acter and Destiny, 1817-1914 (New York: Harper and Row,

1971) undertook prodigious tasks and discharged them. For

investigation into the background of American Negroes,

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Sidney Kaplan, The Black Presence in the Era of the American

Revolution, 1770-1800 (Washington, D. C.: New York Graphic

Society and Smithsonian Institution Press, 1973), not only

contains a wealth of original sources but is also lavishly

illustrated with color photographs of portraits painted

during the period. Unfortunately the present edition of the

book contains no documentation of original sources.

Studies concerned with Negro Americans are not new.

They have been necessary throughout the history of America

as the dominant race has sought to reconcile contradictory

emotional response to Negroes with the principles on which

the nation was founded. During the nineteenth century, in

response to the multiple troubles which they had in accept­

ing blacks as part of a unified nation, whites invented the

device of "scientific" investigations of Negroes, which

guaranteed the economic security of slavery, stilled slave

insurrections, and simultaneously sought to remove free

Negroes from the United States. Failing in this, subsequent

studies of blacks were used to prove that Negroes had failed

to contribute positively to the development of American

society. As a consequence, information concerning the con­

tributions of black abolitionists, black educators, black

legislators, black leadership was generally suppressed or

ignored. The lives of blacks who were educated achievers

and who attempted to become a part of the American process

at an early date were distorted by white interpretations

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into a picture of ludicrous and useless mimicry of whites.

Indeed, except for a few earlier historians such as W. E.

B. DuBois, Carter G. Woodson, and Horace Mann Bond, educated

antebellum blacks have been cast as exceptions whose careers

were of no significance even to their own race. Negro higher

education is usually said to have begun with the founding of

Howard University after the Civil War.

It was with this conception of the education of

Negroes that this study was begun. It started out as an

investigation of these few exceptional Negroes who were

educated at Oberlin College. The hypothesis was that over­

whelming social forces after the Civil War rendered the few

college-educated Negroes powerless, and further, the "white

education" received at Ooerlin confused the life-styles of

black alumni, isolating them into frustrated individual

blacks, not identifying with other blacks and not being

accepted by whites. Instead, the study led to a shock of

discovery that through these more than 200 blacks educated

at Oberlin a singularly important social and political con­

tribution was made which is still viable today. The study

begins with an interpretation of the interplay of forces

and emotions that generated the process by which Negroes

were educated prior to the Civil War.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER II

THE EDUCATION OF AMERICAN NEGROES

PRIOR TO 1860

So long Subdued and time-lost So far away Are the drums— and yet Is Africa. Through some vast mist of race Not even memories alive There comes this song Save those that history I do not understand books create This song of atavistic land Save those that songs Of bitter yearnings lost Beat back into the blood Without a place Beat out blood in sad-sung So long In strange un-Negro tongue So far away So long Is Africa’s So far away Dark face. Is Africa. — "Afro-American Fragments!/ by Langston Hughes

Dimly, black Americans remember their homeland.

Their orientation to America taught them to disclaim their

native land for its primitive savagery, yet--solely because

they bore the "dark face” of their homeland--offered them

no home-haven in its place. For generations it left them

with self-doubt and ambivalence toward their ancestral

continent.

The cultural shock of being taken "So long/So far

away" from Africa began when blacks left their village,

1'Crisis, Magazine, July 1930.

26

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whether it was on the coast or in the interior. The in­

human existence they led in the coffles to the coast, in

the slave pens there, and during the passage to America,

often served to strengthen their disorientation to the

point of insanity, mutiny, or suicide by strangulation, o drowning, or even refusal to eat.

The sense of isolation was compounded in the United

States. Slaves were sold in small groups, and each one was

separated from whomever in his family, friends, or tribe

had survived the "middle passage" with him. When the newly

arrived slave reached the plantation, he was greeted with

derision and hostility by the Africans who had preceeded

him as, for ages, status seekers have reacted towards one

who uncomfortably reminds them of their own not so distant

oafishness. The contempt and ridicule which they heaped on O him for his barbaric ways increased his anomie. These

"old hands" were an important step in the slave's education

since the economics of the system demanded that everything

2 E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family in the United States (Chicago, 1966), pp. 3-4, t-1, 13-14; August Meier and Elliott M. Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto (New York, 1966), pp. 30-34; William Z. Poster, The Negro People in Americ an His tory (New York, 1954), pp. 26, 28-31; Winthrop Jordan, White Over Black (Baltimore, 1969), pp. 57-59. 3 Robert E. Park, "The Conflict and Fusion of Cultures," Journal of Negro History, IV (1919), 117, as quoted by Frazier, The Negro in the United States, pp. 6-7; Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Antebellum South (New York, 1956), pp. 363 and 368.

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he learned be aimed at the destruction of his racial and

personal pride. He quickly and constantly learned his place

--that he was savage, inferior, subservient, and could not

hope to improve his situation in this world.^

So thorough was this primary education that, except

in isolated areas such as the Sea Islands of Georgia and

South Carolina, very few Africanisms remained to give the

third and fourth generations any basis for cultural pride.

Dragged from highly complex agrarian societies with ela­

borate religious traditions, intricate political institu­

tions, highly developed economic systems, and notable cul­

tural achievements, most slaves were brought to new homes

which were frequently void of intellectual, inventive, and

creative stimulus. Survival instinct forced them to reject

all of their old standards which had no direct bearing on

an alien existence in America. Therefore, black Americans

lost their legacy in the struggle with the pressures of

finding a new identity, learning a new language, and adapt­

ing to the white man's customs in a biracial society. At

the same time, they forcibly learned that they could never

hope to be assimilated into the Southern white culture."*

^Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts (New York, 1963), pp. 53-55; Frederick A. McGinnis, The Education of Negroes in Ohio (Wilberforce, Ohio, 1962), p. xi.

5Joseph Greenberg, "The Negro Kingdoms of the Sudan," Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, Series II (1949), Chapters 1, II, et passim; Robert S. Rattray, The

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Slaves were educated to be a white person's valuable

economic investment, and the main instrument of indoctri­

nation was control— control through authority of the law,

control through physical violence, insidious control through

paternalism. Paternalism discouraged the development of

self-reliance and independence and encouraged loyalty and

conformity. The amount of paternalism and discipline a

slave received depended on his proximity to the master and

on the master's personality. The total authority of the

system created two basic types of masters: the kind, benev­

olent despot and the brutal, authoritarian tyrant. The

average slaveholder was somewhere in between since peer

pressures and economics usually muted extremism at either

end. Field hands on large plantations had less contact with

whites, except the overseer, than did a slave on a small

farm, in the master's household, or in a city. Where there

was close contact between master and slave, the relation­

ship changed from a purely economic situation into a social

institution. When the human nature of both whites and

blacks came into play, the acculturation, assimilation, and

amalgamation of the blacks was increased.^

Ashanti (Oxford, 1923), passim; Meier and Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto, pp. 4-16, 20-21; Stampp, Peculiar Institution, pp. 361-63, 368; Foster, Negro People in American History, pp. 15-20; Frazier, Negro Fami1y iTT the United States, pp. 5-9, 11-16.

^Frazier, Negro Family in the United States, p. 360; Harvey Wish, ed., Slavery in the South (New York, 1964),

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Both sides benefitted from this socialization. The

whites gained servants who were more productive, could be

trusted to oversee a farm, run a business, and betray slave

revolts. The slaves thrust into this closeness received

better food and clothing as well as leadership and status in

the eyes of other slaves. They also received elements of

education, which they passed on to less fortunate slaves.

Personal and household slaves were at the top of the social

ladder among slaves, and they were the ones with the best

chance of receiving a literary education.^ The education

of blacks, beyond that of teaching them their place and the

rudiments of the language, soon became a highly controver­

sial religious issue.

As true Christians, the colonists believed in pro­

selytizing, but as slaveholders they were not anxious to

convert slaves if conversion meant that slaves were human Q beings and must therefore be released. Cotton Mather

p. xvii, and quoting Josiah Henson, "Truth Stranger than Fiction (1858), pp. 29-36; Kenneth M. Stampp, "The Daily Life of the Southern Slave" in Key Issues in the Afro- American Experience, ed. by Nathan I. Huggins, Martin Kilson, Daniel M. Fox, 2 vols. (New York, 1971), I, 116-37.

^Carter G. Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (New York, 1915), pp. 206-15; Stampp, Peculiar Institution, pp. 163-64, 323-30; Frazier, Negro family in The United States, pp. 25-31; Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts, pp. 61-63; Henry Allen Bullock, A History of Negro Education in the South from 1619 to the Present (New York, 1970), pp. 4-11.

^Josiah Clark Nott, Two Lectures on the Connection Between the Bibical and Physical History of Man (1348; rpt.

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found nothing in the Bible to suggest manumission should

follow conversion and Virginia, with the other states close

behind, legally agreed in 1667. Throughout the seventeenth

and early eighteenth centuries, Anglicans and Quakers urged

the planters and other slaveholders to educate their blacks

so they could read the Bible and become enlightened Chris- 9 tians.

Planters raised further objections to converting

slaves to Christianity. They believed that enlightenment

would make slaves impudent, rebellious, and prone to think

of themselves as equal to whites. Reading the Bible was

certain to lead to reading other publications. This argument

cropped up repeatedly in the South, especially after large

slave revolts or conspiracies. Faced with this new obstacle

to gaining converts, the Society for the Propagation of the

Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), backed by the Bishop of London,

devised a Christianity-for-slaves attitude which grew into a

defense of slavery itself. Preaching respect, obedience,

and patience in receiving punishment, and proclaiming that

slavery.was the will of God, sermons preached by SPG

New York, 1969), passim; Josiah Clark Nott and George R. Gliddon, Types of Mankind (1854; rpt. Miami, Fla., 1969), passim; Jonn H. Van Evrie, Negroes and Negro lfSlavery" (New York, 1863), passim.

^Bradford Chambers, ed., Chronicles of Black Protest (New York, 1969), pp. 36-37, quoting Virginia Statute at Large of 1667, published for the General Assembly of Virginia, 1832; Jordan, White Over Black, pp. 92-93, 180-81.

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missionaries to slaves were baited with promises of a heav­

enly reward for faithful service to their earthly masters.^

Thus religion forged another link in the chain of control.

The Quakers were a notable exception to religious

hypocrisy. Backed by their founder George Fox, they insisted

on applying Christian morality even to slaves. Their fervent

antinomian preaching led Virginia and North Carolina to bar

Negroes from attending Friends' meetings and to require all

teachers to take the oath of allegiance and supremacy. Per­

sistently, the Quakers kept their schools open despite local

furor of various types, and in 1731 mention is made of some

slaves they had taught to read and write. Servants in Quaker

households where slavery was contravened usually received the

basics of an English education.^

In 1695 Reverend Samuel Thomas, Anglican, opened the

first recorded school for slaves in Goose Creek Parish,

South Carolina, fifteen miles north of Charleston. Later

supported by the SPG, he claimed after ten years twenty

■^Thomas Bacon, Two Sermons, Preached to a Congre- gation of Slaves, at the Parish Church in the Province of Maryland (London, 1/49), pp. 64-65; Jordan, White Over Black, pp. 181-83, 185-86, 197-98; Woodson, Education of the Negro, pp. 28-29, citing Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia (in J. H. U. Studies, series xxxi, bio. 3), 10/;' Benjamin Brawley, A Social History of the American Negro (London, 1970), p . 35; Aptheker, American Negro Slave kevolts, 56-57. pp.

^Hfoodson, Education of the Negro, pp. 26, 43-46; Jordan, White Over Black, pp. 194-97;' Howard K. Beale, A History of Freedom of Teaching in American Schools (New York, 1741T, pp.' 112-32.------— ------

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slave communicants, including several Negroes he taught to

read and write, and one thousand slaves who were anxious to

be converted. The SPG made gradual advances in educating

slaves until in 1743 or 1744 they opened a school in Charles­

ton which was slated to be taught eventually by two slaves,

Harry and Andrew, who had been especially purchased for the

project. The idea had been proposed in 1740 and Reverend

Alexander Garden had spent the intervening years teaching

the two teen-aged future teachers along with his other

charges. However, Andrew, ”tho' an exceeding good natur'd

& willing creature,’1 was not particularly endowed for the

scholarly life, and before Harry could complete his prepa­

ration for teaching, South Carolina, troubled by slave rebel­

lions and the Florida repercussions of King George's War,

passed a slave code with a prohibition against teaching 12 slaves to read.

During the early 1700's the SPG continued opening

schools, especially in the rural areas where most slaves

were concentrated. In gentlemanly churches they pleaded

with planters to have their slaves catechized and baptized.

However, as Woodson notes, the proliferation of "contem­

porary complaints" from the ministers about the slaveowners'

12 Alexander Garden to Philip Bearcroft, May 6, 1740, quoted in its entirety in Frank J. Klineberg, An Appraisal of the Negro in Colonial South Carolina (Washington, 1941), p. 115; William Loren Katz,' Eyewitness (New York, 1967), p. 22; Woodson, Education of the Negro', pp. 33-35; Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts, pp. 187-91.

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reluctance shows "that the cause lacked something to make 13 the movement general.

The Great Awakening, however, accomplished what the

SPG could not. Especially in the 1740's, evangelists rode

through the colonies exhorting and preaching to crowds of

blacks and whites. Re-emphasizing the priesthood of all

believers, demolishing the orderly process of admission, and

throwing out the circumspect catechism, these preachers

attracted many converts, black and white, and created schisms

in the more formal churches. Their tendency towards intense

religious conviction was beneficial for them as their doc­

trine of egalitarianism was for blacks. Any man--slave or

free, black or white— could be converted and could preach.

Still rampaging through the South in the 1760's, the Great

Awakening joined with the Revolutionary spirit and the com­

bined impact finally forced the SPG to give up and leave

for England in the 1770's. And blacks, slave and free, 14 began to preach to whites as well as blacks.

^^Woodson, Education of the Negro, p. 5; on SPG activities, see pp. 23-37 and Jordan, white Over Black, pp. 182-83. Jordan also goes into detail, pp. 206-12, about the problems faced by the Anglican Church in general and the SPG in particular. One SPG agent found the whites in South Carolina almost as heathen as the blacks.

^Woodson, Education of the Negro, p. 124; Jordan, White Over Black, pp. 212-13, 296, 418-19. See Colin Brummitt Goodykoontz, Home Missions on the American Frontier With Particular Reference to the American Missionary Society (Caldwell, Idaho, 1939), pp. 89-90, for a discussion of the official reasons for the SPG's exit.

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Religion exerted a unifying influence among Southern

slaves. Its power was derived from the all-black church—

established as a result of discrimination in white churches.

Blacks never really achieved membership in a white church.

They were tolerated. They either went to a church where they

sat in a separate section from the whites, or they went to a

separate service or formed their own church. As the slaves'

sole social organization, the black church was their first,

and frequently their only, means of finding self-identity

and group identity; it supplied a propitious environment for

self-expression; it gave slaves some measure of self-esteem

and self-direction; and, since any type of organized insti­

tution, educational or otherwise, was usually prohibited

elsewhere, the church served as a primary means for slaves to

become literate.^

The earliest known all-black church, the Silver Bluff

Baptist Church in South Carolina, was organized some time

around 1775 by David George, a runaway slave from Virginia.

After three years of preaching George escaped to freedom

with his entire congregation by joining the British lines in

Savannah and at the end of the war sailed with the British

^Vincent Harding, "Religion and Resistance Among Antebellum Negroes, 1800-1860," in The Making of Black America, eds. August Meier and Elliot Rudwick, 2 volsT, Vol. I, The Origins of Black Americans (New York, 1969), pp. 179-97, pre­ sents a convincing argument that the black church was not a "palliative" nor an "opiate" but that it was an instrument of resistance for the slave.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to Nova Scotia. There George gained official sanction to

preach in three provinces. A few years later he j oined

another black minister in establishing what is believed to

have been the first Baptist Church in West Africa.^

Slaveowners' fears that black assemblages were

breeding places for plotting insurrections frequently re­

sulted in attempts to keep blacks from attending religious

services. However, blacks placed such high priority on

religion that they had little regard for personal safety

when it came to going to church. This is illustrated in

the determination shown by Andrew Bryan and his flock in

Savannah, Georgia. When Bryan began his career, white

hostility had forced him to hide his congregation deep in

the swamps for services. In 1788, after he had been or­

dained a minister, he organized the first Baptist church

in Savannah. Although slaves in his congregation were

regularly and severely beaten and jailed for attending,

they continued to be faithful church members. Bryan him­

self was imprisoned and on one occasion was whipped until

he bled; yet he persisted in his mission as a minister.

By 1794, he had three churches totaling 700 and had con­

verted several hundred slaves— although 300 could not be

^Brawley, Social History of the American Negro, pp. 66-67; Woodson, Education of the Negro, p. 85; Sidney Kaplan, The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revo­ lution, 1770-1800 (Washington, D. C., 1973), pp. 75-76.

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baptized because their masters objected.^

Any attempt to provide classroom instruction for

black children aroused great fears and suspicions among

white slaveowners. The career of John Chavis, a black

Presbyterian minister and school teacher, serves as an

example of the obstructive results of these fears on the

black individual and on the education of blacks. While

whites sought to exploit Chavis' talents, their fear of the

use of his brilliance for the potential control of slaves

was greater. As part of a wager concerning the capacity of

Negroes for a college education, Chavis, a freedman, was

sent by his white neighbors to Washington Academy--now

Washington and Lee University--in Lexington, Virginia, and

in 1792 to Princeton to study privately under President

Witherspoon at the College of New Jersey. Having completed

the classical course in theology, he was cautiously admitted

to the Presbytery of Lexington in Virginia to work as a

missionary among Negroes. In 1805 he opened a school of

classical education admitting both white children and free

Negro children. Later, in an understated advertisement for

his school he announced that, "for the accommodation of some

of his employers," he would henceforth exclude "all chil­

dren of colour" from the day school, and would teach white

^Brawley, Social History of the American Negro, p. 67; Kaplan, Black Presence, pp. 77-79.

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students by day and black children in the evening. Having

been forced to yield to a state law which prohibited Negroes

from preaching, he devoted all his time to the school and

taught among his many white students the sons of the State

Chief Justice, a future state governor, and a future United

States Senator. In 1831, as a result of the Nat Turner

insurrection, his school was closed, and Chavis was charged

with teaching abolitionism. He was forced to abandon his

admittedly superior work as a teacher and his career as a

minister although he published sermons before his death in

1837.18

The more usual educational background for black

ministers was one that was controlled by white ministers.

After learning to read and write, blacks were hired by

white preachers as attendants and given "time to observe,

to study, and even to address their audiences." The heinous

nature of "crimes" against the master was stressed in their

training for communication to their congregations. However,

in black churches members were more likely to be expelled

for drunkeness and thievery rather than for sins against

18 James C. Ballagh, "John Chavis," Dictionary of American Biography, IV, 44-45; "A Negro Teacher of Southern Whites," Baltimore Sun, Dec. 8, 1929; Booker T. Washington and W. E. Burghardt DuBois, The Negro in the South (Philadel­ phia, 1907), pp. 146-47; Woodson, Education of the Negro, pp. 116-17; Brawley, Social History of the American Negro, p. 70. The quotation is from an advertisement in The Raleigh Register, Summer, 1808, as cited in KaplariTHTlack Presence, p. lfflT, as part of an excellent sketch of Chavis' life.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39 19 whites.

Apparently masters were prone to a constant per­

sonal conflict between increasing the value of their pro­

perty through training and taking a risk of cultivating

rebelliousness in a slave through education. In a way,

economic value won out because the greatest opportunity

for a slave to acquire an education came through the econ­

omy based on the large estates. When it became profitable

to use slaves for work other than as field hands, owners

selected their most intelligent slaves as personal or house­

hold slaves or trained tham as craftsmen. Some plantations

became self-contained villages. Although rare, there were

a few small and medium-sized holdings where one or more

slaves became so trusted that the management of the farm

was left entirely in their hands. The duties of such slaves

naturally required their education to include reading,

writing, and at least grade-school arithmetic. Sometimes

the owner taught them what they needed to know, but in at

least one case the owner was illiterate and was proud of 20 the education which his slaves had acquired.

The personal slaves and their children usually had

the best opportunities to learn to read and write because

■^Stampp, Peculiar Institution, pp. 158-162. 20 Bullock, History of Negro Education in the South, pp. 4-6; Woodson, Education of the Negro, pp. 7S~, 80, 210; Stampp, Peculiar Institution, pp. 34-36, 152, 228-29.

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of proximity to educated white children and adults.

Frederick Douglass' mistress, for example, taught him to

read the Bible. When his master explained to her the dan­

gers of educating a slave however, whe commanded Douglass

to stop reading and thereafter snatched away from him any

book or paper which she caught him reading. When Sarah

Grimke was forbidden by law to teach Negroes to read in the

"colored Sabbath school" in South Carolina, she took "almost

malicious satisfaction in teaching her little waiting maid 21 at night" in defiance of the law.

The city itself was the urban slave's classroom.

Although in cities and towns the night patrol was more

vigilant, the arsenal always nearby, and the slaveowner

more likely to jail his runaways, urban slaves had more

personal freedom than those on plantations. Again the econ­

omy had more strength than either custom or the law.

It was easier and cheaper for masters to permit slaves to

live away from home in cities. The shacks in which the

slaves lived were vastly inferior to the homes of their

masters, but slaves cherished their freedom from the

presence of whites and the opportunity to exchange

21 Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom (New York, 1855), pp. 28; Bullock. History of Negro Education in the South, pp. 9-10; Woodson, Education of the Negro" pp. 208, 214; Meier and Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto, pp. 57-58; Stampp, Peculiar Institution, pp. 151-53; 330, 334, 367-71; Beale,~~5istory of Freedom~of Teaching, p. 123, cites the quotation from Sarah Grimke.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41 22 experiences with other slaves.

Most urban slaves were in unskilled or domestic

occupations: owners or hirers of slaves might use them as

household servants; richer slaveowners had full, osten­

tatious household staffs; hotels and spas hired slaves from

their masters and paid the masters for their services; city-

owned or hired slaves manned the fire and public works depart­

ments; slaves were sailors and stewards, barbers and body­

guards. Bakehouses, laundries, shipyards, and dockyards

used slaves in both skilled and unskilled occupations; fac­

tories owned or hired large numbers. What with skilled

factory workers, and artisans, and craftsmen with shops,

making money for their masters, city slaves tended to pick

up the dismaying "habit of roaming around and taking care 23 of themselves."

Opportunities for using their skills in order to

purchase freedom--although illegal— were more easily

afforded in cities than in rural areas, particularly in the

upper South. Despite the long hours of required work for

the master, many slaves managed to work enough extra hours

to buy their own freedom and that of their families.

22 Meier and Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto, pp. 65-67; Stampp, Peculiar Institution, pp. 62-63. 23 Quotation is from Stampp, Peculiar Institution, p. 147, citing Frederick Law Olmstead, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, pp. 58-59, emphasis in the original, and see also pp. 63, 69, 71-73; Jordan, White Over Black, p. 128; Meier and Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto, p. 65.

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Occasionally, an owner would agree to the plan then renege 24 on the contract--which was not legally enforcible.

Slaves had close contact with free Negroes in

Southern towns and cities and were sometimes able to attend

free Negro schools where they were taught by free Negro

teachers. Since rigid laws forbade the teaching of slaves

in every Southern state with the exception of Maryland,

Kentucky, and Tennessee, slaves usually attended these

schools surreptitiously. If discovered, teachers faced

physical punishment plus a fine and a jail sentence, and

many times schools were closed upon the complaint of slave­

owners who discovered that their slaves were students. On

two occasions, for example, Sabbath schools being conducted

secretly by Frederick Douglass were discovered by church 25 members and violently broken up.

Negroes who were not slaves were classified according

to law as "free"--a mockery of their actual condition. Ori­

ginating from early seventeenth century Negroes whose citi­

zenship antedated the institution of slavery in the nation,

^Meier and Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto, pp. 55, 67; Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (New York, 1969), p. 59; Stampp, Peculiar Institution, pp. 72, 96-97, 279. Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts, p. 65, lists fifteen blacks who bought tneir way to freedom, from Richard Allen to Denmark Vessey, and states that "Thousands’* actu­ ally bought liberty. 2 S Ought Our Slaves Be Taught to Read? DeBow's Review and Industrial Resources, Statistics, etc., XVIII (Jan. 1856), 52; Beale, History of Freedom of ‘Teaching, pp. 118-26.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the free Negro population increased as law and human

nature dictated. In addition to those who retained their

original freedom, Negroes were said to be free when they

were granted liberty after military service or were legally

manumitted through the will of the owner or through the

purchase of their own freedom. The children of free Negro

and Indian parentage, mulatto children born of white women,

and the mulatto children born of free Negro women were also

classified as free--and black. Their actual freedom was

circumscribed by white control because their very presence

undermined an important element of the economy--slavery.

Particularly in the South, free Negroes were chronically

suspected of fomenting riots, arousing slaves to rebellion,

and assisting fugitives. They were stereotyped as slow-

witted and corrupt. In unequal competition with poor

whites for jobs which slave labor left available, they

were usually destitute--a condition which was cited as proof

that blacks lacked the capacity to provide for themselves.

They congregated mainly in towns and cities and were gen­

erally, from a social and political point of view, closer

to the predicament of the slave than to the status of cit­

izen. They were required to carry a certificate of free­

dom on their persons at all times. They were denied the

right to vote or hold public office and had far from equal

access to employment opportunities. Further, curfews and

travel restrictions were imposed on them,and they were

required to occupy outside seats on stage-coaches and to

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share quarters with live-stock and other cargo on boats.

They were either barred from hotels, restaurants, and hos­

pitals or were offered inferior accommodations. Despite

these degrading conditions, a surprising number of free

Negroes nevertheless managed to acquire and operate busi- 26 nesses, accumulate property, and gain financial security.

Even during the period of comparative humanitarian

concern in the South--before the development of section­

alism in the early 18001s--opportunities for free Negroes

to be educated were a matter of rare chance. Laws and

customs prohibiting the teaching of Negroes discouraged the

founding of schools by religious organizations interested

in teaching Negroes to read the Bible. Consequently, in

some areas no schools admitted Negroes prior to the Civil

War. In spite of the rigorous laws, however, one or two

religious organizations succeeded in establishing a scatter­

ing of Sabbath schools. Quakers were so determined in their

efforts that by 1816 they finally succeeded in gaining per­

mission to establish a school for Negroes in North Carolina

open two days a week. In 1821 Levi Coffin and his cousin,

Vestal Coffin, organized a Sabbath school in North Carolina.

After a few months, however, local slaveowners claimed that

education made their slaves "discontented and uneasy, and

created a desire for the privileges that others had." The

^Meier and Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto, pp. 84-88; Jordan, White Over Black, pp. 122-28, 407-11.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45 27 Coffins were forced to close their school.

A few schools for blacks were established in Rich­

mond, Norfolk and Petersburg, and in Henrico County, just

outside Richmond, revenue from the estate of Robert Pleasants

was used to provide funds for a free school for blacks in

1805. In Georgetown, District of Columbia, classes were

interracial, and Catholics were sending out teachers to in­

struct blacks. Quaker neighbors were lending Benjamin

Banneker books near Ellicott Mills, Maryland, and rural

blacks in the vicinity sometimes found similar opportunities.

Catholics were teaching blacks in Baltimore.

The most stable schools in the South were those

operated by black self-help organizations. For a variety

of reasons specific to each city, free Negroes in Charleston

Baltimore, Washington, and New Orleans had more civil rights

than did free Negroes elsewhere in the South. Their better

legal status had great bearing on the comparatively early

organization of schools for blacks and also on the sub­

sequent early development of public education for Negroes

in those cities. Whereas free Negroes in New Orleans, for

example, did not have suffrage, they did exercise their

legal rights to testify against whites, to seek legal

27 Levi Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, the Reputed President of the Underground Railroad (1876; rpt. New ¥ork, 1968), pp. 69-71; Beale, History of Freedom of Teaching, pp. 112-24; Woodson, Education of the Negrol pp. 113-14.

^^Woodson, Education of the Negro, pp. 109-12.

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redress, and to serve as legal witnesses in criminal cases

involving whites. They could and did make legal contracts

with whites and were entitled to inheritance privileges

— although an acknowledgement of paternity was necessary

before a mulatto child of a white parent could inherit.

Free Negroes in New Orleans also had the right to own,

operate, and attend schools without interference. Several 29 Catholic schools admitted Negroes as early as 1803.

Wealthy families of the gens de couleur— Creole

Negroes so distinctive that they formed an intermediate

caste between white and black— made substantial contribu­

tions to the education of free Negroes in the city. Originat­

ing during the French and Spanish colonial period, these

Creole Negroes had retained their civil and economic rights

when Louisiana became a part of the union. The caste

grew larger, absorbing not only their own descendants but

Creole immigrants from Haiti during the early part of the

nineteenth century and the mulatto offspring of white

slaveowners who were respectable natives of Louisiana as

well. As a whole, they identified most closely with the

white upper class, even to the extent of being landed slave­

owners. Indeed, they were identified as being ''allied to

the white rather than the black . . . because of freedom,

^Woodson, Education of the Negro, pp. 128-29; Meier and Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto, p. 85; H. E. Sterkx, The Free Negro in Ante-Bellum Louisiana (Cranbury, N. J., 1972), pp. 160-99.

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wealth, respectability and light color . . . many of whom

were nearly white, . . . by blood, sympathy, association, 30 slaveholding, and other interests.

The gens de couleur either sent their own children

to elite private or parochial schools or hired expensive

French tutors and almost always sent their older children

to France for advanced education. Nevertheless, they made

several positive contributions toward the education of

poorer Negro freedmen of the city. They founded and support­

ed the New Orleans Institution Catholique des Orphelins

Indigents in 1847 for the purpose of educating poor, free

Negroes. They willed considerable sums of money and prop­

erty to be used for the education of poor Negroes. In 1850

they financially supported the founding of a congregation

of black Catholic nuns— the Sisters of the Holy Family,

presently still a vigorously active order--who devoted them­

selves to social service for Negroes and provided for care 31 for black orphans and the aged.

A group of mulattoes in Charleston also aided

30 The quotation is from U. S. Army, Department of the Gulf, Board of Education for Freedmen, Report . . . 1864, p. 4, as cited by Beale. History of Freedom of leaching, p. 121; Nathan Willey. Education of the Colored Population of Louisiana," Harper s New Monthly Magazine, XXXIII (1866), 248-50; Sterkx, Free Negro in Ante-bellum Louisiana, pp. 8- 10, 269-72. 31 Sterkx, Free Negro in Ante-Bellum Louisiana, pp. 258-59, 269-74; Willey, ''Education of the Colored Population of Louisiana," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, XXXIII (1866), 248-50.

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education. Founded in 1790, the Brown Fellowship Society

specifically based membership on skin-color. Believed to

be the first formally organized Negro benevolence society

in the South, it was matched the following year by the Free

Dark Men of Color. One of the main purposes of these organi­

zations was the operation of schools for free Negro children,

most of whom paid fees in order to attend. In the 1820's

the activities of the Free Dark Men of Color fell under the

suspicion and scrutiny of local whites and were restricted.

However, the Brown Fellowship Society, which conciliated

whites by permitting no discussions of controversial issues

such as slavery in its meetings and maintained white con­

nections through its artisan members, received little if 3 9 any white surveillance. "

Benevolent societies and trade associations operated

in other Southern communities with Baltimore, in 1835,

having the largest number of them--more than 30 composed of

35 to 150 members each. Because of state and local re­

strictions, some benefit societies had to operate in secret.

With few exceptions, both antebellum societies and schools

for Negroes were subject to supervision by whites. Schools

particularly were subjected to intermittent mob violence,

32 Meier and Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto, pp. 82- 83; Brawley, Social History of the American Negro, pp. 72-73; E. Franklin Frazier, Black gourgeoisie: The Rise of a New Middle Class in the l/nited States (London, 1962), p. Il7: Frazier, Negro Family in the United States, p. 147.

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burnings, and having teachers run out of town whenever an 33 insurrection occurred in some part of the country.

Very little difference existed essentially between

the rationale of white Northerners and white Southerners in

creating the slave system. The ideology of enslavement was

predicated on absolute credence in white supremacy; it

rationalized the condition of blacks to be that of a sub­

human species. Codes developed in both North and South for

the repression and control of slaves classified blacks as

beasts and assumed that inferiority was a racial character­

istic of the enslaved. As a rule, religious denominations

in the North— again with the exception of the Quakers and

some individual ministers in other denominations— were as

careful as those in the South to grant Christian sanction of

slavery and to decree that baptism did not absolve a slave

from their God-ordained submission to the will of their 34 masters.

Laws, codes, and customs varied from state to state,

but on the whole, due to ameliorating circumstances, slavery

in the North tended not to be as cruel and degrading as it

was in the South— particularly the deep South. For example,

^^Woodson, Education of the Negro, pp. 151-78; Beale, History of Freedom of Teaching, pp. 122-25; Meier and Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto, pp. 82-83. 34 Foster, Negro People in American History, pp. 37- 38; Jordan, White foyer Black, pp. 83-85; Andrew E . Murray, Presbyterians""and the Negro— A History (Philadelphia, 1966), pp. 6-28.

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in Pennsylvania the slave codes were similar to those in

the South, but the Quakers and the German craftsmen and

farmers discouraged slave importation and encouraged humane

treatment. In New York and New Jersey the slave codes were

also similar to those in the South, and although the treat­

ment of slaves was somewhat eased by the fact that there

were small farms and therefore a tendency to small slave-

holdings, the serious slave revolts in New York City in

1712 and 1741 discouraged any ideas of lessening their

severity. New York could be as cruel as the deep South

in punishing rebellious slaves. Besides not having a

strong state religion, which might have tempered the treat­

ment of slaves, New York was then, as now, a haven for

diverse nationalities. No strong sense of community or 35 peer pressure prevailed to restrain a tyrannical master.

As in the South, opportunities for education de­

pended upon unusual chance. Northern slaves picked up

their education from a variety of occupations just as

Southern slaves did; city slaves had a greater exposure to

outside influences than rural slaves. A few formal schools

were established by whites early during the eighteenth

century, but in most instances they were short-lived due to

the varying evaluations of when a slave might be permitted

35 Meier and Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto, pp. 40-41; Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts, pp. 173, 194-95; Jordan, White Over BlackT PP. 119-20, 198-200, 204, 205-10.

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to learn to read the Bible without endangering the security

of white slaveowners.

The instantaneous effect that insurrection had on

education is illustrated by the difficulty experienced by

Elias Neau, a French Hugenot. In 1704, Neau opened a

school for Negroes in New York under the auspices of the

SPG. When a group of slaves tried to burn down the city

in 1712, the school was closed and Neau was accused of

masterminding the insurrection through his students. After

a great deal of trouble, he and all but one of his students

were cleared of the charges, and the officials permitted

him to re-open his school. The council, however, declared

it illegal for blacks to be out after dark without candles

or lanterns, which amounted to an order for most Negroes,

including Neau's evening students, to remain indoors since

all but few had no money of their own with which to buy a

candle. In spite of a number of similar problems, and

although Neau died in 1722, his school somehow continued up

to the Revolutionary period through a succession of ministers

and assistants

Other examples of religious proselytizing through

educating slaves to be literate existed in other parts of

the North. In Pennsylvania, the Moravians established a

mission for Negroes in 1738 at Bethlehem. In Maryland

^^Woodson, Education of the Negro, pp. 26-28; Brawley, Social History of the American Negro, p. 36.

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Dr. Thomas Bray was sent on a mission to convert Negroes in

1696 by the Bishop of London. When Bray died, a group of

missionaries known as "the Associates of Dr. Bray" estab­

lished schools with the funds left by Bray. The strong

antislavery sentiment of Quakers was obvious by the number

of schools and societies organized by them throughout the

North during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nine­

teenth centuries. By 1815 these schools were educating

hundreds of children as well as a number of adults without

charge. In 1822 the Female Association of Quakers founded

at least one school, the Union Society of Quakers was edu­

cating adults in three schools, and the Infant School 37 Society of Philadelphia was teaching young adults.

Despite the comparatively permissive attitudes in

the North toward teaching slaves to read the Bible, North­

erners were as fearful of educating Negroes as Southerners

were. Northern whites vigorously objected to racially mixed

schools for fear of miscegenation. Proposals to found a

Negro school in an area aroused anxious protests from

local whites that the school would attract fugitive slaves

and an overwhelming influx of perpetually indigent blacks

who would be a blight on the community. They closed and

burned schools and drove teachers out of town as readily as

Southerners did. The fate of Noyes Academy in Canaan,

37 Woodson, Education of the Negro, pp. 35-37, 79, 103-07, 365. ------

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. New Hampshire, illustrates the desperate lengths to which

negrophobia drove some Northerners. In 1835 the trustees

of the newly established Noyes Academy announced their

policy of admitting students without regard to race or color.

Twenty-eight whites and fourteen Negroes enrolled— among

them Henry Highland Garnet and Alexander Crummell, both of

whom became strong political leaders. The white citizens

panicked. Using approximately one hundred yoke of oxen,

several hundred white men lifted the entire newly constructed

building from its foundation and deposited it in a swamp.

No one was arrested, nor was anyone required to pay for the

destruction of the school.^

For all the similarity between North and South

insofar as attitudes toward and treatment of black Americans

were concerned, the dominant political philosophy of North­

ern white leadership emphasized the ideals of the American

Revolutionary era. This made a critical difference in the

antebellum position of Northern Negroes. The inconsistency

between the principles of a democratic government and the

practice of enslaving a people was inescapable--not only to

Americans, but to other nations as well. The system of

■^Russell B. Nye, Fettered Freedom: Civil Liberties and the Slavery Controversy, 1830-1860 (East Lansing, Mich., 1949), pV &2; Leon F. Litwack, North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860 (Chicago, 1961), pp. 117-20; Beale, History of Freedom of Teaching, pp. 128-29; Harriet Martineau, The 'Martyr Age of the United States (1839; rtp. New York, 1969), p. 42.

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slavery was an embairassment to a country which professed

belief in equality and liberty. As British abolitionist

Charles Stuart observed, America was making itself ridicu­

lous as a Christian, democratic nation by "applauding liberty,

yet keeping slaves!" In the wake of the War for Independence

men in power, particularly in the Northeast, were openly

voicing their opposition to slavery, and antislavery sympa­

thizers were to be found among both Northern and Southern

whites, many of whom were slaveholders. In fact, as sec­

tionalism increased, an impressive number of slaveholders

who were unable to reconcile slavery with their own prin­

ciples migrated to the North or to the free lands in the new

West where they liberated their slaves and joined Northerners

of their own persuasion in protesting the continuance of

slavery. In North of Slavery Leon F. Litwack attaches such

importance to Northerners' belief in the natural rights of

man that he raises the question of whether the emancipation

of Negroes in the North might have been due— not to the

economic failure of slavery in that region— but to the spirit 39 of liberty which dominated the aga Thus, in the North, a

synthesis of respect for civil liberties and the consequent

opposition to slavery created a climate in which Negroes,

39 Meier and Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto, pp. 42-47; Litwack, North of Slavery, pp. 6-7; Dwight Lowell Dumond, Antislavery Origins of" the Civil War in the United States (Ann Arbor, Mich?, l£’3’9’/, pp. 6-9, contends that the migration of Southerners had a major role in the development of sectionalism.

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allied with white antislavery sympathizers, could seek

political and legal redress for abuses of their civil rights.

Antislavery meant against slavery, but it did not

necessarily mean pro-free-Negro. Although the free Negro

population antedated the institution of slavery and had

grown considerably through natural increase and manumission

prior to the Revolution, no Northern state granted free

Negroes their full rights as citizens. Many free Negroes,

suffering from rigid discrimination, were socially para­

lyzed by poverty, but a significant number, despite dis­

criminatory handicaps, were active citizens contributing to

the progress of social institutions within their communities.

They were artisans and businessmen, property owners, bar­

bers, caterers, tailors, and paid servants--hard working

and respectable--and they showed political sophistication

in appealing their basic citizenship rights and in pro­

testing the inconsistency of their position with the polit­

ical philosophy of the time. Individually and collectively,

both slave and free capitalized on the theoretical dedi­

cation of whites to belief in human liberty, natural rights,

and human progress. For example, Elizabeth Freeman, who had

been born a slave in Boston around 1742 and whose husband

had been killed in action during the Revolution, heard the

Bill of Rights being discussed while she was serving dinner

in her master's house. Insulted and enraged when her mis­

tress attacked another slave— her younger sister— with a hot

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shovel, Miss Freeman deflected the blow, sought legal

counsel, sued for her freedom, and won— two years before

slavery was abolished in Massachusetts.^ Before 1780

groups of slaves in New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massa­

chusetts petitioned their state legislatures for the abo­

lition of slavery, basing their cases on the Declaration

of Independence. In 1780 Paul Cuffee, a free mustee from

New Bedford, led a group of free blacks in protesting tax- 41 ation without representation.

When emancipation in the North and in the free

states of the Old Northwest did not relieve blacks of the

social and economic oppression of discrimination, Negroes

unified through conventions and mutual aid societies--

petitioning, as American citizens, for civil liberties,

running campaigns for the right to vote, and protesting

black laws and the classification of the race as inferior.

In some instances, black groups used self-imposed social

isolation in protesting the unendurable humiliation required

40 Harriet Martineau, Retrospect of Western Travel (1838; rpt. New York, 1969), pp. 245-50; Kaplan, Black Presence, pp. 216-17, which relates the poignant story of Elizabeth Freeman's life, basing it on Martineau's account; see Meier and Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto, pp. 80-94, for a study of the nature of contemporary Negroprotest and the economic and social differentiation among blacks. 41 Meier and Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto, p. 43; Foster, Negro People in American History, p. 48; Brawley, Social History o£ the American Negro, p. 123; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, p. 191.

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of them in racially mixed social situations. Frequently,

the result was the organization of separate black insti-

tutions--such as the establishment of black churches, self-

help, and mutual aid societies.^

The organization of black Methodist churches was a

direct result of discrimination in white churches and was

of great significance to the education of blacks in the

North. In 1794, Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, two

respected lay preachers who had been members of St. George's

Church in Philadelphia for several years, were disturbed

during prayer service by white trustees of the church, who

attempted to pull them from their knees, insisting that they

follow a new policy in seating, which isolated the black from

the white congregation. Allen recalled later that all of

the blacks "went out of the church in a body, and they were 4 3 no more plagued with us in the church. The two ministers

organized a group of their followers into the Free African

Society of Philadelphia, and from this organization two

churches were established--the Bethel African Methodist

^Harding, "Religion and Resistance Among Antebellum Negroes, 1800-1860," in The Making of Black America, I, 179-97; Meier and Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto, pp. 76- 77; Charles S. Wesley, In Freedom's Footsteps: From 'the African Background to the Civil War (tiew Vork, 1968), p p . 112- 15. ^ T h e quotation if from Richard Allen as cited in Kaplan, Black Presence, p. 81 and see the sketches of the lives of Jones and Allen, pp. 81-85; Wesley, In Freedom's Footsteps, pp. 112-15; Daniel A. Payne, History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (1891; rpt. New York, 1969) , p.4.

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Episcopal Church with Richard Allen as pastor and the St. Thomas Protestant Episcopal Church with Absalom Jones 44 as pastor.

Both the Free African Societies and the black

churches of other denominations which sprang up in other

cities made united efforts toward the moral and economic

advancement of Negroes. They conducted schools for blacks

--frequently the only ones that they could attend--for al­

though some white schools admitted Negroes prior to 1820,

most Northern states either barred them altogether or estab­

lished separate--and vastly inferior--schools for them. In

such states as Massachusetts where blacks, as taxpayers,

were entitled to send their children to school at public

expense, black children met such hostility from their peers

and from the faculty and the white parents that they found

it impossible to attend. For example, Prince Hall, a black

citizen of Boston, led a group of black parents in protesting

the insults which their children had to endure daily. The

group petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for a

school for blacks. In 1798, eleven years later, with the

condition unchanged, a school was opened in Prince Hall's

house. After two more years, sixty-three blacks asked the

school committee for a school, but a special town meeting

44 See Litwack, North of Slavery, pp. 191-93; Kaplan, Black Presence, pp. 81-85; Wesley, In Freedom's Footsteps, pp. 112-15.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. refused them. In 1806 the school was moved to the basement

of the African Meeting House, and in 1815 some public funds

were appropriated for its support. It was not until twenty

years later that a building was provided for the school. In

the meantime, Boston opened a primary school for black

children in 1820, and by 1828 two more were established in

Boston and one each in New Haven, Salem, and Portland,

Maine

Opportunities to attend institutions of higher

learning were not available to blacks until the early part

of the nineteenth century. Although Oberlin discovered in

1835 that Negroes were an important financial resource and

opened the doors of the college to all regardless of race,

the majority of white colleges had such an insecure finan­

cial hold on survival that they were most anxious not to be

associated with anything as sensitive as offering higher

education to a Negro for fear of offending their benefactors.

Even at Dartmouth— a college that had been founded and gen­

erously supported through British philanthropy for the edu­

cation of American Indians— Caleb Watts, a mulatto whose

mother was English and father a Negro, "was classified as an

Indian" when he entered the college in 1770. Watts did not

graduate, but by 1775 "had studied rhetoric, logic, geography,

^■fyoodson, Education of the Negro, pp. 95-96; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, p. 109; Meier and Rudwick, From Plan­ tation to Ghetto, p. 84; Litwack, North of Slavery, pp. T36- 39; Beale, History of Freedom of Teaching, pp. 122-24.

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ethics, and divinity, in preparation to go . . . as a 46 missionary to the West Indies.

Conceivably, other mulatto students had entered and

probably graduated from other colleges by "passing” for

something other than Negro as Watts had done; perhaps some

were tutored and did not graduate as Chavis had done. How­

ever, in 1807 Prince Sanders, admittedly a Negro, entered

Dartmouth and was a student for "several years." In 1824

Edward Mitchell, a native of Martinique, applied to

Dartmouth for entrance. The trustees, "fearing that his

presence would be unacceptable to students, at first re­

fused to accept him, and he left the place, but the students

hearing of it held meetings and through a committee requested

that he be admitted." Mitchell entered Dartmouth in 1824

and graduated in 1828. Edward Jones, the mulatto son of a

free Negro hotel and catering service owner in Charleston,

had already entered Amherst College in 1822 and had gradu­

ated two years before Mitchell on August 23, 1826. On

September 6 of that same year John Brown Russwurm--usually

cited erroneously by historians as the first Negro to

graduate from an American college--received his degree from

Bowdoin College. Russwurm, a free Negro from Massachusetts,

46 Merle E. Curti and Roderick Nash, Philanthropy in the Shaping of American Higher Education (New Brunswick, N. J., 1965), pp. 33-35; Frederick Chase, A History of Dartmouth College and the Town of Hanover, iNew Hampshire, 2 vois. (Cambridge, Mass., 1891), I, 300.

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had been sent to Bowdoin by the American Colonization

Society as part of its plan to educate blacks for leadership

positions among colonizing blacks in Liberia. Several black

men subsequently received their education in medicine and

law through the sponsorship of the American Colonization 47 Society.

Harriet Martineau refers to the American Coloni­

zation Society as an antislavery organization which sought

to "relieve their consciences without annoying their neigh-

bors"--an accurate description of the ideological ambigu­

ities and inconsistencies of the society. Founded in 1816,

the society proposed to gain the assistance of federal and

state governments in deporting American Negroes to their

"native land" in Liberia--a disease-ridden stretch of jungle-

land on the west coast of Africa, especially purchased for

the venture. White Northern members of the society, as an

act of benevolence, planned to convert black Americans to

John King Lord, A History of Dartmouth College, 1815-1909 (Concord, N. H . , 1913), p. 208; George W. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880, Negroes as SlavesT as Soldiers, and as Citizens, 2 vols. (New York, 1883), II, 162; Brawley, Social history of the American Negro, pp. 161, 187; Meier and Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto, p. 88; Horace Mann Bond, Black American Scholars: A Study of Their Beginnings “(Detroit, 1972,), p. 14; Woodson, Education of the Negro7 p. 265, states that Russwurm was the first Negro to graduate from an American college; Hugh Hawkins, "Edward Jones, 1826: First American Negro College Graduate?" Amherst Alumni News , XIV (Winter,1962), p. 20, quotes W. E. B. Dubois as stating that Russwurm was "probably the first person of acknowledged African descent to finish an American college course.

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Christianity and colonize them so that they, in turn, might

Christianize a continent which was too unhealthy for white

missionaries. Colonization, they reasoned, would also

relieve America of a race which, because of its inferiority,

would never be accepted by whites. White Southerners viewed

the plan as auspicious, for it promised to eliminate the

free Negro population, which was always a threat to the

slave system. With few exceptions, black Americans firmly

condemned and resisted the colonization plan. Through

committees of articulate blacks, they stated their resentment

at being classified by the society as "a dangerous and use­

less part of the community" and exposed the plan as a means

of strengthening slavery. Many blacks did accept the finan­

cial assistance of the society while they were being educated,

then refused to go to Liberia. It is estimated that less

than 15,000 blacks agreed to be colonized. As a result, the

society's elaborate plan for educating Negroes was abandoned,

and they concentrated their efforts on supporting schools in 48 Liberia among blacks who were already expatriated.

In the early 1830's antislavery sentiment found re­

newed expression in abolitionism. Frequently the mandate

for abolishing slavery combined with religious fervor and

humanitarian zeal to produce a particularly vigorous type

^Martineau, Martyr Age, p. 5; Dumond, Antislavery Origins of the Civil Wa r , pp. 10-20; George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914 (New York, 1971), pp. 6-7,

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of abolitionism. Often ambivalent in their feelings about

free Negroes, abolitionists, nonetheless, believed slavery

to be sinful and thrust abolitionism under the banner of

reform. Through a chain of efficient benevolent societies

centered mostly in New York, they waged a crusade to convert

the nation to piety and righteousness.

The most consistent resource for Negroes to attend

institutions of higher learning was in the schools estab­

lished by abolitionists. These closely connected institu­

tions were founded by New England revivalists of the 1830's,

who carried the message of Christian reform and demands for

the immediate abolition of slavery to the frontiers of west­

ward expansion. Oneida Institute of western New York was

the first institution of this kind. The school was an impor­

tant part of the strategy for reforming the West, for it was

not only a source for the steady supply of young men espe­

cially trained to carry the campaign of Christian reform to

the West, but also a model for other schools. Negroes were

admitted from the start, and several, including Henry

Highland Garnett, graduated and became influential and

respected leaders for the cause of citizenship rights for 49 Negroes.

49 William J. Simmons, Men of Mark: Eminent, Pro­ gressive, and Rising (Cleveland, 1687), pp. 530-33; Carter G. Woodson and Charles A. Wesley, The Negro in Our History (ed., Washington, D. C., 1962) pp. 274-75; Carter G. Woodson, Negro Orators and Their Orations (Washington, D. C., 1925), pp. 149-58.

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Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati was estab­

lished during 1832 as a Western center for benevolent reform.

From the beginning Lane students--many of whom had trans­

ferred from Oneida--were an inspired and determined group.

Deeply dedicated to religious reform and to humanitarian

ideal, they believed in the immediate abolition of slavdry

and viewed blacks as brothers--to be accepted as equals.

They devoted themselves to educating Negroes, not only for

the good of Negroes, but also as a means of discrediting

popular opinion concerning the Negro's lack of mental

capacity. They encouraged Negroes to enter the college.'*®

The Oberlin Collegiate Institute, re-named Oberlin

College in 1850, was the third institution of higher

learning to have a strong leadership position in the abo­

litionist crusade. Originally colonizationist--if of any

persuasion at all on the Negro question— the institution

was caught up in a series of coincidences which led to its

becoming the model for several other colleges such as New

York Central College and Berea College of Kentucky. Oberlin

also became the leading institution of higher learning which

blacks could attend, educating more Negroes prior to 1860

than all other institutions combined. In 25 years— by the

time of its commencement exercises in 1861— approximately

"*®John Vant Stephens, The Story of the Founding of Lane (Cincinnati, 1940), pp. 21-124;' Robert S . Fletcher'T A History of Oberlin College From Its Foundation Through tKe Civil W a r , 2 vols. (Oberlin, Ohio. 1943). I. 50-56.

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245 black students had attended the institution.

Western Reserve College--now Case Western Reserve

University— also admitted Negroes early. Founded in 1826

in the Old Northwest Territory of Ohio for the purpose of

preparing ministers, the college held colonizationist sym­

pathies until 1832 when President Charles Storrs and two

influential professors were converted to abolitionism--a

circumstance which "almost broke up the college." The con­

troversy ended with the resignation of one of the professors,

but not before he had made his point— much to the horror of

the community--by appearing in the academic procession

accompanied by a Negro who sat on the platform with him.

Within a year when the furor died down, a Negro was admitted

to the institution and graduated three years later. From

that time on, Western Reserve College freely admitted

Negroes, several of whom were enrolled in the preparatory

department in 183 8 . ^

New York Central College of McGrawville, New York,

founded by the American Baptist Free Missionary Society in

1849, was modeled after Oberlin, and it had the added dis­

tinction of being, reputedly, the first institution of

higher learning in the United States to have a racially

"^George W. Knight and John W. Commons, The History of Higher Education in Ohio (Washington, D. C., 1891), pp. 116- 277 quotation on p. 119; Frederick Clayton Waite, Western Reserve University, The Hudson Era; A History of Western Reserve Academy at Hudson, 6Kio, from 1826 to 1882 (Cleveland, T941T/'p.' TW . ------^ ------

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66 52 integrated faculty and board of trustees.

The idea of a college founded specifically for

Negroes was proposed at the First Annual Convention of

People of Color in Philadelphia in 1831 by three white

abolitionists--Simeon Jocelyn, a minister of a Negro church

in New Haven, Arthur Tappan, a wealthy New York merchant,

and William Lloyd Garrison, fiery advocate for the immed­

iate abolition of slavery. Land was purchased near Yale

and construction started, but local citizens, normally

antagonistic to such a venture, were even more hostile to

such a project following the Nat Turner Insurrection which

occurred that year. Angry mobs protested and the plans

were abandoned. It was not until the 1850's that several

institutions devoted exclusively to Negro education were

successfully founded in spite of local protests. Although

not offering college level work--a circumstance shared with

many of the white institutions established during this era

--the founding of these colleges was significant because

they were prototypes of the Negro institutions from which

the majority of black college graduates would come after the

Civil War.

What was apparently the first of these institutions,

Avery College was established in Allegheny City near

■^Ralph V. Harlow, Gerrit Smith (New York, 1939), pp. 231-32; The Liberator, July 18, 1851; William G. Allen, A Refugee from American Despotism: The American Prejudice Against Color (London, 185j )\ pp. 3^-35.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 67 53 Pittsburgh in 1849. Other Negro colleges founded during

the 1850's became permanent institutions. The Institute

for Colored Youth was established in Philadelphia by Quaker

abolitionists as an industrial and farming school in 1839.

It was closed in 1845, but reopened in 1850 as an evening

school for Negroes. A new building was erected, and in

1852, under the direction of black educator, Charles L.

Reason, coeducational classes in advanced vocational and

literary studies were instituted. The school was eventually

transferred to public control and became Cheyney State 54 Teachers College. In 1851, Myrtilla Miner, the daughter

of a settler in up-state New York, solicited the financial

support of such antislavery advocates as Henry Ward Beecher,

Arthur Tappan, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and opened a

school in Washington, D. C.5 for the preparation of Negro

girls as teachers. Despite several attempts by local whites

to destroy the building, the institution prospered, received

national publicity through the abolitionist press, and in

1863 was incorporated as a coeducational school. After a

series of changes the institution emerged as the present

53 African Repository^ XXXIV (May 1858), 156; Woodson, Education <5f Che N6gr6', pp. 270-71; Payne, History of the a Me Church, p. z/b; Wesley, In Freedom s Footsteps, p. 1/3; Williams, History of the Negro, it, 1/7-78. 54 J. P. Wickersham, A History of Education in Pennsylvania, Private and Public, lElementary and kigher, from the Time the Swedes Settled on the Delaware to the Present Day (Lancaster, Pa., l'&86), p. 249.

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District of Columbia Teachers College.

Two other institutions of higher learning devoted

specifically to the education of Negroes were founded

during the 1850's. After the Civil War they became influ­

ential Negro universities that attracted black students,

scholars, and faculty from the entire nation. Of the two,

Ashraun Institute in Chester, Pennsylvania was the first to

be established. Planned on October 5, 1853 by a council of

white Presbyterians who met for that purpose at New Castle,

Pennsylvania, the school was dedicated to the "scientific,

classical, and theological education of colored youth of

the male sex." The institution opened as a college for

Negro men on December 31, 1856, and in 1866 amended its

charter as Lincoln University of Pennsylvania, with an all-

white administration and board of trustees.5^

In 1856, Wilberforce University of Ohio was estab­

lished by the Methodist Episcopal Church for the purpose of

"making the Negro his own educator." They therefore

"^Ellen M. O'Connor, Myrtilla Miner, A Memoir (Boston, 1885); Henry W i l s o n , Rise and Fall of Slave"Power in America (Washington, D. C., 1864 ed.), pp. 583-86; Rayford W. Logan,Howard University--The First Hundred Years: 1867- 1967 (New York, 1969), pp. 35, 37, 167; John Mercer Langston, From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol or the Old Dominion (Hartford, Conn., 1894), pp. 347-49.

^^Williams, History of the Negro, II, 177-78; Woodson, Education of the Negro, pp. 271-72; Dwight Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Evolution of the Negro College (1934; rpt. College Park, MdV;T9'6'9')', p. TO".'------

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established a coeducational institution with the mission of

Christianizing and educating well-qualified black teachers.

Situated near Xenia in Green County, Ohio, the college was

named for William Wilberforce, the English abolitionist, and

organized with the cooperation of the African Methodist

Episcopal Church. Formally dedicated in October, 1856,

three years later the institution boasted an enrollment of

207 students— 11 the majority of whom were the natural chil­

dren of white Southern and Southwestern planters." On

March 10, 1862, the African Methodist Episcopal Church

purchased the college from the white church for $10,000

and by the next year assumed full responsibility for its

maf.ntenance and operation. Thus, Wilberforce became what

is believed to be the first institution of higher learning

to be entirely managed by Negroes. ^

Any attempts to educate Negroes prior to 1860 were

met with resistance by white supremacists and were hampered

by fears, furor, and contradictions associated with racism.

In spite of the efforts of the Negro Convention Movement,

the support of the black self-help organizations, the

expedient offered by the American Colonization Society,

"^Payne, History of the AME Church, pp. 423-38; Knight and Commons, History of Higher Education in Ohio, pp. 214-25, quotation on p. 215; Edward T. Ware, The Negro's Progress in Fifty Years (Philadelphia, 1913), pp. 209-1(5; F . A. McGinniss, "A history and an Interpretation of Wilber­ force University," (unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Wilber­ force University, 1941).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and the programs urged by both white and black abolitionists,

comparatively few Negroes actually had the opportunity to

attend school, and even fewer were able to attend insti­

tutions of higher learning. Of the small number of white

colleges that admitted Negroes only Oberlin attracted a

significant number of black students. Oberlin's good for­

tune was due to the position which the institution assumed

in the antislavery campaign when the administration agreed

to admit students regardless of race. Oberlin became the

leading educational center for abolitionism at a time when

the South was reacting most violently and despotically to

the criticisms and demands of abolitionists. Dedicated to

humanitarian and educative cause, the institution combined

abolitionism with evangelical fervor and made the social

and intellectual equality for the Negro a dynamic part of

their religious belief. Thus, Oberlin set itself against

the consensus in one of the bitterest controversies in the

history of the United States--the movement for the abolition

of slavery and the recognition of the rights of American

blacks as human beings.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER III

OBERLIN

You are not only educated, but edu­ cated in God's College. . . . You can­ not but know that it has been the sole purpose of the founders and patrons of this College to educate here men and women for God and God's cause.1

— Charles Grandison Finney Commencement Address, Oberlin, 1851.

On December 3, 1833, in a timbered wilderness of

northern Ohio, thirty students and two teachers started the

first academic session of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute.

Classes on opening day were held in the "boarding house"

— an incomplete structure housing the Oberlin founders and

their families, the resident students, and containing the

community dining room and management office. The only other

buildings huddled together in the patch of stump-filled

clearing were a few make-shift cabins that were the homes of

the Oberlin colonists. Unbroken forest and swampy mud

surrounded the settlement for nine miles east to the nearest

town, Elyria, and thirty-five miles northeast to the gateway

^Oberlin Evangelist, Sept. 10, 1851, cited in Robert S. Fletcher, A History oFUberlin College From Its Foundation Through the CTvil W a r . 2 vols. (Oberlin, Ohio, 1943), I, 208.

71

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to the east coast— Cleveland.

Such seclusion had been essential in the plans made

by the founders of Oberlin, John Jay Shipherd and Philo

Penfield Stewart, two evangelical missionaries from New

England, who had visualized the colony and school as a

religious utopia far from Mthe vain amusements & temptations

of the world," where colonists and students recruited from

the east coast would lead exemplary lives of self-denial and

"consecrate themselves to the service of the Lord." From

this Christian stronghold the two reformers expected to pre­

pare a mighty army of Christians which would conquer all sin

and transmit the message of salvation throughout the great

valley of the Mississippi, the rest of the nation, and even­

tually the entire world for the attainment of millennial 2 happiness.

The purpose of the colony and school as planned by

Shipherd and Stewart was neither extraordinary nor preten­

tious considering the popular assumptions, religious con­

cerns , and patterns of social migration characteristic of

this period of national growth and expansion. It was an era

of boundless American confidence in the future of the nation

as the greatest in the history of mankind--a country of

inexhaustible resources and limitless opportunity for cit­

izens under the system of democratic government and a nation

2John J. Shipherd to Fayette Shipherd, Aug. 13, 1832, quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 89.

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destined to wield unprecedented influence over all other

nations. It was also an age of enthusiasm and energy which

was evident in the sheer activity of developing new lands,

carving more routes of transportation, and starting busy

centers of industrialization. The plans made by Shipherd

and Stewart for the ideological conquest of the world were

entirely consistent with the spirit of bold enterprise and

self-assurance which prevailed in the United States.

In proposing to found a colony of people who were

willing to dedicate themselves to a common ideal, the found­

ers of Oberlin were basing their plans on already established

modes of migration to the frontier. Just as it was common

practice for entire communities in the East to form colonies

in the same vicinity in the West, so was it customary for

people who shared the same religious or social beliefs to

unite and establish their own place of ideal perfection in

new lands. In this way many Christian settlements of

Yankees with their common commitment to Puritan values and

virtues and their determination to "reproduce the society

which they had left" were established in the Mohawk Valley,

the Catskills, and the northern borders of Ohio and Missouri.

This was also the origin of the cultist colonies such as

those of the Mormons and Shakers, the religious utopias

founded by communists and socialists, and the many experi­

mental communes that ranged in social purpose from advocating

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74 3 free love to championing celibacy.

But Oberlin was first and foremost designed as an

instrument of reform, deriving from one of the strongest

impulses of the time— the humanitarian crusades aimed at

purging imperfections from the nation and gaining the real­

ization of humane ideals. This popular commitment to build

a perfect nation as well as a powerful one was expressed

through great social and moral reform movements. It was, as

Alice Felt Tyler terms it, an era of "restless ferment,"

when "the militant democracy of the period was a declaration

of faith in man and in the perfectibility of his institu- ,,4 tions.

Although reform was not exclusively a religious

movement, evangelists, anticipating the advent of Christ

within their life-time and convinced that perfect America

was destined through divine plan to lead the world into the

3 Albert Temple Swing, James Harris Fairchild or Six­ ty-Eight Years with a Christian College (New York, 1907), pp. 10-11; Colin Brummitt Goodykoontz,Home Missions on the American Frontier with Particular Reference to the American Home Missionary Society (Caldwell, Idaho, 1939), pp. 15-34; Alice Felt *I?yler, Freeaom's Ferment: Phases of American Social History from the Colonial Period to the Outbreak of the Civil War (New York, 1344), passim; Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic keligion in Western New York, 1800-1850 (New York, 1950), pp. 5-7; Alfred Vance Churchill, "Midwestern: Pioneer Life in Northern Ohio. A prelude to the History of Oberlin Colony and College," Northwest Ohio Quarterly, XXIII (Winter, 1950-51), 5-25; Wayne-Tor3an"7nrTTEePeopTe— of Ohio's First County," The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, XLIX (January-March, 1940), 1-40. 4 Tyler, Freedom s Ferment, p. 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75

glory of the millennium, perceived moral and social reform

as a mandate from God. Consequently, they assumed much of

the leadership in the movement to remold society according

to the Puritan Calvinist ethic of New England and used the

compelling power of revivals to draw converts into the fold.

The waves of religious revivals conducted by earlier preach­

ers during the period of the Great Awakening quickened at

the turn of the century, crested during the late 1820's with

the series of Western Revivals directed by the great evan­

gelist Charles Grandison Finney in the towns and villages of

western New York, and during the 1830's surged into the

larger cities of the east coast. Thousands of converts were

caught up in the spirit of religious excitement and joined

ranks in the work of Christianizing and perfecting America.

Benevolent societies campaigned for a multitude of reforms

such as temperance, peace, the rights of women, antislavery,

improvements in education and penal institutions, better

treatment for the insane, the handicapped, and the destitute,

and for nationalizing Christianity by legislating observance

of the Sabbath according to Puritan heritage."*

"*Goodykoontz, Home Missions on the American Frontier, pp. 165-214; Tyler, Freedom's Ferment, passim; Cross,' the Burned-Over District, pp. 14-29, 211-38; Charles I. Foster, An Errand of: Mercy: The Evangelical United Front, 1790-1837 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina^ 1960), pp. 121-207. Charles C. Cole, The Social Ideas of Northern Evangelists, 1826-1860 (New York'. T954V'r'DP.~ 71-13'1T John K. BodoT 1'he Protestant Clergy and Public Issues, 1812-1848 (Princeton, ftew Jersey, 1954), passim.

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The opening of western lands was a source of anxiety

for reformers. They regarded the rough, ribald, exotic life

of the frontier as sinful, and believed that due to its

geographical position and wealth of natural resources the

West would become the most influential area of the country.

Conquest of the "godless West" for Christianity was there­

fore essential to the plan for converting the world, and

going West to insure the continuation of God-fearing virtues

was a patriotic and religious duty. Organized forces emanat­

ing mainly from New England coordinated their efforts on

every frontier settlement, propagating the gospel, opening

Sabbath schools, distributing Bibles and urging the popula­

tion to conform to the life-styles of New England.^ Motiva­

tion for founding Oberlin stemmed from this great concern

which reformers had for the West as the key to Christianiz­

ing the nation before the millennium.

During the spring of 1832 John Jay Shipherd and

Philo Penfield Stewart were searching for an effective

means of instituting benevolent reform in the West when they

conceived the idea of Oberlin. Two years earlier Shipherd

had arrived in Ohio from Vermont with high expectations for

success in carrying the gospel into the "Valley of Moral

^Goodykoontz, Home Missions on the American Frontier, pp. 165-269; Tyler, Freedom's Ferment, pp. 23-45; Cross, The Burned-Over District, pp. 126-137; Foster, Errand of Mercy, pp. 136-222: Cole. Social Ideas of Northern Evangelists, pp. 96-131; Bodo, Protestant Clergy, pp. 3-30.

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Death," but instead had spent two deeply discouraging years

as pastor of a church in Elyria. Heartsick and near physical

collapse after his apparent failure, he was on the verge of

resigning his post when he invited Philo P. Stewart, a former

classmate from Pawlet Academy in Vermont, to be his house-

guest. Stewart had been working as a missionary among the

Choctaw Indians in Mississippi, but had been forced to resign

due to his wife's ill health. Stewart joined Shipherd at his

home in Elyria, and after praying together for divine guid­

ance and discussing possible solutions to moral problems on

the frontier, the two evangelists decided on the strategy of

establishing a colony as a nucleus of reform.^

Shipherd and Stewart planned to select the colonists

from good, Christian families of New England who would in­

dicate their willingness to consecrate themselves to God and

the performance of good works by signing a covenant in which

they promised to lead lives of personal piety, including,

according to the covenant, eating only "plain and wholesome

food" and renouncing "all bad habits, . . . especially the

smoking, chewing, and snuffing of tobacco, . . . all strong

and unnecessary drinks, . . . and everything expensive."

Through the covenant they would also pledge to educate their

^J. J. Shipherd to Fayette Shipherd, Aug. 13, 1832, Cited in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 87-89; [Esther Shipherd], "A Sketch of the Life and Labors of John J. Shipherd," unpublished MS in the Oberlin College Library, Oberlin, Ohio, no pagination; James Harris Fairchild, Oberlin: The Colony and the College, 1833-1883 (Oberlin, Ohio, 1883), pp. 15-19.

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children thoroughly Min body, intellect and heart, for the

service of the Lord” and identify the interests of the

Oberlin Institute as their own.**

The importance which the founders attached to Chris­

tian education as an instrument of reform is apparent through­

out their plans for the colony. In a letter to his father,

Shipherd outlined their intention to "establish schools of

the first order from an infant school up to an academic

school" and later to expand the program to include "instruc­

tion in Theology." Shipherd added emphatically, "I mean

Practical Theology," indicating their disapproval of the

traditional classical education of ministers which they

believed to be impractical and--given the drinking habits

and antics of students at some of the older institutions— Q devoid of piety and morality. Shipherd and Stewart def­

initely planned to put into practice some of the educational

reforms being advocated by American evangelical leaders.

One of the most pressing needs among reformers, for

example, was an educated ministry trained in evangelical

living and in the promotion of revivals. A theological

8The complete text of the Oberlin Covenant is in E. H. Fairchild, Historical Sketch of Oberlin College Springfield, Ohio~ 1868), PP- 4-5. See also J. H. Fairchild, Oberlin, pp. 25-27; Wilbur H. Phillips, Oberlin Colony: The Story of a Century (Oberlin, Ohio, 1933), pp. 17-18; Delavan L. Leonard, TheHTtory of Oberlin, The Institution. The Commu­ nity, The Idea,The Movement (boston, 1898), pp. 85-87; k. S. Fletcher, fafistory of Oberlin, pp. 110-11.

^J. J. Shipherd to Zebulon R. Shipherd, Aug. 6, 1832, quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 89-90.

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education, however, was expensive, entailing collegiate

training, and advanced study in a seminary, and cash was

a scarce commodity on the scattered farms and in the small

villages where the vast majority of Americans lived— barter

being the normal medium of exchange. American reformers

were as critical of institutions of higher learning for

catering only to the wealthy as they were about the lack of

piety and practicality in the curricula.

By 1832 reformers, having developed a system known

as manual-labor-with-study, were urging institutions of

higher learning to adopt it as a significant educational

innovation particularly suited to the American ideal of

equality. Originated in 1826 by George Washington Gale, a

minister in western New York, the system elaborated the

classical design of mens sana in corpore sano--an education

aimed at multiple proficiencies by the development of the

student's body as well as his mind. The system had a

second advantage, especially for a frontier venture. It

promised that students would be able to defray their educa­

tional expenses by working part-time in manual labor.

Believing in the potential of the system for making higher

education available to all economic levels and thus increas­

ing the number of young men to be educated as ministers,

Oneida Institute had been established in up-state New York

in 1827 as a model training center for reformers. Within

the next few years several institutions had adopted the

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system, and late in 1832 preparations were well under way in

developing, as the prototype of manual labor colleges, Lane

Theological Seminary in Cincinnati— an institution which was

to have a major, if inadvertent, role in shaping the future

of Oberlin.

Shipherd and Stewart placed a great deal of confi­

dence in manual labor as the means of contributing to maximum

growth and development in the school and expanding the influ­

ence of the colony. In a letter to his brother Fayette, then

pastor of a church near Pawlet, Vermont, Shipherd expressed

his faith in the system of manual labor. "Connected with

the Academy," he wrote, "will be a farm and workshop, where,

with four hours labor per day, students shall defray their

entire expense." Further on in the same letter he elaborat­

ed the broader program which he and Stewart believed would

eventuate through manual labor. They were certain that

before long they would be able to educate not only the

children of the colony but "School Teachers & Ministers from

the four winds" as well. "For on our plan," Shipherd pre­

dicted, "we can instruct multitudes." With students able

Gale's manual labor system was formally organized by him at Oneida Academy. Similar to contemporaneous ex­ periments by Fellenberg in Switzerland, the movement was at one time thought to be the most revolutionary educational innovation of the century. For studies see Theodore Dwight Weld, First Annual Report of the Society for Promoting Manual Labor Tn Literary Institutions (New York,' 1833) passim; L. F . Anderson, 1 'The Manual Labor School Movement," Educational Review, XLVI (Nov. 1913), 369-86.

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"to work their way 6c yet obtain the best education," the

possibilities for doing good seemed infinite.

During the next year, following a visit to Oneida

Institute and after conversations with enthusiasts of the

system, Shipherd became so excited about the benefits of

manual labor on the college level that he disregarded the

original plans and decided independently and precipitately

they would start college work during the first year of opera­

tion. He gave Stewart only brief notice--somewhat after the

fact. With true Christian forebearance, Stewart suggested

mildly, "If you should occasionally feel a little impatience

at my moderation, 6e I, with your impetuosity, it would not

be strange. But if we are always in the exercise of that

charity which 'hopeth all things' it will be well at the

last." Reluctantly— because he considered it too ambitious--

he agreed with Shipherd's decision to start college work 12 earlier than originally planned.

The two founders proposed to educate women and to

do so in the same environment as men. Both decisions were

drastic departures from contemporary practice since women

were generally assumed to be too inferior emotionally and

intellectually to cope with much education and their constant

^J. J. Shipherd to Fayette Shipherd, Aug. 13, 1832, quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 88-89.

^Stewart to J. J. Shipherd, Aug. 13, 1833, quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 118; J. H. Fairchild, Oberlin, pp. 14-15.

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presence in male company was thought to be fraught with

danger. Although one or two private teacher-training acad­

emies for women had a brief existence early in the century,

"courses of instruction for young ladies" in such institu­

tions were concerned with the delicate graces and were scaled

to the limited intellectual capacity associated with the 13 stereotype of the useful, ornamental female. Except in

lower-level schools, coeducation of the sexes was far beyond

the public sense of propriety. Yet, even after deciding to

include college instruction at Oberlin, Shipherd and Stewart

did not change their plans to include women as students.

Indeed, Shipherd was more interested than ever in having

women students, as he mentioned repeatedly in his letters.

Stewart asserted his belief that females should be educated

"in a much more efficient manner than has been done hitherto,

or our country will go to destruction." He declared further,

"I believe that there is no other way to secure success to

our great moral enterprises than to make prevalent the right

kind of education for women." Due to the founders' firm

convictions concerning female education, Oberlin became not

only the first coeducational institution of higher learning

in the nation, but the first college to award a bachelors

13 See Tyler, Freedom's Ferment, pp. 250-54; Frederick Rudolph, The American~College and University, A History (New York, 1962), pp. 307-28; Jonn S. Brubacher and tfillis Rudy, Higher Education in Transition; A History of American Colleges ana Universities, 1636-1968 (New York, 1968), pp. 66-71.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83 14 degree to women as well.

As the details of their strategy for reform became

clearer, Shipherd and Stewart acted on their decisions.

They read a published account of the life of Jean Fre'deric

Oberlin, a minister who had graduated from the University of

Strasbourg in 1755 and served as a Reformed pastor in an

isolated region on the border between Alsace and Lorraine

for sixty years. He had provided his flock with spiritual

leadership and assistance in improving the desperate living

conditions of their environment. Through him the people

had developed better methods of agriculture and transporta­

tion and established a public health and educational system,

including a kindergarten along the same lines which Froebel

Stewart, quoted in Leonard, Story of Oberlin, p. 162; J. J. Shipherd to Fayette Shipherd, Aug. 13, 1862; J. J. Shipherd to Zebulon R. Shipherd, Aug. 6, 1832; R. S. Fletcher, "Oberlin and Co-education," The Ohio State Archae­ ological and Historical Quarterly, XLVII, (Jan. 1938) 1-19; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 88-90, 373-85. Ronald W. Hogeland, "Coeducation of the Sexes at Oberlin College: A Study of Social Ideas in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America," Journal of Social History, VI (Winter, 1972-73), 160-76, contends that Oberlin devised co-education purely for the benefit of the young men studying for the ministry. His main argument is that women were used as a means of counter­ acting some of the major sexual problems of men students, and for providing a good market of potential wives for the min­ isters. Hogeland did not once refer to the voluminous docu­ mentary evidence in the Oberlin Archives attesting that the founders of Oberlin believed strongly in coeducation for the mutual benefit of women as well as men. The article is essentially a popularized interpretation of R. S. Fletcher's argument that in many respects Oberlin fell prey to popular opinion— not about coeducation--but about the inferior mental capacity of women. The article ignores the objectives of the founders of Oberlin for a total community--including women— to be educated to promote reform.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 84

later advocated.^ Trusting that the life of such an out­

standing man would serve as an inspiration to the colonists,

Shipherd and Stewart named the colony after him. With no

funds but secure in their confidence that the hand of God

guided them, they investigated sites near Elyria in the fall

of 1832 and became particularly interested in the tract of

about 7,000 acres located in the wilderness in the south

central portion of Russia Township, Lorain County, nine miles

west of Elyria. Although the soil was remarkably poor, they

selected the land— owned by Titus Street and Samuel Hughes

of Connecticut--as the site for Oberlin.^

On October 29, 1832, the church in Elyria accepted

Shipherd's resignation as pastor. Within a month Shipherd

had left for New England where he hoped to recruit about

Ernest Hatch Wilkins, John Frederick Oberlin, A Bicentenary Address, September 18, 1940 (Oberlin, Ohio, 1940), p. 14, states that an abbreviated edition, published in 1830, of Sarah Atkins, Memoirs of Jean Frederic Oberlin, Pastor of Walbach, in the Ban-de-la-Roche (London, 1829), was the book which the founders of Oberlin read. The 1845 edition of Atkins' book, published in Boston is an excellent account of Oberlin's life. The bicentenary address, delivered by Wilkins during his tenure as President of Oberlin College is an interesting sketch. Other sources include Daniel E. Stoeber, Vie de J. F. Oberlin, pasteur a Waldbach au Ban-de- la-Roche, chavalier de la Legion d'honneur (Paris, 1831); and Marchall Dawson, Oberlin, A Protestant Saint (New York, 1934). R. S. Fletcher, history of OberlirTj T~, 52, fn. 12 provides a summary of Oberlin's life.

■^J. J. Shipherd to Fayette Shipherd, Aug. 13, 1832, Dec. 10, 1832, cited in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 89, 92; J. H. Fairchild, Oberlin, pp. 20-22; Phillips, Oberlin Colony, pp. 15-19.

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fifty families as colonists, raise approximately $15,000 for

the schools, and talk with Street and Hughes about possible

contracts for the land. He made the arduous journey east

on a lame horse which he could neither "cure nor exchange."

Stewart remained at Shipherd's home in Elyria with Mrs.

Stewart, Mrs. Shipherd, who was pregnant, and the Shipherds1

three small sons— the youngest, Edward, had been born in

April, 1831— so that he could make preparations for the

arrival of the colonists. ^

Although it was common practice for Easterners to

contribute to the support of Western enterprise--frequently

the only way that institutions and reform projects in the

West survived— Shipherd, mud-spattered and travel worn,

collected only small amounts in the villages of western

New York. Great success crowned his efforts, however, in

New Haven, Connecticut. Street and Hughes agreed to donate

500 acres of the land to the trustees of Oberlin Manual

Labor Institute "to be forever appropriated to the use of

same" as soon as "buildings worth at least $5,000 were erect­

ed and not less than fifty students enrolled." Moreover,

the owners were willing to sell 5,000 acres to Oberlin

colonists at $1.50 per acre— $4.50 less than the price for 18 which they sold the remainder of the land later. The

17J. J. Shipherd to Fayette Shipherd, Dec. 10, 17, 1832, cited in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 93-94. 18 According to Phillips, Oberlin Colony, p. 16, the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. number and amount of contributions increased in New England

and parts of New York where Shipherd had life-long contacts,

and several appropriately pious families prepared to go west

to colonize Oberlin. Shipherd's letters fairly sang with

enthusiasm, for Oberlin seemed soon to be a reality.

Personal piety, reform, and regeneration of the

world for the millennium had always been the main motive

forces of John Jay Shipherd's adult life. Being an instru­

ment of God in founding a colony that would accomplish these

ends was the ultimate for which he could hope. Born in

Washington County, New York, near the Vermont border on

March 28, 1802, John Jay was the second youngest of four

children of Betsy Bull and Zebulon Rudd Shipherd--a respect­

ed lawyer who served as a member of Congress from 1813 to

1815. At seventeen while he was home on vacation from

Pawlet Academy in Vermont where he was preparing for college,

an accident occurred which changed John's life. He fell

from a horse, was knocked unconscious, and upon recovery

determined that he would never again run the risk of dying

in sin. Deciding to enter the ministry, he left Pawlet

Academy and attended an academy in Cambridge, New York,

planning to enroll later in Middlebury College. Again, a

serious accident completely changed the course of his life.

agreement was that the land would be sold to the colonists for $1.00 more an acre and the proceeds used toward the operation of the school. See R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 94.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In 1822, intending to take a dose of epsom salts, he mis­

takenly drank one of saltpeter instead— which should have 19 done him absolutely no physical harm. However, "a doctor

was called who administered an emetic which ejected it from

his stomach accompanied with such an alarming quantity of

fresh blood, that his friends gathered about him to see him

breathe his last." His stomach and eyes were permanently 20 damaged, despite subsequent medical attention.

Although only scant evidence exists, it is conceiv­

able that another handicap might have resulted from the

emetic. Albert Temple Swing, writing of the early recollec­

tions of James Harris Fairchild, related how John Jay

Shipherd had preached on several occasions in Brownhelm--

the frontier settlement in Ohio where the Fairchilds lived.

Swing told how the people of the settlement had often gone

to nearby Elyria to hear him, "for he was a preacher of

19 Details of Shipherd's life are from Esther Shipherd, "A Sketch of the Life and Labors of John J. Shipherd." See also R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 59-60. Accord­ ing to Poison Control Center, Washington, D. C. and several physicians, saltpeter (nitrate of potassium) is not poison­ ous. However, traditionally it was erroneously believed to have properties that would subdue sexual reactions and was frequently used for that purpose as seasoning in the food of adolescents. Having taken such a large quantity at one time, Shipherd might have suffered some psychological harm. Fear of the reaction, at least, accounts for his parents' concern and for the over-zealous attention of the physician. 20 Esther Shipherd, A Sketch of the Life and Labors of John J. Shipherd"; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 60.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ability and if a serious accident had not befallen him so as

to impair his voice he would have made his mark in the pul- 21 pit. An emetic strong enough to lacerate the tissues of

the stomach and cause permanent damage could also have had

deleterious effects on the tissues in the mouth and throat,

including the vocal bands, causing problems of either voice

or articulation or both, which— even allowing for evangelists'

characteristic propensity for introspection and self-depreca-

tion--may explain Shipherd's frequently expressed lack of

confidence in his ability in the pulpit.

Unable to read due to the condition of his eyes and

assuming himself to be too handicapped to become an educated

minister, Shipherd dropped out of school. In 1824 he and

Esther Raymond were married at her home in Ballston, New

York. They moved into a large, beautifully appointed house

in Vergennes, Vermont, where due to the generosity of both

families they had "every imaginable thing that . . . could

make a home desirable." In addition, Zebulon Shipherd took

time from law practice to start his son successfully in

the marble business. The young couple received invitations

to local social events— all of which Shipherd declined. He

found that the things of the world such as social life and

running a marble business distracted him from "serious con­

templation" and his work in the nearby "Sabbath School of

21 Swing, James Harris Fairchild, p. 59.

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60 or 70 scholars." The marble business failed, as did a

subsequent business in the manufacture of whetstones. Re­

ferring to these first difficult years of their marriage,

Esther Shipherd later confessed, "I kept wondering in my 22 mind what the Lord intended to do with my husband."

Grief-stricken over the death of their first baby,

Jane Elizabeth, Shipherd went through a period of depression

and meditation and reached the decision to study for the

ministry despite his handicaps. Esther went to live with

her parents while he took private instruction from Reverend

Josiah Hopkins in New Haven, Vermont. After a year and a

half of study and not at all sure that he could manage a

preaching assignment, Shipherd set out to work in the Sunday

school movement. Shelburne, Vermont, however, needed a

pastor, and although he was hesitant at first, Shipherd

successfully preached a few sermons which he had prepared

with Josiah Hopkins. At the request of the Shelburne con­

gregation, he became pastor and sent for his wife and their

infant son, Henry Zebulon. In 1827 he was ordained as an 23 evangelist.

22 Esther Shipherd, A Sketch of the Life and Labors of John J. Shipherd"; J. J. Shipherd to his brother James Shipherd, May 28, 1824, quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 61. 23 Esther Shipherd, A Sketch of the Life and Labors of John J. Shipherd"; J. J. Shipherd to Z. R. Shipherd, Nov. 9, 1827, quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 63.

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At the end of the year Shipherd resigned from his

position in order to continue his work in developing Sunday

schools and within a few months was appointed General Agent

of the Vermont Sabbath School Union. Using Middlebury as

home base, Shipherd traversed the mountains and valleys of

Vermont in the interests of Sunday schools while Esther

managed the boarding department of a female seminary as a

supplement to their income. Within two years he had organ­

ized a system of Sabbath schools in the state. He also pub­

lished The Sabbath School Guide, No l--later revised and

adopted as the official organ of the Union--and each month

he wrote and distributed a publication for children and

parents, the Youth's Herald. At the commencement exercises

of Middlebury College in 1830, Shipherd was awarded an 24 honorary degree in recognition of his work.

Shipherd's salary as an agent was remarkably small

and irregular, and— more disturbing to him— in Vermont he

worked among people who had every opportunity to lead Chris­

tian lives and be saved. He felt an urgency to work in the

field where the need for help was greater. "His desires

were like fire shut up in his bones," wrote Esther Shipherd,

"He must carry the gospel to the Mississippi Valley." On

September 28, 1830, having disposed of everything they

^Esther Shipherd, "A Sketch of the Life and Labors of John J. Shipherd"; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 64-65.

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possessed "except bedding and clothing," John and Esther

Shipherd with their two infant sons and Elmira Collins--a

friend and school teacher--left Schenectady, New York, to 25 travel by the Erie Canal and Lake Erie to the West.

Four days later they arrived in Rochester where they

remained overnight to observe the Sabbath by attending a

revival service the following evening conducted by Charles

Grandison Finney. The first of the great Rochester revivals

was in progress, and in private conversation Finney asked

Shipherd to remain with him to help. Shipherd was tempted,

for he had heard the famed evangelist on at least one pre­

vious occasion and had been deeply impressed with the power

of Finney's appeal. Moreover, his father had been converted

by Finney and was a member of the "Holy Band"--a group of

special converts pledged to assist the evangelist in convert­

ing others. Writing to Fayette about Finney’s request,

Shipherd admitted, "but anxious as I was to stop, my Lord

and Master seemed to bid me depart, saying that his work for

me was in this land farther west."2^ Only five years later

the two men would combine their efforts, but it would be

Finney who would go to help Shipherd in the work of develop-

25Esther Shipherd, "A Sketch of the Life and Labors of John J. Shipherd"; Frances G. Hosford, "Father and Mother Shipherd, "The Oberlin Alumni Magazine," XIV (May, 1930), 235-38; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 66-67.

2^J. J. Shipherd to Fayette Shipherd, Oct. 15, 1830, quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 68.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92

ing Oberlin into the only institution of higher learning in

America that would have significant national influence on

the most crucial and controversial issue of the century.

The Shipherds and their companion continued their

journey, pausing in Buffalo where they viewed Niagara Falls,

and after a rough passage on Lake Erie aboard the steamboat

Henry Clay--during which just about every one of the 300

passengers including the Shipherds was sea-sick--they arrived

in Cleveland, a busy little town of about 1,100 people. On

the next day the Shipherds met Reverend Daniel W. Lathrop

who had just resigned as pastor of the First Presbyterian

Church in Elyria, leaving a vacancy which Shipherd was

eager to fill. Two days later, on Sunday, Shipherd deliver­

ed his first sermon in Elyria to a congregation of about 27 thirty out of the town s total population of 663.

Elyria was far more civilized than the Shipherds

expected it to be, but it was still a frontier village.

Settlement of Connecticut's Western Reserve Lands west of

Cleveland had been slow although prior to 1803 when Ohio

was admitted to the Union a few families from Connecticut

and western Massachusetts had settled in the region. It

was not, however, until after the War of 1812 when the

Indians were subdued that appreciable numbers of Congrega-

tionalists and Presbyterians from Connecticut, western

^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 67-68; J. H. Fairchild, Oberlin, pp. 11-12; Leonard, Story of Oberlin, p. 78.

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Massachusetts, Vermont, and certain sections of New York

and New Jersey purchased land from speculators in Connecticut

and pushed into the dense forests where they cleared small

tracts for their homes and farms. As late as 1822 when

Lorain County--of which Elyria became county seat— was or­

ganized, it was populated mainly by scattered settlements 28 in the wilderness.

Yankees who remained on the east coast had many

secular interests in the Western Reserve in Ohio, but they

also had religious concerns for the settlers going out from

their states. Reports that deism and moral decay were rife

in the frontier regions led Connecticut Congregationalists

to negotiate a Plan of Union with the Presbyterian General

Assembly in order to make the two denominations partners in

western expansion and revivalism. Ministers who were grad­

uates of Yale, Andover, and Auburn seminaries served as

pastors of northern Ohio churches under the auspices of the

American Home Missionary Society, which the two denominations

jointly supported. Schools were established in the scattered

2 Q Esther Shipherd, "A Sketch of the Life and Labors of John J. Shipherd "'states that they were surprised that Elyria looked so much like a New England town, and con­ fesses that she was disappointed because she had been look­ ing forward to living in a log cabin and going to church in an ox-cart. See Swing, James Harris Fairchild, pp. 17-55; Frederick Clayton Waite/"Western Reserve University, The Hudson Era: A History of Western Reserve College and"'Academy at Hudson Ohio, from 1826-1882 (Cleveland, 1943), pp. 1-18; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 70-72.

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communities, and Western Reserve College was founded in 1826

to insure a steady supply of ministers "of the right stamp"

in the West. But too few ministers, practically non-exis­

tent roads, great stretches of wilderness between settle­

ments, and the presence of many frontiersmen who were

strongly protective of their democratic freedom to be rugged

individualists made the work of evangelizing the Western 29 Reserve a slow and difficult process.

Under the terms of the Plan of Union, John Jay

Shipherd was formally inducted as pastor of the First

Presbyterian Church in Elyria on February 2, 1831. He put

into his work all of the energy that had been pent up during

his many years of wanting desperately to make a significant

contribution to changing the world. "The fact that there

are only thirty in the church," he wrote, "to me is evidence

that there is much to do." To his father he reported,

"Our moral condition is deplorable. There are but two Presb.

ministers besides myself laboring in this county & these two

have for months been unable to labor." He followed dim

trails through the forests into neighboring settlements and

on one occasion when night overtook him and he was lost,

"a gang of wolves set up a howling" which "made the woods

29 Goodykoontz, Home Missions, pp. 149-51; Tyler, Freedom’s Ferment, pp. 15-22, 31-35; Foster, Errand of Mercy, pp. 179-207; Waite, Western Reserve University, pp. 1- 69; George W. Knight and John R. Commons, The History of Higher Education in Ohio (Washington, 1891), pp. 116-18; R. S. Fletcher, History"of Oberlin, I, 72-74.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ring." Although he won converts, particularly during a 95

revival in May and June of 1831, he could not accommodate

himself to the slow pace which the frontier demanded of its

reformers. He complained of his own inadequacies to Finney:

"I do not preach right, I know not how to preach right. 0

tell me how I may thrust the two edged sword into the sinners

utmost soul!" He "waged war against Alcohol," attempting to

impose total abstinence on people who were accustomed to

drinking as a way of life--whiskey was cheap, plentiful, and 30 a buffer against the hardships of the frontier.

Some frontiersmen fought back, finding proseiytiza-

tion and pious admonitions a criticism of their way of life

and a tiresome invasion of their privacy. Shipherd told of

attending a meeting "in a place where infidels had lately

cut the pulpit Bible in pieces & scattered it around the

church yard." He described an incident when "the wicked

mustered & combined all their energies. . . . Twice while I

was preaching, they discharged muskets, (without lead) close

upon us. At one time they fired against the door, bursting

it open, & simultaneously thro1 the windows, driving in upon

us glass & powder." Moreover— and this was perhaps the most

telling blow which they administered— they said "all manner

30 J. J. Shipherd to Fayette Shipherd, Feb. 7, 1831; J. J. Shipherd to Zebulon R. Shipherd, Apr. 6, 1831, quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 76-77; J. J. Shipherd to Charles G. Finney, Elyria, Mar. 14, 1831, Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin, Ohio; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 76-80.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96

of evil" against him. A local lawyer--coincidentally, a

former resident of Middlebury, Vermont--spread gossip that

Shipherd was having illicit relations with Elmira Collins, 31 who was then a teacher in the infant school in Elyria.

According to R. S. Fletcher, there was one indecisive moment

when Shipherd, after submitting his resignation, rescinded

it. Nonetheless, "the church voted fifteen to fourteen to 32 ask presbytery for his dismission. It was at this lowest

point in his life that Shipherd, near collapse, prayed with

Stewart in his home in Elyria, and together they plotted to

raise an army of Christians in the midst of the enemy.

John Jay Shipherd spent a busy and successful year

in New England recruiting colonists, students, faculty, and

soliciting funds. In several towns he appointed agents so

that his work would continue after he left. He conferred

with George W. Gale at Oneida Institute and Samuel Read

Hall, principal of the Teachers Seminary at Andover, and

observed manual labor in action at both institutions. He

interviewed William Woodbridge--a graduate of Yale and

editor of the American Annals of Education, who had spent

several years in Switzerland studying Phillip von Fellenberg's

model manual labor institution which featured an expanded,

■^J. J. Shipherd to Zebulon Shipherd Apr. 6, 1831; Apr. 6, 1832; J. J. Shipherd to Fayette Shipherd, Apr. 2, 1832; quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 80- 81, 83-84.

■^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 84.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 97 33 functional curriculum. It was then that Shipherd reached

the decision to include a college at Oberlin and eventually

a theological seminary. His letter to Stewart began with

the understatement, "You perceive in my recent communica­

tions that I have latterly enlarged our plans of opperation."

He continued with assurances that neither nearby Western

Reserve College nor Lane Theological Seminary would suffer 34 from the competition.

Shipherd was indefatigable in his efforts to promote

Oberlin and to acquire only the best for it. The opening

date for the institution was set for December, 1833. He

placed glowing announcements in periodicals and interviewed

prospective faculty. He recommended Samuel Read Hall as

president. Although illness prevented his ever holding the

position, Hall was interested and fully intended to go to

Oberlin. Shipherd also recommended several other leading

educators for faculty positions among them people who would

report for duty during the first year and continue to serve

the institution for many years thereafter. These included

Seth H. Waldo, graduate of Amherst and Andover, who was

temporarily in charge of the institution and remained until

33 L. F. Anderson, "The Manual Labor Movement," Educa­ tional Review, XLVI (Nov. 1913), 369-86; R. Freeman Butts and Lawrence A. Cremin, A History of Education in American Culture (New York, 1966), pp. 214, 177; R. S. Fletcher, His­ tory of Oberlin, 35, 35 fn, 117, 341, 342, 346-47. 34 J. J. Shipherd to Stewart, May 28, 1833, quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 117-18.

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the appointment of Asa Mahan as president in 1835; James

Dascomb, M. D., graduate of Dartmouth Medical School, was

appointed professor of chemistry, botany and physiology,

with the understanding that he would also serve as physician

for the colony and college. In 1836 another physician was

appointed so that Dascomb could devote himself entirely to

academic work, and in this capacity Dascomb served for forty-

four years. In 1835 he and Marianne Parker were married.

The bride, having been educated in the Young Ladies' Semin­

ary at Ipswich, Massachusetts, accepted an appointment as

principal of the Female Department at Oberlin and held the 35 position for a total of almost twenty years.

In August, 1833, Shipherd saw his infant son for

the first time when he joined Esther at her parents' home

in New York where she and the baby had been visiting since

spring. During the latter part of August they left for

Oberlin, making the trip "in an open wagon, with a willow

cradle at . . . [their] feet," finding it the "pleasantest

journey" they had ever undertaken although the terrain was

often so rough that Esther had to walk beside the wagon

carrying the baby in her arms and although sometimes roads

disappeared into ravines. The Shipherds arrived in Oberlin

35 New York Evangelist, Sept. 7, 1833; Ohio Atlas and Elyria Advertiser, Oct. 17, 1833; J. J. Shipherd to James K. Shipherd, May 22, 1833, auoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 98, 118-20; see also 99-100, 128; J. H. Fairchild, Oberlin, pp. 275-76.

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on September 12, 1833.^

Oberlin was little more than a break in the wilder­

ness that September, but under the general supervision of

Philo Penfield Stewart much had been accomplished during

the year that Shipherd was on the east coast. The Board of

Trustees of Oberlin Institute--comprised of J. J. Shipherd

in absentia, P. P. Stewart, and seven leading citizens of

nearby settlements--was organized. Several meetings were

held during which important decisions affecting the schools

were made, such as determining the boundaries of land for

the institute, the public square, and the saw-mill. The

services of Peter Pindar Pease had been acquired "to labor

for the Institute for one year, & be provided for from the 37 common stock.

Pease's services were virtually indispensable, for

he was an experienced pioneer, having left his home in

Stockbridge, Massachusetts in 1816 to help build the Brown-

helm settlement. Wilbur H. Phillips, author of Oberlin

Colony: The Story of a Century, speculates that Pease had

met Shipherd in Brownhelm during the revival of 1831, and

had very likely expressed approval of the school that

■^Esther Shipherd, "A Sketch of the Life and Labors of John J. Shipherd"; Hosford, "Father and Mother Shipherd," 237; J. H. Fairchild, Oberlin, pp. 36-37; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I , 101.

■^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 102-04; also P. P. Stewart to John J. Shipherd, Mar. 12, 1833, quoted on p. 103.

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Shipherd proposed to start. At any rate, Pease was obvious­

ly interested in promoting education on the Reserve. He had

helped establish the first academy in Lorain County in 1830,

and had boarded students who were attending in return for

their work on his farm. On April 19, 1833 he, his wife, and

their five children arrived on the site of Oberlin in an ox­

cart. After moving into their hastily built log cabin--thus

establishing his family as the first colonists of Oberlin--

Pease had turned his attention to supervising and helping

with clearing the land and building according to the plans

which had been drafted earlier. Meanwhile, several famil­

ies who had arrived in April lived with the Stewarts and the

three Shipherd children in Elyria until their cabins could

be built at Oberlin. Stewart wrote that he was generally

satisfied with their conduct, but doubted that they could 38 ever forego their taste for coffee and tea.

By the latter part of May two log houses had been

built, and on June 11 ten heads of families reported in a

joint letter to Shipherd that they had already cleared ten

acres of land, were attending religious services on the

grounds, starting Sabbath schools in nearby settlements, and

building the saw-mill in preparation for the machinery which

Shipherd had promised. The mill was to have been used not

only as a means of facilitating building at Oberlin, but

38 Phillips, Oberlin Colony, pp. 25-34; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 103-07.

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also as a profit making enterprise for the institute. Due

to vacillation as to the size of machinery needed, extreme

difficulties of transporting the sheer bulk of the facility,

and failure of the mechanism once it did arrive, the mill,

however, proved to be something of a disappointment insofar 39 as profits were concerned.

Finding a more stable source of income for the

school than that which contributions supplied posed a prob­

lem for the founders. Philo Penfield Stewart, who was

talented in creative work with his hands planned to provide

some income by inventing commodities, patenting them, and

bestowing them on Oberlin as endowment. Despite his duties

and responsibilities in overseeing the operation of founding

the colony and school, Stewart did perfect a sophisticated

model of a stove while Shipherd was away. The stove was

patented later as the Oberlin cook-stove. Royalties were

bestowed upon the institution for a period of three years 40 and did, indeed, provide some income for the school.

As he himself admitted, Philo Penfield Stewart was

as circumspect as Shipherd was visionary and as deliberate

as Shipherd was mercurial. Although they were partners in

reform and shared similar New England backgrounds their up­

bringing was quite different. Stewart, a native of Sherman,

^ R . S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 106-09.

^ R . S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 136-39.

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Connecticut, had been orphaned in 1808 when he was ten years

old and sent to live with his grandfather in Pittsford,

Vermont. Four years later he was apprenticed to his uncle,

a saddle and harness maker, in Pawlet, Vermont, where he

attended the academy and met Shipherd. When he was twenty-

three, he accepted an appointment from the American Board

of Commissioners For Foreign Missions to a Choctaw Indian

mission in Mississippi. In 1828 he married Eliza Capen, one

of his recruits from Vermont, who became ill in Mississippi

and was recuperating at her parents' home when Stewart joined 41 Shipherd in Elyria two years later.

Stewart was an unusually patient and persistent man

— he is purported to have whittled a practical wheelbarrow

in his youth— and he was also uncommonly frugal. This was

demonstrated when the American Board gave him seventy

dollars for travelling expenses and Stewart returned sixty

to the society after making the 2,000 mile trip from Vermont

to Mississippi on horseback. His ascetic nature was at

least partly responsible for his later severing connections

with Oberlin after it became a going concern. He and Mrs.

Stewart were in charge of food services and provided such

meager meals that even those who were accustomed to hardship

protested the severe deprivation. Stewart, having expected

^Phillips, Oberlin Colony, pp. 290-91; Leonard, Story of Oberlin, pp. 79-80; J. H. Fairchild, Oberlin, pp. 12-lb; R- SV Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 86-87.

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more stamina from reformers, left Oberlin in something of a

huff and after a few months submitted his resignation.

Several years later he invented an improved model of the

stove. Known as the Stewart stove, it made a rich man of

him, but Stewart gave most of his money to reform and contin- 42 ued to lead a life of frugal simplicity to the last.

During the spring of 1833, however, one of Stewart's

primary concerns was to have accommodations for students

ready for the opening of the institute in December. In the

middle of May, Stewart, Pease, and several hired men con­

sequently began work on the "boarding house," which was

later named Preparatory Hall and still later Oberlin Hall.

Although incomplete, the building was habitable on September

12 when the Shipherds arrived. Both families— the two

Stewarts and the six Shipherds— lived together in one room

"about fifteen feet square and seven feet high" in the

basement of the hall. Moreover, newly arrived colonists

often temporarily shared the room; on one occasion a family

of eight lived with them for three weeks. It was to be a

year before the Shipherds would move into a frame house.

Meanwhile, the boarding hall— two stories high, thirty-five

by forty-four feet--accommodated the founders and their

families, Shipherd's office, cubicles for male students in

the attic and for female students on the second floor, and

42 J. H. Fairchild, Oberlin, 273-75; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 86-87, 196-98.

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the common dining hall, the chapel, and the classrooms.

These were the arrangements on December 3, 1833, when class-

es began. 43

Overcrowding and other inconveniences were character­

istic of early Oberlin, and the college retained its char­

acter as a pioneer institution far into the 1840's. In

their letters, students, faculty and visitors wrote of the

ubiquitous sounds, sights, smells and experiences at Oberlin

that typified life on the frontier. They described the con­

stant ring of axes on trees, the rhythm of hammer and saw,

and the coaxing sounds of men urging beasts to greater

effort in freeing wagons mired in the mud or in straining

against the countless logs and stumps that were scattered

throughout the clearing. They told of the abundance of wild­

life nearby in the forest, including timber wolves that

howled at night, and of the pungent aroma of burning wood

that clung to the settlement. They fairly boasted of their

travails on the road between Elyria and Oberlin— which seem­

ed to have been nothing short of awesome even to experienced

travellers. Deep, frozen ruts in winter were churned into

soupy mud in spring and summer, and various conveyances

^ E s t h e r Shipherd, "A Sketch of the Life and Labors of John J. Shipherd, n. pag., sections also quoted in Frances Juliette Hosford, Father Shipherd's Magna Charta: A Century of Coeducation in Oberlin College (Boston, 1937), pp. 11-13; Hosford, "Father and Mother Shipherd," The Oberlin Alumni Magazine,, XIV (May, 1930), 237. See also J. h. Fairchild, Oberlin, pp. 38-39; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 107, 121.

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were overturned or stuck, according to the season. One new

student, travelling alone, caught a ride to Oberlin from

Elyria on a log wagon and confessed later that the mud holes

were so deep and there was "so much swamp" that she had

feared they "must go under the mud and disappear from sight.

But letters also attest to the remarkable communion

which existed among the people of Oberlin, transforming

physical deprivation, hardship, and labor into unifying

experiences. The community was totally committed to the

magnificent cause of building an instrument of God for the

reformation of the world and the achievement of millennial

happiness. Religious fervor and confidence in the success

of their venture inspired them to make heroic cooperative

efforts in overcoming obstacles. As for the students--the

vast majority of whom came from small farms in Ohio, New

England and New York--attending college had become a reality

for many who had previously believed it only a remote dream

because of their poverty and lack of educational background.

Generally healthy and brimming with enthusiasm, they looked

to a future in which they would be leaders in the greatest

humanitarian crusade the world had ever known. Meanwhile,

/rA Robert S. Fletcher, ed., Going West to College in the Thirties - Selections from Letters Preserved in the Oberlin College Library," Oberlin College Library Bulletin, (Oberlin, Ohio, 1930) ,p.8 et passim;’ The Prudden Letters, R. S. Fletcher Papers, Oberlin College Archives; Isaac I. Warren to J. B. T. March, 1840, in Phillips, Oberlin Colony, pp. 305-09; excerpts from letters in R. S. Fietcher, History of Oberlin, I, 186- 89, 193-95, II, 549-62.

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pioneering was an exciting adventure.

In February, 1834, a charter was granted by the

Legislature of the State of Ohio to the Oberlin Collegiate

Institute— a name selected because of its lack of preten­

tiousness as well as because the board was not certain as to

the date that college work could be started. During that

year several departments were organized to accommodate the

varied levels of educational preparation among entering

students. Most students, having had few, if any, opportuni­

ties to attend school, were enrolled in the Preparatory

Department. Women students entered the Female Department

--changed to the "Ladies Course" in February, 1836, when a

Female Board of Managers was appointed consisting of women

with the "power to regulate and control the internal affairs

of the Female Department of the Institute, agreeable to a

code of by-laws to be recommended by them and recognized by

the Board of Trustees.The first class of the College

Department was organized on October 28, 1834, when four

young men were "graduated" into the freshman class. The

Theological Department was organized during May, 1835, with

the transfer of many young men with advanced preparation

for the ministry from other institutions. The Oberlin

Conservatory of Music was not organized until August 26, 1867,

4 5 Seventy-Fifth Anniversary General Catalogue of Oberlin College, 1833-1908 (Oberlin, Ohio, 1909), p. Int. 38; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 124; II, 682-83.

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when an affiliated private school was brought into the

college as a department. As R. S. Fletcher points out, how­

ever, "the 'departments' were not water tight compartments."

Except for the Theological Department which had its own

sequence of courses, students from the various departments

often attended the same classes. Students advanced from the

Preparatory Department according to their own goals, their 46 ages, and their achievement.

As a religious institution, evidence of excellent

moral character and Christian piety was the foremost en­

trance requirement— including, of course, abstinence from

smoking and the drinking of tea, coffee, and alcoholic

beverages except for medicinal purposes. But applicants

were also required to demonstrate scholastic potential and

were placed according to their educational preparation and

achievement. In lieu of an entrance examination, entering

students were required to serve a six months' probationary

period. If by the end of that time they were unable to keep

up with their academic work, they were either dismissed or

placed on a lower level. They were, however, banished more

immediately for infringements of the high moral code. Using

that special talent common to all students for exposing

absurdity in the most pious of institutional precepts,

46R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 710, 711- 12. See also, Seventy-Fifth Anniversary General Catalogue of Oberlin Col lege',' p. Int. 38.

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Oberlin students kept a rumor alive and credible for at

least a quarter of a century that one applicant was refused

admission to the institution because he was seen drinking 47 root beer.

The modest enrollment of thirty-four students in

the opening class on December 3, 1833, increased rapidly,

reaching 310 three years later. In spite of the national

financial panic of 1837 when the college was too poor to

publish a catalogue--and accurate statistics are therefore

not available--enrollment continued to multiply. The sharp­

est increase occurred between 1851 and 1852 when it spiraled

from 571 to 1020. Insofar as enrollment is concerned,

Oberlin was one of the largest institutions of higher learn­

ing in the nation, as is shown by a comparison with the

number of students in attendance at other institutions:^®

Delia Fenn to Richard Fenn and family, Aug. 21, 1835, L. B. M . , Mar. 4, 1853, and Henry Prudden to parents, June, 3, 1859, quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 712.

^®Seventy-Fifth Anniversary General Catalogue of Oberlin College, 1833-1308, p. Int. 117. Figures for harvard, Yale and Princeton are from Charles F. Thwing, A History of Higher Education in America (New York, 1906), pp. 254-55. Those of Western Reserve are from Waite, Western Reserve University, p. 515. Preparatory departments were usually an integral part of antebellum western colleges. Hence students in the preparatory departments of Oberlin and Western Reserve are included in the totals. Harvard, Yale and Princeton had no preparatory departments although in 1850 Samuel A. Eliot is purported to have spoken of the collegiate program at Harvard as being "preparatory.” See Hugh Hawkins, Between Harvard and America: The Educational Leadership of Charles W. Eliot (New York, 1972), p. 7.

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Year Oberlin Harvard Yale College of Western New Jersey Reserve

1840 484 442 574 227 113

1850 534 596 555 236 325

1860 1311 896 521 312 188

R. S. Fletcher estimates that by 1862 over 11,000 students

had attended Oberlin. Most became ministers, teachers and

missionaries, or married men in those professions, but many

entered other fields such as journalism and lecturing,

spreading out into just about every state of the nation and 49 foreign countries as well.

Oberlin attracted nationally prominent men in the

reform movement to its faculty. Many remained at the college

for the rest of their professional lives, willingly giving

long hours of dedicated service yet receiving what was scant

payment even in those days of low salaries for professors.

Asa Mahan, graduate of Hamilton College and Andover Seminary,

became the first president of Oberlin on January 1, 1835.

Mahan, "a revival minister of the millenial stamp," was

widely acclaimed for his intellectuality and ability as a

stimulating speaker. He was also an unusually inspiring

teacher--as he demonstrated in his courses in theology.

Although many faculty and trustees found him abrasively

arrogant, he gave strength and decisive direction to the

49 R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 423.

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fledgling institution. During his fifteen years as presi­

dent he published several books in theology and philosophy

which were regarded as being significant contributions to

those fields.50

The most famous evangelist of the period, Charles

Grandison Finney, was appointed professor of theology in

1835 and elected president on August 26, 1851--a position

which he held until his resignation in 1866. Finney exert­

ed a profound influence on Oberlin despite frequent absences

on the revival circuit. He was identified so closely with

the institution that the two were inseparable in the public

mind.5^

In addition to the Dascombs who had been appointed

earlier, members of the regular faculty included such men

and women as John Morgan, graduate of Williams College,

professor of New Testament literature for forty-five years;

Henry Cowles, who received his bachelors' degree at Yale

and a graduate degree from Yale Divinity School, served as

professor of ecclesiastical history, after which he became

editor of the popular and influential periodical of the

50J. H. Fairchild, Oberlin, pp. 277-79; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, 1, 191-92, 472-88; II, 688.

5^See Charles G. Finney, An Autobiography (New York, 1903), pp. 68-78; Charles G. Finney, i,ecturesi on Revivals of Religion (Oberlin, Ohio, 1868), pp. 185-212; William G. McLougblin, Jr., Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham (New York, 1939), pp. 82-83; Cole, Social Ideas, pp. 60, 63. 68; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 191.

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college, the Oberlin Evangelist. His wife, Alice Welch

Cowles, was also a member of the faculty. She was principal

of the Female Department from 1836 to 1840 and a leading

member of the Women's Board of Managers from 1837 to 1843.

Henry Cowles' brother John, and E. P. Barrows and Elihu

Parsons— all Yale graduates--also joined the faculty. After

1836, increases in the faculty were made directly from the

graduating classes at Oberlin--perhaps to insure that the

"Oberlin doctrine" would remain undefiled by outside influ­

ences .

Students in the Theological Department usually

taught classes in the Preparatory Department— as did the

most capable students in the Collegiate Department. Theo­

logical students also taught in the Sabbath schools and

counseled others in much the same fashion as ordained minis­

ters. R. S. Fletcher calls the Theological Department "the

crown of Oberlin Institute" and further describes it as

setting the tone of the whole college. Indeed, everything

about that department was sacrosanct--its professors were

the most illustrious figures on the faculty, its bright

young men were the most influential student leaders, and

courses in its curriculum were inaccessible to all but its 53 own students.

■^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 689-709.

53R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 725-26.

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Although Oberlin had been founded and developed at

the height of the battle to Americanize the college curric­

ulum and was normally unmoved by public outcry against its

stand on reform issues, the institution was very responsive

to public criticism of changes in the traditional curric­

ulum of the College Department. After a brief trial at

innovation in the college course--modern languages, new

sciences and mathematics, English literature, Hebrew and

New Testament Greek instead of Horace--fears that its

graduates might be deemed less than qualified apparently

forced the Oberlin faculty to yield to the Yale Report and

restore the undergraduate degree program to the pristine

orthodoxy of contemporary New England colleges. Perhaps it

was the presence of so many Yale men on the faculty that

made Oberlin ignore parallel courses and electives and

terminate courses in French, Italian, German, English and

the new sciences with diplomas or certificates rather than

college degrees. Mathematics was studied as an exercise in

mental discipline, and, except in the classes of a few en­

thusiasts of the German system, the lecture method was used

exclusively. College-bound students in the Preparatory

Department were made ready by taking beginning courses in

the classics along with their history and geography, while

those interested in a terminal program were free to explore

such courses as "Conchology" and "Geography of the Heavens.

54 For a full discussion of the Oberlin curriculum

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Before 1850 the Ladies' course was the only one

which excluded the study of the classics and featured an

unusual amount of religious theorizing, moralizing, phil­

osophizing, and little else. R. S. Fletcher explains that

at the time "the feminine mind, though dragged through this

morass of theological profundity, was not considered strong

enough to conquer the difficulties of Latin and Greek.

Classes were, however, open to all even in the Collegiate

Department, and it was in this way that four girls infil­

trated the Collegiate Department in 1837 despite divided

opinion as to whether or not it was appropriate for them to

do so. Four years later three of them— Mary Hosford,

Elizabeth Prall and Caroline Rudd--graduated, becoming the

first women in America to earn college degrees.^

At Oberlin, as at many of the earlier colleges, the

extra-curriculum was developed by students intent on examin­

ing the here and now of their generation. Starting in 1839

with the organization of the men's Dialectic Society--later

named the Young Men's Lyceum, and finally, Phi Kappa Pi--

see R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 341-73; II, 688- 745.

■^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 716.

■^F. J. Hosford, Father Shipherd's Magna Charta, pp. 56-79, relates the story of the first four women to enter college, through references to long passages from letters and documents. The fourth girl was Mary Kellogg, whose studies were interrupted because her family moved to Louisiana where she married James H. Fairchild when he visited her. She returned to Oberlin, maintaining her interest in the higher education of women.

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debating and literary societies were formed for the purpose

of exploring the pros and cons of current events and sundry

topics of singular and lasting interest to students. Due to

contemporary perceptions of propriety, however, men and

women students formed separate debating societies. Oberlin

ladies blushed at the mere thought of making a public dis­

play of themselves by speaking to a mixed audience from a

platform. Although Mary Hosford, Elizabeth Prall, Caroline

Rudd, and Mary Kellogg had staunchly braved the disapproval

of some of their professors and peers when they registered

for the college course, they willingly relinquished their

prized right to read their graduation essays to their pro-

fessors--and with poetic justice John Morgan was put in the

position of reading Mary Hosford's paper "A Lady's Apology."

Even the pressure applied by the fiery, outspoken Lucy Stone

--who refused to write her graduation essay in 1847 since

she was not permitted to read it— failed to dislodge the

custom. Lucy Stone went on to become one of the most sig­

nificant speakers in the women's rights movement. Antoinette

Brown was another woman student who rebelled against ostra­

cism. Desiring to be a minister, she graduated from the

Ladies' Course then invaded the hallowed Theological Depart­

ment. Although she completed the work of the department

successfully in 1850, she was not acknowledged at the com­

mencement. She was ordained at her church in 1853, becoming

the first ordained woman minister in the country. While at

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the college, Antoinette Brown also participated in the de­

bates of the Theological Literary Society— with varied re­

actions from official Oberlin.

In some instances, as in other contemporary insti­

tutions, the extra curriculum was absorbed into the curricu­

lum. According to R. S. Fletcher, the Students' Gymnastic

Club, formed in 1860, led to the building of a gymnasium the

following year, despite opposition from some of the faculty

and trustees who believed that manual labor offered stu­

dents ample opportunity to accomplish good while developing

their bodies. Clubs and societies also supplemented the

curriculum by bringing in visiting lecturers--who added

considerably to the zest of college life.

The annual commencement was by far the most impor­

tant event of the school year for both town and gown. Held

originally in a massive tent that had been given to Finney

by his admirers, then transferred to a larger meeting house

during the 1840's, a week of exhibits and oratory by liter­

ary societies culminated in one commencement day for grad­

uates of the Ladies' Course followed by another for grad­

uates of the Theological and Collegiate Departments. A

gaily bedecked and especially manicured campus, proud

parents, friends, and dignitaries— there to officiate or to

^Oberlin Evangelist, June 7, 1854; Oberlin Alumni Magazine, XKXt (foov., 1904); R. S. Fletcher, fciistory of Oberlin, I, 290-315, 373-85; II, 760-83, 828-397

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observe— essays, class songs, recitations, profound oratory,

and lines of graduating ladies accompanied by their under­

graduate lady-attendants clad in white dresses with blue

sashes gradually transformed the event from its character of

a religious revival to one of a festival. In 1860, Finney

--detecting worldliness--took a dim view of the proceedings 58 and contemplated discontinuing the exercises altogether.

Despite its development, however, Oberlin was not

affluent. Indeed, one of the most consistent characteris­

tics of antebellum Oberlin was its severe financial crises

--which were caused by everything from national panics to

institutional mismanagement. At a particularly crucial

point during the second year of its precarious existence,

Oberlin cast about for a means of saving itself from starva­

tion and came up with the unlikely expedient of espousing

the cause of Negroes. With profound misgivings the institu­

tion gingerly took up the abolitionist banner in order to

attract from New York philanthropists the cold cash necessary

for continued existence. It was, as Bertram Wyatt-Brown has

remarked, "one of the few times in the 1830's when it paid ,,59 to be an abolitionist.

^ Lorain County News, Aug. 22, 1860; Oberlin Evan­ gelist, Nov. 6, 185t); R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, §28-59; John Keep et al to Finney, July 21, I860 from the Finney MSS, Oberlin College Archives. 5 9 Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan and the Evan­ gelical War Against Slavery (Cleveland, 1969), p. 130.

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THE PROFITS OF ABOLITIONISM

I believe God has here put my hand on the end of a chain, linking men and money to our dear Seminary ....I

--John J. Shipherd to E. Redington, December 15, 1834.

Everything had worked harmoniously until now. Mr. S[hipherd] had suddenly become deranged and quite beside himself. He addressed a letter to the Trustees, making a proposition to receive the colored students with the whites. It is im­ possible to give2an idea of the excitement it produced .... — [Esther Shipherd], MA Sketch of the Life and Labors of John J. Shipherd.’1

The western frontier was capricious. It afforded

generous opportunities to eastern enterpreneurs and specu­

lators, and many of them built vast fortunes from its bounty.

It offered a haven of democratic freedom to colonies of cul-

tists and social theorists that had fled the persecution of

orthodox society on the east coast, and an impressive

Cited in Clayton Sumner Ellsworth. "Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement Up to the Civil War, (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1930), p. 10, fn. 17. Robert S. Fletcher, A History of Oberlin College from Its Foundation to the Civil W a r . (Oberlin, Ohio, 1943), I, 169.

^[Esther Shipherd], "A Sketch of the Life and Labors of John J. Shipherd, unpublished MS in the Oberlin College Library, Oberlin, Ohio, no pagination.

117

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number of them prospered and multiplied in large, thriving

communities of followers who left a permanent imprint of their

life-styles on the regions in which they settled. It ful­

filled the aspirations of people who had widely divergent

backgrounds and needs. But the frontier also lured many of

the poor to its borders--frequently through the inflated

promises of land speculators--then it yielded only sparingly,

if at all, to their efforts. It beckoned people of little

means who held large dreams of building social or religious

utopias and, after callously exacting a heartbreaking struggle

for survival from them, sometimes shattered the settlement

with a failure, which, due to isolation and stubborn environ­

ment, had uniquely tragic results. After such a failure the

more fortunate found their way back to some outpost of civili­

zation or returned to the coast, but others died of depriva­

tion or remained entrapped in the wilderness— destitute or

near starvation. The West was dotted with the vestiges of

colonies that had underestimated the importance of money to 3 a frontier venture.

3 Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York, 1920), pp. 335-48; Frederick Jackson Turner, The United States, 1830-1850(New York, 1935), pp. 32- 40; Delavan L. Leonard, The Story of Oberlin: The Institution, the Community, the Idea, the Movement (Boston, 1898), pp. 104- 23: Alice Felt tyler, Freedom^sjFerment: Phases of American Social History from the Colonial Period to the Outbreak of the Civil War (New York, 1944), pp. 15-17 notes that the flow of migration paralleled the state of the nation's economy— decreasing during depressions and increasing during years of posperity.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 119

Recognizing the value of adequate financial backing

to the success of Oberlin particularly during its founding

years, Philo Penfield Stewart and John Jay Shipherd had each

attempted to secure a steady flow of income for the fledgling

institution. Stewart initiated his plan by perfecting a

model of his stove, which was to be the first in a series of

inventions in setting up an endowment. Meanwhile, during

his nine month tour of New York and New England— while he was

negotiating for land with Street and Hughes, recruiting

colonists, students and faculty, and soliciting funds--

Shipherd made a strenuous effort to establish a financial

life-line from the coast to the college by appealing to the

Christian charity of private citizens. Moreover, he assigned

agents to the task of carrying on this vital work on the

coast after his return to Oberlin.

Shipherd was in stiff competition with countless

other colleges for the modest contributions of ordinary

citizens. Frederick Rudolph maintains in his witty and

authoritative study, The American College and University,

that, although woefully inadequate, by long tradition and

dire necessity the common man's purse was virtually the only

resource for funding available to early nineteenth century

American colleges. Not until later— "at a particularly low

moment in the history of American architecture," says Rudolph

in one of his asides— did individual wealth become common

enough for philanthropists to be "standing in line" eager to

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hand over their money and be awarded an immortality of sorts

by having colleges, sundry halls, and commons named after

them in recognition of their generosity.^ In the meantime,

the burden of financing higher education--which was experi­

encing an unprecedented growth both in the West and in their

own regions--was borne by the common people in the towns,

villages, and farms of New York and New England, who had

been brought to believe that their contributions were

religious duty and that a college was a social investment.

This rather remarkable feat of public support was more or

less accomplished through small installments on subscrip­

tions and by purchases of perpetual scholarships.^

Subscriptions were contractual promises to con­

tribute a specified amount of money— or sometimes building

materials, apparatus, or produce, as the case might warrant—

toward the support of a certain college, either in lump sum

or, more usually, in regular payments. Entirely dependent

on the fortunes or misfortunes of ordinary families and on

the mood of the benefactor when it was time to pay, sub­

scriptions frequently went unpaid. Perpetual scholarships

were equally as problematic for college administrators, but

^Frederick Rudolph, The American College and Univer­ sity: A History (New York, 1962), pp. 180, 181-83.

^Rudolph, American College and University, pp. 182- 83; Merle Curti and koderick Nasn, Philanthropy In the Shap- ing of American Higher Education (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1965), pp. 42-55.

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for a different reason. Defined by Rudolph as a "widespread

and desperate device . . . entitling the owner to free tuition

for one person in perpetuity," perpetual scholarships brought

grief to many a college officer who, having long since spent

the money contributed by the donor, found that the steady

succession of students year after year claiming free tuition

was indeed a perpetual strain on an already feeble budget.^

Unfortunately, John Jay Shipherd selected these

time-honored, but inadequate, devices as the means for gain­

ing financial security for his new college. When he returned

to Oberlin in September, 1833, he gave a full accounting of

monies collected during his tour of the east coast. He

reported that as a result of solicitations he had collected

$]/r62.75 in cash. Of this he listed $115.3 as travelling

expenses— over a nine month period— and $333.03 as having

been borrowed for the purchase of "a horse, waggon, &c--to

defray current expenses of self & family & pay debts." He

also collected $3,641.12 in subscriptions "both paid and

unpaid."^

A few days before Shipherd's return the New York

Evangelist carried an advertisement about the sale of per­

petual or "permanent" scholarships to Oberlin. Although the

^Rudolph, American College and University, pp. 182-83, 190-91; Curti and flash, Philanthropy in American Higher Edu­ cation, pp. 42-54.

^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, p. 101.

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usual cost of such scholarships at other colleges was $500,

at Oberlin they were only $150, and according to the adver­

tisement, the buyer could send "a succession of individuals

to obtain a thorough education for the ministry or school

training" to the institution. The only stated requirement

was that they be students who were of "promising talent and

pxety.. _ ..8

By March, 1834, probably after Shipherd had second

thoughts about the matter, an announcement in the Circular

contradicted the previous commitment to scholarship owners.

It was rather vaguely explained that "scholarships do not

guarantee the students support, nor any part of it, nor pay

his tuition; but they are so expended as to furnish board,

tuition, books, &c, at a very low rate." R. S. Fletcher

comments that Oberlin1s enemies— and by then there were many

— seized the opportunity to wax satirical about an institution

which claimed to be benevolent, yet proposed that students

pay $150 merely for the privilege of using tools to labor for

that institution.^ Shipherd tried to clarify the position of

the college, but the issue only grew cloudier with each

attempt to explain. Finally, in August, 1835, although

^New York Evangelist, Sept. 7, 1833. Also cited in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 132.

^Ohio Observer, July 17, 1834. The Ohio Observer was edited by a member o f t h e Board of Trustees of Western Reserve at that time. See R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 132-34.

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scholarships had been the main source of support for the

institution, the system of permanent scholarships was aban­

doned. Fletcher points out that for "years afterwards, stu­

dents presented scholarships, hoping to receive free tuition,

and they [the scholarships] continued to cause misunderstand­

ing and ill-feeling."^

In addition to the financial woes created by unpaid

or tardily honored subscriptions and troublesome scholarship

claims, Oberlin had a plethora of other serious money prob­

lems. The most severe one was self-imposed. In March, 1834,

the board of trustees appointed John Jay Shipherd financial

manager of the institution. For all his many virtues of

enthusiasm, energy, initiative, determination, and personal

commitment, Shipherd scarcely qualified for such a position.

His records were in a state of constant chaos, and several

members of the board made the accusation that between 1832

and 1835 "it never was possible to balance his accounts."

An auditing committee found essential information so sketchy

that an evaluation of the figures was impossible. According

to R. S. Fletcher, board meetings during the first few years

were characterized by "bickerings and financial difficulties"

as pressures related to expenses increased."^

Despite letters warning that the institution was full

■^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 136.

■^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 139; II, 665.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. beyond capacity and that no others could be admitted, stu­

dents arrived without money and, having traveled "hundreds

of miles," begged for admittance, "saying 'we will eat any­

thing & sleep on anything if you will give us an oppor­

tunity to obtain an . . . education . . . 6e defray the expen­

ses by our own labors1 An actual emergency existed in

the need for facilities such as dormitories and a boarding

house for those students already enrolled. Yet student

labor was not equal to the task of building. Although they

rose before dawn to perform their manual labor chores— men

were assigned to farm work and women to domestic routines—

manual labor had its limitations in the time and skill of

students. Professional builders were expensive or unavail­

able, and the forests created problems— all expensive.

Esther Shipherd remarked, for example, that "lumber was to

be hauled through the woods, and no men would go a second

time for love or money.Salaries for the professors

already working could not be paid, yet more professors were

absolutely necessary. As the result of the parsimonious

Stewarts, the severe restrictions of dietetic reform, and a

virtually bankrupt dining hall, an actual meal had been

relegated to the status of a dim memory. Some members of

^ J . J. Shipherd to Fayette Shipherd, June 14, 1834, cited in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 140. 13 .. Esther Shipherd, A Sketch of the Life and Labors of John J. Shipherd.

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the board heartily endorsed the elimination of all but that

which they could support with the money trickling in from

agents. Other members argued as heartily for stoic control

through the difficult period and a continuation of the enter­

prise as planned. Oberlin was perilously near total collapsed

Desperately the board cast about for some means of

paying outstanding debts and finding money for necessities.

On September 23, 1834, at a meeting of the trustees, Shipherd

was charged with the responsibility of making "a tour through

the different Sections of the country for the purpose of

collecting funds for [the] Institution."^ Two months later

he left on his mission, traveling in a wagon pulled by a

"baulky, sullen horse" which he had borrowed from a colonist.

But Shipherd did not head for the east coast as

might be expected. In Mansfield, Ohio, he sent the horse and

wagon back to Oberlin with a few supplies that he had either

bought or solicited. In Columbus he hitched a ride on a mail

wagon bound for Cincinnati and bumped along with the bags of

mail, for he had doubtless either heard or read about news

which interested him immensely. A series of unusual events

had but recently occurred at Lane Theological Seminary in

Cincinnati, and Shipherd deeply hoped that he might turn the

^ R . S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 140-41.

"^Minutes of the Board of Trustees, Oberlin Collegiate Institute, Robert S. Fletcher Papers, Oberlin College Archives.

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situation into some advantage for Oberlin.^

The visit to Cincinnati would prove to be far more

profitable than Shipherd could have expected, for the direct

results would fulfill many of the most desperate needs of the

college and provide a bonanza of benefits as well. The wind­

fall would consist of a theological department--a need which

had been of particular concern to Oberlin officers because

they regarded it as absolutely essential to their program of

education. With the department would come a group of out­

standing senior theological students, thus giving Oberlin an

early graduating class; a complete faculty whose membership

would include some of the most reputable scholars and prom­

inent leaders in the reform movement--among them the nation­

ally renowned Charles Grandison Finney; and a president,

famous for his intellectuality and leadership abilities. In

addition Oberlin would achieve a position as the most impor­

tant institution in evangelical circles; an opportunity to

wield significant influence on the social and political

structure of the nation; and a steady source of income from

a prestigious philanthropist, who, in addition to his wealth,

was a leader of a group of equally wealthy men dedicated to

benevolent reform.

^The Lane affair received extensive press coverage throughout the nation and was the topic of popular discussion. There is no evidence as to where Shipherd had obtained his information about Lane, however. For a discussion of his probable source, see R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 168.

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But in order to receive these blessings Oberlin would

be required to become an abolitionist institution. The

opportunity for the decision would come directly from the

failure of Lane Theological Seminary of Cincinnati to cham­

pion the cause of abolitionism in the face of public con­

demnation. The background of Lane contained the wellspring,

from which these benefits and challenges would flow to

Oberlin.

From its reorganization in 1832, Lane had what was

perhaps the most secure patronage and the brightest future

of all institutions of higher learning in the West. Yet, in

October, 1834, most of the Lane students walked out in angry

opposition to action of the board of trustees and the presi­

dent of the institution. Many transferred to other semin­

aries and divinity schools. Others returned to their homes.

But approximately thirty-eight defected to an unoccupied

mansion in Cumminsville, a few miles from Cincinnati, where

they started their own independent seminary.

The Lane walk-out was of national significance. It

signalled a new, radical dynamism which resulted from the

joining of the moral reform crusade with that of abolition-

ism--a union which was aided considerably by the combined

efforts of four central figures: Theodore Dwight Weld,

Arthur and Lewis Tappan, and Charles Grandison Finney. The

17Benjamin P. Thomas, Theodore Weld: Crusader for Freedom (New Brunswick, New Jersey, l95o), P* 85.

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close working relationship between these men had been estab­

lished earlier at Oneida Institute in Whitesboro, New York.

Late in 1827 Theodore Dwight Weld, who was then

twenty-five years old, left Hamilton College where he was

studying for the ministry and enrolled as an advanced stu­

dent at Oneida Institute. Although Oneida was newly estab­

lished, it was already creating excitement among leading

evangelists as the model institution for training young min­

isters for moral reform. Weld, a native of Hamilton, Conn­

ecticut, and a descendant of a long line of prominent min­

isters, had been converted to evangelism by Finney two years

earlier. He had become Finney's special protege, exhibiting

exceptional abilities in influencing others to join the

crusade for moral reform and exerting such impressive leader­

ship among the Hamilton students that many of them followed 18 him to Oneida.

Weld was a moving force at Oneida. He supervised

students in their performance of manual labor chores, served

as general manager of the farm, and went out with his class­

mates to preach reform among people in the surrounding

countryside. In addition, the president of Oneida, George

Washington Gale, recognized the value of Weld's extraordinary

18 Theodore Dwight Weld Manuscripts, Library of Congress; Weld to Zephaniah Platt, Nov. 16, 1829, Finney Manuscripts, Oberlin College Library; Thomas, Theodore Weld pp. 11-24; Gilbert Hobbs Barnes, The Antislavery Impulse, 1830-1844 (New York, 1933), pp. l t t T .

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charisma and sent him on fund-raising assignments as far away

as Utica, Troy, and Rochester. And Weld’s eloquence and per­

sonal charm procured funds and accolades for Oneida and

manual labor. Gale commented after a particularly successful

speaking engagement: "The Lord had given Brother Weld and

this Institution great favor among the people of Rochester."

Barnes and Dumond estimate that Weld "spent more than half of

his three years at Oneida traveling in the interest of the 19 school.

Charles Grandison Finney was enthusiastic about the

educational program at Oneida Institute. For years he had

decried the traditional classical education of ministers as

being impractical. He believed that Latin disputations were

poor preparation for preachers, who would be far better know­

ing how to maneuver a bench of sinners to the alter or how

to wrest a bottle from a tippler. Moreover, he had an aver­

sion to an education which, as he expressed it later, was 20 "all hie, haec, hoc and no God in it."

Finney, who became the most prominent evangelist of

the century, had been concerned about the education of min­

isters since 1821 when, as a young lawyer, he had been

19 George W. Gale to Finney, Jan. 21, 1830, Finney MSS; Gilbert H. Barnes and Dwight L. Dumond, eds., Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Grimk'e Weld, and Sarah Grimke-*, 1822-1844, 2 Vo Is. (New York, 1970), I, fn.8, p. 13. 20 Charles G. Finney to Weld. March, 30, 1831 in Barnes and Dumond, eds., Weld-Grimke Letters, I, 45.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 130 converted to evangelism. Deciding to enter the ministry, he

had rejected the idea of studying at Princeton and had,

instead, pursued his studies under the guidance of his pastor,

George Washington Gale. In 1824, when he was licensed to

preach, he adopted the direct delivery of the lawyer. That,

combined with his genius for achieving dramatic effect, his

handsome, arresting appearance, and his creative approach to

religious dogma and custom, won thousands of converts to the

cause of evangelism during the Western Revivals in the great

Mohawk Valley of New York— subsequently called the "burnt-

over district" largely because Charles Grandison Finney had 21 ignited the spirit of the people.

Under Finney's direction the ideology of revivals

departed from the old orthodoxy of man's depravity and sal­

vation reserved only for the elect. He cast aside the hope­

less passivity which predestination imposed, offering the

sinner an active, participating role in working out his sal­

vation. He also introduced "new measures" or new techniques

for winning converts. His revivals were spectaculars bringing

energy, excitement, and a chance for emotional release to the

21 Charles G. Finney, An Autobiography (New York, 1903), pp. 1-46; Charles G. Finney, !Memoirs of Rev. Charles G. Finney (New York, 1876), pp. 50-53; k. S. iFletcher, history of Oberlin, I, 6-16 et passim; Charles C. Cole, Jr., Trie Social Ideas of the Northern Evangelists, 1826-1860. (New York, 1954), pp. 58-60; Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-over District: The Social and Intellectual History o¥ Enthusiastic keligion in Western New York, 1800-1850 (New York, 1950), p. 3.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 131

people in small towns and villages. The new measures consist­

ed of "preaching, prayer and conference meetings, much pri­

vate prayer, much personal conversation, and meetings for the 22 instruction of earnest inquirers. For the first time

women were encouraged to pray aloud or give testimony before

the congregation— a new measure which shocked the more con­

servative clergymen such as Lyman Beecher, who also objected

to the emotionalism of Finney's revivals and the liberties

which he took in his interpretation of Calvinist doctrine.

These new measures were also used by Finney's followers, some

of whom belonged to his "Holy Band" and included Theodore

Weld; Charles Stuart, a retired British soldier who was

Weld's friend and mentor, Zebulon Rudd Shipherd who was John

Jay Shipherd's father; and Asa Mahan, who later became the 23 first president of Oberlin.

In the summer of 1828 Finney conducted a brief re­

vival in New York City. The event had far-reaching effects,

for it was then that Finney formed a close friendship with

Arthur and Lewis Tappan, who became his allies in the pro­

motion of revivals. The Tappans, originally from rural

Connecticut, were as well known for their piety, philanthropy

22 Finney, Memoirst p. 77; also cited in Cole, Social Ideas of Northern Evangelists, pp. 80-81.

^“'William G. McLoughlin, Mbdern Revivalism; Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham (New York, 1959), pp. 34-39 Cole, Social Ideas of Northern Evangelists, p. 81; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 12-13.

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and dedication to benevolent enterprise as they were for

their wealth. Arthur Tappan, the elder of the two, was the

owner of one of the largest silk-importing businesses in the

nation. Lewis, who owned some stock in the establishment,

served as manager, relieving Arthur of much of the tedium

and thus enabling him to devote much of his time to benev­

olence.

After Finney's first revival in New York City, the

Tappans and the Association of Gentlemen--a group of wealthy

merchants and bankers organized by Arthur--obtained the

services of western, pro-Finney revivalists and subsidized

the founding of churches throughout the city. In 1832 they

persuaded Finney himself to accept the pastorate of Chatham

Street Chapel, a renovated theatre, with Arthur footing all

bills, including an annual salary of $1,500 for Finney. In

that same year Arthur also took over the financing of the

New York Evangelist, which quickly became an official organ

of "new measures" men.^

At the suggestion of Finney, Lewis Tappan enrolled

his two young sons in Oneida Institute in 1831, and it was

during a visit to them at the academy that Lewis met Theodore

Weld— later introducing him to Arthur. Impressed by Weld's

^Finney, Autobiography, pp. 237, 169-79; Lewis Tappan to Finney, March 16, 1832, Lewis Tappan Papers, Library of Congress; McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism, pp. 52-53, 80; Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical War Against Slavery (Cleveland, 1969)',' pp. 60-73; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 25-33.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 133

obvious talents, the brothers attempted to interest him in

their many reform efforts in the city, but Weld preferred

to remain at Oneida where he could gain further preparation

for the ministry. In autumn of that year Weld did accept an

appointment as general agent for the Society for Promoting

Manual Labor in Literary Institutions— an organization found­

ed by Lewis Tappan for the express purpose of defraying Weld's

travel expenses. Assigned to make a tour of schools and

colleges throughout the nation to collect data on the best

method for combining manual labor with study, he was also

requested to explore the advisability of starting a manual

labor college in the West. Weld accepted with the under­

standing that his itinerary could include lectures on temper- 25 ance--his main reform interest at the time.

By the time Weld returned to New York in December,

1832, he was a confirmed abolitionist. During his nearly

15,000 mile journey through the Midwest, the South, and the

North, he had become convinced that the abolition of slavery

was the most crucial moral issue in the country. He had been

greatly influenced by his friend Charles Stuart, who had

returned to England two years previously and had been work­

ing in the British antislavery movement. Stuart had been sending him pamphlets and other abolitionist literature and

25 Thomas, Theodore We l d , pp. 25-26; Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan, pp

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 134 had been keeping him informed about the exciting progress

which English evangelists were making toward abolishing

slavery in the colonies. Weld had also been greatly affect­

ed by his observation of conditions in the South and by con­

versations with Charles B. Storrs, the president of Western

Reserve in Ohio, and two members of the Western Reserve fac­

ulty, Elizur Wright, Jr. and Beriah Green, who believed in

the uncompromising, immediatist ideology of the British abo­

litionists and in the aggressive abolitionism of William

Lloyd Garrison. Weld, who at the later zenith of his career

would have a profound, national effect on the antislavery

movement, consecrated himself to crusading for the immediate

abolition of slavery as a religious obligation.^

In Weld's detailed 120 page report of his tour he

emphasized the strengths of the manual labor system as

uniquely suited to the aims of higher education, to the

training of leadership in a democratic nation, and to the

development of the country. But in his lectures on manual

labor he emphasized the potential influence of the West on

the future of the nation. Although he did not publicly re­

commend the selection of Lane Theological Seminary as the

model institution, he had privately encouraged his classmates

^ Elizur Wright, Jr. to Weld, Dec. 7, 1832, in Barnes and Dumond, eds., Weld-Grimke' Letters, I, 94-97; Charles Stuart to Weld, April 30, 1832, Barnes and Dumond, eds., Weld- Grimke Letters. I, 74; Thomas, Theodore Weld, pp. 33, 36, 37; Barnes, Antislavery Impulse, pp. 32-33; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 144.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 135

at Oneida to transfer to Lane, and immediately following his

resignation as agent, he had enrolled as a student in the

institution himself. Largely due to his recommendations,

Lane--which had been built on a donated estate and maintained

by local funds--was selected as the institution where the

educational ideals and aims of reformers for the training of

ministers would be put into practice. Arthur Tappan pledged

his money and influence toward the support and development

of the institution, and control passed from local to Eastern 27 leadership.

Although Lane was not formally committed to aboli­

tionism, developments among Eastern reformers clearly indi­

cated that antislavery was receiving major emphasis in the

reform movement. As for the Tappans, they were very obviously

in accord with Weld in giving antislavery and the amelioration

of the lot of free Negroes priority in the crusade to reform

the nation. Arthur Tappan had demonstrated his interest in

the problems of free Negroes by his attempts to help found a

college for blacks near Yale in 1831. Since that time both

he and Lewis had been in the vanguard of leadership in devel­

oping campaign policies and strategies for the crusade to

destroy slavery.

27 Asa A. Stone to Weld, Nov. 1, 1832, in Barnes and Dumond, eds., WeId-Grimkd' Letters. I, 87-90; Thomas, Theodore Weld, pp. 41-4Z; Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan, pp. 121-22; Barnes, Antislavery Impulse, p. 41; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 41.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. In 1833 heartened by the success of the British in

emancipating West Indian slaves, the Tappans had swung into

organized abolitionist agitation despite anti-abolition

riots, a public boycott of their store, and a consistently

hostile press. Arthur Tappan had begun publication of the

Emancipator and on October 2, 1833, he and Lewis held an

organizational meeting in Chatham Street Chapel to form the

New York City Anti-Slavery Society, while a mob stormed the

doors in protest. Two months later members of the New York

society and abolitionists from New England--Garrison among

them--founded the American Anti-Slavery Society, and Arthur 28 Tappan was elected president.

Abolitionism, sparked by evangelical fervor, organ­

ized according to the evangelical plan, and proselytized by

men who believed the conversion of others was crucial to

their own redemption, generated a vigorous opposition from

the general public. Riots took place in several cities, and

in New York Lewis Tappan's home was burned and Negro neigh- 29 borhoods damaged. At this point, progress at Lane was the

brightest spot in the Tappans' experience with antislavery

reform. They believed that the seminary would prepare

28 Liberator, Oct. 12, 1833; Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan, pp. 102-03, 105-09; Barnes, Antislavery Impulse, 51-38. 29 Joel T. Headley, Mass Violence in America, The Great Riots (1852; rpt. Arno tress, New York, 196£), pp. 79- 96; Harriet Martineau, The Martyr Age of the United States (1839; rpt. Arno Press, New York, 1%9), pp. 20-2Y; Wyatt- Brown, Lewis Tappan, pp. 117-122.

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leaders who would educate the American public to accept its

moral duty and end slavery.

During the first few months after classes began,

Lane promised to justify the faith that Eastern abolitionists

had in its future. Early in March, 1834, Theodore Weld and

other former Oneida students conducted a series of debates

which resulted in the formation of the Lane Abolition Society

and in the organization of a series of community schools for

the free black people of Cincinnati. Lane students taught

during vacations and after classes, and hundreds of black

students attended. Lewis Tappan paid transportation costs

and living expenses for four young women— volunteers from

New York— and they joined Maria Fletcher, daughter of

Nathan P. Fletcher, member of the Oberlin board, in organiz­

ing special classes for black girls. Weld and several other

of the older students spent every moment they could spare 30 from classes in close contact with black families.

But the majority of the 30,000 people of Cincinnati

was Southern and took exception to the sight of white semi­

narians consorting with black people in public. Only four

years earlier, following the Nat Turner rebellion, the city

had been torn by anti-Negro rioting. Some of the local news­

papers set up a hue and a cry against the seminary for

30Weld to Lewis Tappan, March 18, 1834, in Barnes and Dumond, eds., We Id-Grimke'Letters, I, 132.-35, 273; New York Evangelist. April 5, 1834; Thomas, Theodore We l d , pp. 43-74; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 150-55.

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allowing mere youths who did not understand the implications

of their actions to court revolution by fraternizing with

blacks. Although Lyman Beecher, president of the seminary,

issued several warnings, the students— most of whom were in

their late twenties and early thirties— made no changes in

their behavior. The entire affair came to a head during the

summer of 1834 while Beecher and most of the faculty were

away. An executive committee of the board--fearful of public

outrage and damaged business relations with the South—

decreed a ban on all student societies except those that were

directly related to classwork, reprimanded the students for

making a public spectacle of themselves, and fired John

Morgan, one of the professors, for being in sympathy with the 31 students.

Lyman Beecher had the reputation for practicing the

type of diplomacy which had him "in the middle of the road" 32 in most controversies. He "kept a foot in both camps" on

many of the religious issues of the day and ascribed to

colonization and abolitionism simultaneously "without

^■^Theodore Weld to James Hall, Editor of the Western Monthly Magazine, about May 20, 1834, in Barnes and Dumond, eds., Weld-Grimlce*Letters, I, 137-46; Liberator, June 14, 1834; Western Monthly Magazine, May, 1834; Emancipator, Oct. 28, Nov. 11, 1834; Tnomas, theodore W eld, pp. 43-44, 74, 76; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, l,~~T56-62. 32 McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism, pp. 31-32.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 139 33 perceiving any inconsistencies11 in his posture. He took

the same stance on this occasion. Although Weld and board

member Asa Mahan had urged him to return to Lane at once to

mediate the controversy, he had remained in the East for an

extended period. When he did return, he agreed with the

trustees but absolved the students, blaming the entire mis­

understanding on Weld's "obsessiveness" about abolition.

After heated discussions between the trustees, Beecher, and

the students, ninety-three out of the total enrollment of one 34 hundred Lane students left the institution in protest.

The Lane dispute reverberated throughout academe as

authorities disbanded students' abolition societies, expelled

students who expressed antislavery sympathies, and prohibited

discussion of the slavery issue. Many students, following

the example of the Lane Rebels— as they were called— left

their institutions in protest. In the frontier town of

Marietta, Ohio, where two beginning college classes were just

being formed at Marietta College, several students walked out

when college officers, out of deference for townspeople,

forbade all discussion of slavery. Faculty members throughout

the North were also victimized by the reaction of authorities

to the Lane Affair. In many colleges faculty who expressed

33 L. Beecher as quoted in Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan, p. 127. See Cole, Northern Evangelists, pp. 198-200.

^The figures are from McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism, p. 82. See Cole, Northern Evangelists, pp. 198-206; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 160-62.

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approval of antislavery agitation were forced to resign, and

at Harvard, Charles Follen, professor of German literature,

was not reappointed because he had helped write an anti­

slavery address and had attended an abolition rally during

vacation. As was emphasized in abolitionist journals and in

some lay newspapers, the issue was clearly that institutions

were denying their constituency the right to academic freedom

and were destroying freedom of speech under the guise of

preserving order and avoiding adverse publicity for economic 35 reasons.

Among the principals in the Lane controversy, perhaps

the Lane Rebels came out of it having served as the greatest

inspiration to young reformers. Under Weld's leadership and

backed by money from Arthur Tappan, those who had defected to

Cumminsville found temporary sanctuary in a mansion which

belonged to one of Weld's friends. Spurning Beecher's ardent

attempts to win them back to Lane, they invited visiting

professors in to teach their classes and continued to admin­

ister to the needs of the black people of Cincinnati. Weld

remained in close contact with the rebels wherever they were,

but he ended his career as a student and accepted a fulltime

appointment as agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society.

35 Emancipator, June 16, 1835; Russell B. Nye, Fetter­ ed Freedom: Civil Liberties and the Slavery Controversy, 1830- 1860 (East Lansing, Mich.., 1940), pp. 88-93; Howard K. Beale, A History of Freedom of Teaching in American Schools (New York, 19411, pp. 152-54; ThomasT Theodore"Wel'dT pT"lf7; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 1&4-85.

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Arthur Tappan, concerned about finding an appropriate seminary

for the rebels and irritated with Beecher for having ruined

the hopes for an influential educational center in the West,

fulfilled his existing commitments to Lane, but withdrew

subsequent support from the institution.^ It would be

several years before Lane would recover from the trauma of

losing most of its students. Meanwhile, John J. Shipherd,

intent upon securing the future of Oberlin, would solve

Arthur Tappan's dilemma about the means for continuing the

interrupted education of the Lane Rebels.

When Shipherd arrived in Cincinnati in November,

1834, seeking help for Oberlin, he was a guest in the home of

Asa Mahan. Shipherd was sufficiently informed about aboli­

tionism to converse with the rebels about their needs and

finally to propose Oberlin as a solution for their problems.

Since he was a regular subscriber to the New York Evangelist

and the Emancipator, Shipherd knew about the Tappans1 in­

tense interest in reform and about the important new develop­

ments that were taking place in the total reform campaign

since the evangelists had proclaimed that the abolition of

slavery was a moral issue. R. S. Fletcher found evidence

that Shipherd had been active in the new antislavery societies

which were springing up on the Western Reserve. He had also

been one of the signers of the "Declaration of Sentiments"

^Arthur Tappan to Lyman Beecher, Jan. 20, 1836, cited in Thomas, Theodore Weld, p. 87.

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calling for the immediate emancipation of slaves, which had

been circulated among revivalists. A few months later he

had been elected one of the ''counsellors" at a meeting of the 37 ’ Western Reserve Anti-Slavery Society. In other words,

Shipherd was intellectually and emotionally prepared to

accept the concept of abolitionism--including Negro equality

--as crucial to redemption and to the renovation of the earth

for the second coming of Christ.

Shipherd found the rebels to be "glorious good fel­

lows," who, along with Asa Mahan and John Morgan, were en­

thusiastic about his proposal. After their disappointment

with Lane, however, they made their transfer to Oberlin

contingent on official acceptance of certain stipulations:

that Asa Mahan become president of Oberlin, John Morgan be

appointed to a professorship, and Finney offered the position

as head of the theological department. Further, they stipu­

lated that a guarantee of freedom of speech be given faculty

and students, and that Negroes be admitted to the institution 38 as students along with whites. Shipherd was ecstatic. He

knew that the acquisition of the rebels, Mahan, Morgan, and

--should he accept--Finney, would bring in the influence and

money of the Tappans, for they were solidly behind the

^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 145, 148, 149. OQ Shipherd to John Keep, Dec. 13, 15, 1834, R. S. Fletcher Papers, Oberlin Archives; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 169; Shipherd's letters to the trustees are cited in Ellsworth, "Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement," pp. 9-

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education of the Lane Rebels.

"I believe God has here put my hand on the end of a

chain linking men and money to our dear Seminary in such

manner as will fill our hearts with gratitude & gladness,"

Shipherd began his letter to trustee Eliphalet Redington.

To board member John Keep, he predicted that through the

good fortune which had come to Oberlin the institution would

"send forth a multitude of well qualified laborers into the

plentious harvest of our Lord," and he requested the board 39 to confirm the appointment of Mahan and Morgan.

To trustee Nathan Fletcher, Shipherd entrusted the

task of securing from the board an immediate passage of the

resolution: "That students shall be received into this

Institution irrespective of color." Justifying the resolu­

tion on the grounds that Oberlin would be following the right

path and would therefore be deserving of God's blessing and

the patronage of men who would supply the institution "some

thousands," he reminded Fletcher that Mahan and Morgan would

accept their appointments only if Negroes were admitted. He

added that he would be reluctant to work for an institution

which would deny an education to qualified, pious students

because they were black, fearing that God would curse

39 Shipherd to Eliphalet Redington, Dec. 15, 1834, R. S. Fletcher Papers, Oberlin College Archives; Shipherd to John Deep, Dec. 13, 1834, R. S. Fletcher Papers, Oberlin College Archives; Ellsworth, "Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement," p. 10, fn. 17; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 169.

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Oberlin as He had cursed Lane Seminary "for its unchristian

abuse of the poor Slave."^

Shipherd may have been prepared to accept blacks as

the equals of whites, but Oberlin was not. The entire

settlement was thrown into chaos as colonists, students,

trustees--dismayed and horrified— predicted the downfall of

their community, for they expected "hundreds of negroes" to

flood the institution, and change it into "a Negro School."

Nathan P. Fletcher later recalled that "many students said

they would leave & Bro. Stewart said he would not stay."

Indeed, the co-founder was particularly perturbed. Nathan

Fletcher mentions that "P. P. Stewart, the Organ of Opposi­

tion, at once proclaimed Br. Shipherd Mad1.! crazy, &c, &c."

Esther Shipherd described the general reaction, "Mr. Shipherd

had suddenly become deranged and quite beside himself ....

It is impossible to give an idea of the excitement" which the 41 recommended resolution to admit blacks caused.

The recommendations from Shipherd had arrived during

winter vacation when not many students were at the college.

^Shipherd to Nathan P. Fletcher, Dec. 15, 1834, R. S. Fletcher Papers, Oberlin College Archives; Ellsworth, "Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement," p. 10; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 170.

^^Nathan P. Fletcher, "Critical Letters to Levi Burnell, 1837, "R. S. Fletcher Papers, Oberlin College Ar­ chives; James H. Fairchild, A Sketch of the Anti-Slavery His­ tory of Oberlin: An Address before the Ladies Anti-Slavery of Oberlin, May 13, 1856, (Oberlin, Ohio, 1856), p. 5; Ellsworth, Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement, 'P. 11; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 170-71.

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A poll of those who remained, found thirty-two against and

twenty-six in favor of admitting Negro students. R. S.

Fletcher notes that fifteen female students voted against

and only six in favor, whereas the male vote was twenty in

favor and seventeen against. Everyone at Oberlin was so

agitated that the trustees decided to hold their meeting in

Elyria— despite a written request signed by thirty-eight 42 colonists and students for them to meet in Oberlin.

Rendered virtually helpless by long, heated, emotion­

al outbursts and hopelessly divided opinion, the board man­

aged at its first meeting to endorse the appointments of

Mahan and Morgan— at best an empty gesture since both men

were resolute against honoring the invitation unless black

students were admitted.^ On the issues of faculty control

and the admission of black students, the discussion was

filled with "rancour & malevolence." Nathan Fletcher and

John Keep apparently held their ground as the only two mem­

bers who had some background in antislavery work. Other

members, suspicious of the motives of antislavery men who

might "congregate such a mass of negroes at Oberlin as to

darken the whole atmosphere" and scandalized by the idea of

^2See R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin.. I, 170-71; Ellsworth, "Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement," p. 12.

^ S e e the following letters published in Barnes and Dumond, Weld-Grimke*Letters, I; John Morgan to Weld, Jan. 13, 1835, pp. 197-99; H. Lyman, S. W. Streeter, H. B. Stanton, Wm. T. Allan, J. A. Thome, S. Wells, Benjamin Folts, and George Whipple to Weld, Jan. 8, 1835, p. 194.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 146 mixing blacks into a white coeducational institution, were 44 adamantly opposed to both resolutions. Impotently, the

board could only table the decisions until the receipt of

more information from Shipherd.

John Jay Shipherd was in the midst of important con­

ferences with Mahan, Finney, Weld and the Tappans, trying

desperately to hold the situation together until the Oberlin

board would make the necessary decision. He wrote two lengthy

agonizing letters to the trustees justifying the trouble­

some resolution in Christian, moral, and humanitarian terms.

He pointed out to the board members that other white institu­

tions had admitted Negroes with impunity and tried to allay

their fears by suggesting that miscegenation was not a real­

istic danger. He explained, "I did not desire you to hang

out an abolition flag, or fill up with filthy, stupid negroes;

but I did desire . . . that you would not reject promising

youth . . . because God had given them a darker hue."

Following Finney's suggestion of a way to break the stale­

mate, Shipherd advised them to give the faculty "control of

the internal affairs of the institution" including the admis­

sion of students, and threatened to resign unless they did

^ J o h n Keep to Finney, Mar. 10, 1835, Finney MSS, Library of Congress; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, p. 177, fn. 27.

^Shipherd to Trustees, Jan. 19, 1835, and Shipherd to N. P. Fletcher, Jan. 27, 1835, in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 176-77.

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Meeting in a special session characterized as being

"riotous & filled with detraction and slanderthe board was

again unable to act. After discussion and prayer, the meet­

ing was adjourned. The following morning, February 10, 1835,

the board met again and voted on a proposed resolution which

would be acceptable to Shipherd. Three members and Nathan

Fletcher voted for the resolution; three members and Stewart

were opposed. John Keep, as chairman, cast the deciding

vote in favor of the resolution.^

Generally, Oberlin historians have cited the follow­

ing resolution as the one which established the policy--

later appearing in official documents— of admitting "all

qualified students regardless of sex, color or circumstances":

Whereas, there does exist in our country an excite­ ment in respect to our colored population, and fears are entertained that on the one hand they will be left un­ provided for as to the means of a proper education, and on the other that they will in unsuitable numbers be introduced into our schools, and thus in effect forced into the society of whites, and the state of public sentiment is such as to require from the Board some definite expression on the subject; therefore, resolved, that the education of the people of color is a matter of great interest, and should be encouraged and sustained in this institution. ^

N. P. Fletcher, "Critical Letters to Levi Burnell," R. S. Fletcher Papers, Oberlin College Archives; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 177.

^ S e e Leonard, pp. 144-45; James H. Fairchild, Oberlin: The Colony and the College, 1833-1883 (Oberlin, Ohio, 1883), p. 64: Wilbur H. Phillips, Oberlin Colony: The Story of a Century (Oberlin, Ohio, 1933), p. 51; Ellsworth, "Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement," pp. 19-20.

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Robert S . Fletcher interprets the resolution as merely a

commentary on Negro education, and cites the following

action of the board as the one which, in effect, admitted

Negro students to Oberlin:

Resolved that the question in respect to the admis­ sion of students into this Seminary be in all cases left to the decision of the Faculty & to them be committed also the internal management of its concerns, provided always that they be holden amenable to the Board 6c not liable to censure or interruption from the Board so long as their measures shall not infringe upon the laws or general principles of the Institution.

R. S. Fletcher argues convincingly that the members of the

board had full knowledge of the intent of the new faculty

to admit black students. By granting academic freedom,

including "the admission of students," the trustees were

adhering to the expressed wishes of Mahan, Morgan, Shipherd,

and of Finney--who was appointed at the same meeting. In

further support of his argument Fletcher points out that in

a letter Finney cited this resolution as one of the conditions

under which he would accept the appointment--the other was

annual leaves of absence in order for him to continue his , . . . 49 preaching itinerary.

Fletcher's argument seems valid. The first resolu­

tion of the board is at best a statement of a need for edu­

cating blacks and of the biases and fears entertained by

^Minutes of the Board of Trustees, Feb. 10, 1835, in Robert S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 178.

^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 178, fn. 28.

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board members. The subjunctive and the weak "encouraged" in

the first resolution equivocates its intent. At any rate,

the second resolution was the one which Shipherd, Finney,

Mahan, Morgan, and the Lane Rebels accepted as the effective

action, and through it Oberlin inherited the responsibility

of educating "a new race of ministers." In addition, Oberlin

became the model institution for which the Tappans had been

searching for nearly five years— a center of reform located

strategically in the West where it would radiate influence to

every section of the nation.

Oberlin gained many advantages by entering the anti­

slavery synthesis, and perhaps the greatest was the strong,

dedicated reform leaders who were attracted to the faculty.

Mahan was a dedicated president, giving Oberlin its tough

determination and willful disregard for those who objected

to her policies. For all his positive character traits, his

drive, and his talents— as a preacher, for example, he some­

times surpassed Finney in impassioned eloquence--Mahan was

a difficult man. Haughty, intractable, and pugnacious, he

did not take criticisms, suggestions, or differences of

opinion easily. His characteristic posture of waging inces­

sant battle for his convictions— for universal reform, against heathen classics, for sanctification, against

"ultraisms"— pervaded the personality of the college. R. S.

Fletcher maintains that when Mahan left--after repeated

requests from faculty and students--"Oberlin changed . . . it

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moved away steadily from radicalism toward moderation and

from heresy toward orthodoxy.

Other men and women of the faculty had varied and

active roles in developing the character and purpose of the

college. Finney gave prestige and direction to the new

theological department and, later, as president, he jeal­

ously guarded the religious nature of the institution.

Morgan, described fondly by a student as a great hulk of a

man who walked "like a dutch scupper careening at its moor­

ings," was a favorite for generations of students during his

forty-five years as professor.^ Some of the others who left

deep impressions on the institution were Henry Cowles, pro­

fessor and editor of the Oberlin Evangelist; James A. Thome

and George Whipple, both Lane Rebels, who joined the faculty

after graduating from the first theological class in 1836;

James Monroe, who helped give Oberlin its valuable political

clout; James Harris Fairchild, an intimate of the college

from his early childhood through his years as a student, who 52 then gave devoted service as a faculty member and president.

In addition to its new image which attracted reformers

as faculty and aspiring reformers as students, Oberlin gained

a new lease on fiscal existence through the attention of

■^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 488.

^^Thomas, Theodore Weld, p. 47.

■^See R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 688-709, for a vivid description of the faculty inthe Collegiate Department.

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Arthur Tappan. Tappan admitted, "I have never felt more

determined to use the ability God had given me than I feel 53 in this case.1 Within eight months after the eventful

decision made by the trustees, he had donated over $7,000

for the building of a new dormitory, named— to his chagrin and

secret pleasure— Tappan Hall and had arranged a loan for

$10,000. He organized a New York group into a perpetual

Professorship Association for the purpose of paying the

salaries of eight Oberlin professors. Arthur was concerned

about everything at Oberlin. He was anxious that the archi­

tecture have a "refining effect" on students, and he issued

apparently unwarranted admonitions about treating Negro

students fairly."^ Desiring that Finney continue his mass

conversions, Arthur and his friends secured a mammoth tent

topped by a brave blue banner proclaiming "Holiness Unto

the Lord" and sent it to Oberlin. The structure, with a

seating capacity of 3,000 proved useful for many years.

Fairchild relates, however, that on the first day it was

raised— for dedication ceremonies— it collapsed just as

Finney was giving the opening prayer.^ Arthur Tappan was

the "financial rock on which the new Oberlin was to stand,

^^Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan, p. 130.

^Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan, p. 131.

55J. H. Fairchild, Oberlin. pp. 73-74.

■^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin. I, 179-80.

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and he was also the typical philanthropist who attempted to mold his favorite institution with his own ideals.

A great future for Oberlin seemed secure, although

actual cash was still scarce. Under the leadership of the

new men, Oberlin experienced a period of remarkable develop­

ment as the building program progressed and enrollment

exceeded capacity. It was quite common for buildings to be

in use long before they were completed. Reassured that

Oberlin was out of danger and visualizing a cordon of "kin­

dred seminaries" scattered throughout the West, Shipherd took

Esther and the children and set out for Michigan in 1836 to

found a second Oberlin. The Professorship Association

pledged $13,000, but the new venture failed, as did another

which Shipherd attempted to start in Indiana. ^ But by that

time Oberlin was undergoing another struggle for survival

and Shipherd returned to help find funds. For Oberlin the

brief respite from insecurity was over. Arthur Tappan was

facing bankruptcy.

The Tappans had sustained severe financial losses

from several sources over a period of years. Due to their

abolitionist activities they had long since lost their

southern trade and that of pro-slavery sympathizers in the

North. Indeed, irate whites in New York and from as far

away as South Carolina and Louisiana had threatened Arthur's

57See R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 199, 201.

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life many times, and the Tappans had to defend their business

from mobs on two occasions. On December 16, 1835, the store

had been ruined by a fire which had destroyed fifty-two acres

of the business district, and insurance firms were bankrupt

due to the number of claims being filed. The Tappans lost

almost $50,000. In 1837 the nationwide financial panic com­

pleted their ruin. Arthur, anxious to liquidate all assets, 58 filed claim for the $10,000 which he had lent to Oberlin.

Oberlin was in no condition to pay Tappan nor any of

its other creditors. Alienated from the general public be­

cause of its abolitionism, the college could turn only to

antislavery sympathizers--who were able to contribute only

small sums, if any at all, because they too were hurting from

the panic. Students were unable to pay their bills, and

Oberlin agents, unable to find funds, wrote of the tragic

poverty throughout the country. Meanwhile bills piled up at

Oberlin, and creditors clamored for payment. One bill for

$15,000 was particularly onerous. The money had been used

to purchase 40,000 mulberry trees for a silk enterprise for

manual labor and had failed miserably. The Professorship

Association, rendered helpless by the crash, did not honor 59 their promises, and Oberlin professors were simply not paid.

58 Courier and Enquirer, August 11, 1835; Lewis Tappan, The Life of Arthur Tappan (New' York, 1870), pp. 244, 265; Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan, pp. 155-63, 167-74.

■^See R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 451-53, II, 648-57, for excerpts from minutes, letters, and other documents attesting to the dilemma.

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Commons had always been frugal by design and neces­

sity, but now it served literally a starvation diet of bread

and salt. Finally, in September, 1836, the college was un­

able to continue the boarding facility, and the operation was

turned over to a committee of students and faculty, who by

charging a fee managed to serve slightly better fare.

Shipherd, Cowles, Whipple and Keep met mainly failure on

fund raising tours. The most noteworthy amount collected

was $5,000 from a member of the Professorship Association

secured by Shipherd in 1836, and $2,000 plus a gift of 20,000

acres of land in Virginia from Gerrit Smith in April, 1839.

However, squatters occupied the land, and Virginians took a

dim view of abolitionist Oberlin attempting to make finan­

cial gain from Virginia land. The situation at Oberlin grew

worse. It seemed that Oberlin must surely collapse.^®

On May 29, 1839, John Keep and William Dawes--"a man

of singular piety, tact and address" although of "rather

limited education"--sailed for England. They had been commis­

sioned by the Oberlin trustees to make a last-ditch ffort to

find financial support for the institution. Theodore Weld

supplied a supportive document describing Oberlin as "the

great nursery of teachers for the coloured people in the

United States and Canada" and as the sole school in the

nation "in which the black and coloured student finds a home,

60R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 451-56, II, 608-09.

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where he is fully and joyfully regarded as a man and a

brother.'1 They also carried many copies of the Oberlin

Evangelist, Finney's Lectures on Revivals, and letters of

introduction to wealthy British philanthropists. Thus armed

Keep and Dawes invaded the British Isles intent, not upon

begging, but upon "Oberlinizing England." In their mission,

the gentlemen were sensational.

Presenting the view of Oberlin as the one bastion of

justice for the poor downtrodden people of color in the

entire nation, Keep and Dawes used dramatic effect which

opened British purses to the cause of the slave. They were

befriended by Harriet Martineau, who introduced them to the

wealthy. Although they were somewhat taken aback by the

"bare necks of the unmarried Ladies . . . naked clear off

each shoulder," they learned to balance tea-cups nicely and

turn down their glasses abstemiously as they made their pitch

for Oberlin— the savior of the American slave. The net result

of their tour was $30,000, approximately 2,000 volumes of

books for the library, "philosophical and chemical apparatus,"

and Britisher Hamilton Hill as Oberlin's new Secretary of the

Treasury. When they returned to Oberlin in 1840, a day of

"fasting, humiliation, and prayer" was proclaimed in thanks­

giving. Tappan was repaid with $4,752 of the money from

England, and Oberlin released the Virginia land to him for

the remainder of the d e b t . ^ The institution was able to

^For passages from documents and R. S. Fletcher's

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make a fresh start. Abolitionism had paid off again.

Oberlin profited greatly by affiliation with abo­

litionism. The benefits gained gave the college stability

and purpose. But abolitionism also brought with it a pleth­

ora of severe problems and formidable challenges. Through

the total commitment of officers, faculty, and students for

a period of over thirty years, Oberlin developed into a

college with national power--the most socially and political­

ly influential institution of higher learning in the United

States during the years immediately preceding the Civil War.

The story of that commitment is the story of Oberlin and the

challenge of abolitionism.

account of the tour, see R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 453-71. ------

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ABOLITIONISM AT OBERLIN

The greatness of Oberlin is doubtlessly attributable under God to her adherence to the noble principle, that public institutions no less than private Christians must do right however contrary to popular sentiment. That the managers of Oberlin Institute may never swerve from this grand principle is one of the strongest desires of my soul. To each I would say w|th emphasis "Be not conformed to this world."

J. J. Shipherd to Hamilton Hill August 17, 1844

From the beginning Oberlin colonists and students

had consciously elected to demonstrate adherence to Chris­

tian virtues which did not conform to the popular consensus.

In February 1835, when the action of the Board of Trustees

gave control of Oberlin to the new antislavery faculty, the

Oberlin community became theoretically pledged to support

abolitionism as religious reform and to accept Negroes as

brothers and equals.

Thus, the community aligned itself against nationally

J. J. Shipherd to Hamilton Hill (Secretary-Trea- surer of Oberlin, 1841-1864), Aug. 17, 1844, quoted in Robert S. Fletcher, A History of Oberlin College From Its Foundation Through the Civil war , 2 vol'sY (Oberlin, Ohio, 1943) , I , 203. Shipherd wrote from Michigan where he was founding Olivet College, a "second" Oberlin. The date on-which he wrote the letter was exactly one month before he died.

157

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dominant political, economic, and social attitudes.

Jacksonian party politics had generated powerful pro-South­

ern sentiments in the nation. Northern and Eastern inter­

ests in industry— shipping, textiles, cotton--had created

strong Southern ties and a willingness to ignore slavery

issues. National opinion was permeated by a basic belief in

the biological and racial inferiority of Negroes which en­

tailed that Negroes lacked the capacity to attain equality

with whites. In agreeing to become abolitionist, Oberlin

joined minority ranks against a formidable majority.

Although Ohio had been organized as a territory

under the Ordinance of 1787 which prohibited slavery, the

main cultural and political patterns in the state were anti-

Negro. Fearing that the freedom clause in the Ordinance

would attract overwhelming numbers of Negroes to Ohio, state

legislators had passed so-called "Black Laws" stripping free

Negroes of their citizenship rights. The severe restrictions

and limitations placed on Negro citizens through these laws

and the succession of anti-Negro riots that occurred between

1829-1836--driving thousands of Negroes from their homes--

gave some indication of the prevailing attitude of hostil­

ity toward blacks among whites in Ohio.

Despite legal barriers and discrimination, however,

the freedom clause of the Ordinance of 1787 attracted not

only an increasing number of Negroes, but also white people

who believed that slavery was morally wrong and who were

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sympathetic with the concept of equality. Among the pioneer

settlers were many white Quakers. The sect had a long his­

tory of religious opposition to slavery, and its early con­

demnation of the peculiar institution provided the basis for

the antislavery argument used by the abolitionists of the o 1830's. Quaker settlers began much of the antislavery

agitation in Ohio that later made the state a battleground

for the conservative-abolitionist controversy. One of the

first antislavery newspapers to be published in America

— The Philanthropist— was founded in 1817 by an Ohio Quaker,

Charles Osborne. Another Quaker, Benjamin Lundy, moved to

Ohio during the early 1800's, organized an antislavery

association that had a membership of 500 in 1815, and began

publishing The Genius of Universal Emancipation in July,

1821--an influential paper in the national abolitionist 3 movement.

An impressive number of white Southerners migrated

to Ohio because of the proscriptions against freedom of dis­

cussion of the slavery issue in the South and formed an

2 Merton L. Dillon, Benjamin Lundy and the Struggle for Negro Freedom (Urbana, 111., 1966). The author examines early antislavery work as a source of the antislavery argu­ ment used by later abolitionists.

^Anetta C. Walsh, "Three Anti-Slavery Newspapers Published in Ohio Prior to 1823," The Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, XXXI(Sept. 1922), 172-211. On page 203 the author quotes William Birney, son of James G. B imey that The Genius of Universal Emancipation was "reposi­ tory of all the plans for the abolition of slavery."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. important group of antislavery workers. Many of these native

Southerners were slaveowners who liberated their slaves in

free territory and thereafter devoted themselves to anti- 4 slavery work in Ohio.

Ohio also attracted white Northerners who believed

in antislavery. Dyer Burgess is representative of such

early leadership. A native of Springfield, Vermont, Burgess

was a Presbyterian minister who delivered passionate sermons

against slavery to Ohio congregations. As a result of a

paper presented by him at the 1818 meeting of the Presby­

terian General Assembly, an antislavery resolution was

adopted. Although the resolution was conciliatory and essen­

tially a compromise between slave owners and proponents of

antislavery, it represented an official condemnation of

slavery.^

Based on arguments that slavery was inconsistent

with the Declaration of Independence, with Scripture, and

with economic utility, agitation for the abolition of slav­

ery was a strong minority opinion in Ohio during the 1820's.

The wave of religious revivalism of that era intensified

concerns about humanitarian reform and gave fresh direction

^Dwight L. Dumond, Antislavery Origins of the Civil War in the United States (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1939), pp. 6-9; Dwight L. Dumond, "Migrations to the Free States A Factor, 1 The Abolitionists; Reformers or Fanatics? ed. Richard 0. Curry (Hew York, 1.965), pp. 25-32.------

^Andrew E. Mirray, Presbyterians and the Negro: A History (Philadelphia, 19667^” pTzET

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to the antislavery movement: abolition became a part of evan­

gelical religion. The revivalist crusaders felt a moral

responsibility to overcome the opposition of the majority

and to convert all Americans to antislavery. Ohio, a polit­

ically strategic state linking between East and West, became

an important arena for the struggle between pro-slavery and

antislavery forces.

By 1831, although the majority of white people in

Ohio were decidedly anti-Negro, small centers of abolitionism

did exist in various sections, particularly on the Western

Reserve. At the time of Theodore Weld's visit as agent for

the Manual labor movement in 1832, Western Reserve College in

Hudson, Ohio, had been such a center, but through the action

of the trustees it had subsequently lost its reputation as

educational center of western abolitionism. That role passed

briefly to Lane Theological Seminary during the activity of the

Lane students on behalf of free Negroes in Cincinnati in 1834,

and thence to Oberlin Collegiate Institute with the incum­

bency of the new faculty in 1835 and the migration of stu­

dents from Lane. The resentment which had begun when Oberlin

was founded only forty miles from struggling Western Reserve

College in 1833, was intensified in 1835 by Oberlin's sudden

acquisition of both comparative financial security and a

theological seminary headed by the renowned Charles Grandison

Finney. Western Reserve College was particularly critical of

coeducation and the doctrine of santification at Oberlin.

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For the next decade various aspects of the program at

Oberlin were attacked by leaders connected with Western

Reserve College, adding considerably to the problems that

Oberlin faced as center of Western reform.

The new faculty members at Oberlin had been espe­

cially selected because they had a background of leadership

in antislavery reform. Under their direction, and with the

expert help of the students who had transferred from Oneida

and Lane, Oberlin Collegiate Institute became the leader of

antisiavery operations in the organizational structure for

proselytization of America that was set up by the American

Anti-Slavery Society. Regarding Ohio as a strategic state

due to its geographical position and its legal designation

as a free state, one of the primary objectives of the nation­

al society was to abolitionize Ohio by snythesizing the

efforts of isolated antislavery groups into affiliated soci­

eties .

The American Anti-Slavery Society, founded in

Philadelphia on December 4, 1833, and patterned after the

benevolent societies in its organizational structure, was a

systematized propaganda agency aiming the morality of immed­

iate emancipation at the conscience of the nation. Centrally

controlled by the same New York group that promoted other

national benevolent societies, the American Anti-Slavery

Society disseminated abolitionist newspapers, pamphlets,

tracts, journals, and periodicals through a network of local

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and state societies. Trained agents— specialists in the use

of the revival techniques invented by Finney and adapted to

antislavery by Weld— spread immediatist doctrine and organ­

ized support for antislavery throughout the East and mid-

West. Seeking to abolitionize the nation by working through

already established religious and political institutions,

the society used "moral suasion" in its press and its

preaching, stressing morality, equality, democracy, and

civil liberties. Further, the society encouraged education

of Negroes, not only as a means of raising the moral, intel­

lectual, and social status of black people, but also as a

means of discrediting the prevailing belief in the inherent

inferiority of Negroes.

In its cooperative efforts with the national society,

Oberlin Collegiate Institute was the target for hostile--and

sometimes violent public reaction. Yet Oberlin maintained

its leadership in the use of strategies designed to press for

accelerated social change away from the status quo. Students,

townspeople, and faculty members participated in local, state,

national and international antislavery conventions. They

helped propagandize for antislavery in Ohio and the east

coast by serving as agents for the national society. Perhaps

their most important means of expression was the Oberlin

Evangelist— the official newspaper of the college. They

assisted in the program of helping free Negroes by estab­

lishing mission schools for Negro children and adults.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Denouncing the inconsistencies and disunities in the church

with regard to slavery and free American Negroes, Oberlin

Christians made determined efforts to cajole all Protestant

denominations into officially recognizing slavery as a sin.

As believers in higher law, the entire community helped

fugitive slaves escape to safety. Moreover, when nation­

wide public resistance to discussion of the slavery question

threatened the antislavery crusade, Oberlin was in the fore­

front of the move among abolitionists to change tactics and

exploit party politics through concerted political strategy.

The unprecedented coeducational policy of Oberlin

had already caused public indignation, but commitment to

abolitionism and the admission of black students completed

the defamation of the college. Oberlin was stigmatized as

a "nigger institution" where sexual immorality was promoted

and interracial contacts encouraged. From New England,

Benjamin Woodbury— financial agent for Oberlin— asked some^

what incredulously, "Can you bring into the seminary blacks

and whites, male and female?"^ From the vantage of his half

empty seminary in Cincinnati, Lyman Beecher predicted: "This

amalgamation of sexes won't do. If you live in a Powder

House you blow up once in a while."7 The Western Monthly

^Benjamin Woodbury to J. J. Shipherd, March 26, 1835, as quoted in Delavan L. Leonard, The Story of Oberlin: The Institution, The Community, The Idea, The Movement (Chicago, 1898), pp. 144-45.

7J. S. Hudson to Levi Burnell, Mar. 19, 1839,in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 441.

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Magazine in Cincinnati summed up the growth and decline of

academic abolitionism:

The Abolitionists had under their control, the Oneida Institute in New York, the Oberlin Institute in Ohio, and the Lane Seminary in Ohio. The latter insti­ tution was reformed by the good sense of its trustees; the legislature of New York have taken measures to purify the Oneida Institute from this foul abomination, and it is believed that there now remains but one school in which murder and robbery are openly inculcated as Christian virtues.®

James H. Fairchild--who later became president of Oberlin--

was enrolled as a student in the college from 1835 through

1838. He recalled that the antislavery position of Oberlin

aroused animosity from the start among the people of neigh­

boring towns who "agreed with the rest of the world" that 9 abolitionism was unmitigated fanaticism. Oberlin, some­

thing of a maverick institution, prompted sensational gossip.

Rumors of fanatical and immoral acts were given cred­

ence when The History of Oberlin, or New Lights of the West

— popularly known by its cover title, Oberlin Unmasked--was

published by Delazon Smith, an enraged student who had been

expelled in 1837 for belonging to an anti-religious brother­

hood and expressing atheistic beliefs. Achieving an aura

of authenticity in his book by using an informal "eye wit­

ness" style, Smith made slanderous charges through half-

truths that Oberlin leaders were— under the pretense of

^Quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 441.

^James H. Fairchild, Oberlin: The Colony and the College, 1833-1883 (Oberlin, Ohio, 1883), p. 116.

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educating Christian youth--mismanaging and stealing donated

funds, injuring students' health through the imposition of the

Graham diet, making celebrities of renegade student aboli­

tionists, providing occasions for objectionable alliances

between male and female students, promoting miscegenation

by idolizing students of the "negro species," and encour­

aging "intimate associations of whites and blacks."^

The book was a best-seller. Robert S. Fletcher

speculates that "probably as many people in the late thir­

ties and early forties knew Oberlin through Delazon Smith's

. . . [book] as knew it through the Oberlin Evangelist."^

Oberlin Unmasked not only provoked attacks on the college

from such newspapers as the Ashtabula Sentinel and the

Boston Investigator, but it was used as evidence in four

unsuccessful attempts made by hundreds of scandalized citi­

zens between 1837 and 1843 to have the charter of the insti­

tution repealed. During the same period of time, the so-

called evidence from the book was used by hostile politic­

ians to defeat before the state legislature several bills 19 which would have been favorable to Oberlin. “ It became

^Delazon Smith, The History of Oberlin, or New Lights of the Wesc (Cleveland. 1837). passini,

“^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 440. 12 Clayton S. Ellsworth, "Oberlin and the Anti- Slavery Movement Up to the Civil War" (unpublished PhD dissertation, Cornell University, 1930), p. 88. The Ashtabula Sentinel and the Boston Investigator were quoted in the Liberator, Sept. 2, 1837, and SeptT 23, 1837.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 167

politically popular to be hostile to the institution— for

opposition to the college was synonymous with opposition to

abolitionism.

The political unpopularity of Oberlin did not under­

mine the attraction of the institution to zealous young

reformers seeking academic freedom. Students converged on

Oberlin from everywhere, and enrollment increased. One

student wrote: "Almost every house is full within a half

mile of the Institute, and students are continually flocking .13 in . . . . Buildings were occupied before completion,

but still the students thronged in--from Oneida, Western

Reserve College, Phillips-Andover Academy, Marietta, Amherst

--all lured by the excessive promises of manual labor, the

eclat attending the transfer of the Lane Rebels to Oberlin,

and the guarantee which the institution had given for freedom

of speech. An additional appeal was the haven which Oberlin

offered to faculty and students, who, because their anti­

slavery sentiments were abrasive to the majority, had been

dismissed from other institutions where conservative purges,

similar to those at Western Reserve College and Lane Theolog­

ical Seminary, had taken place. Oberlin became as Fletcher

observes, "the only college left for young radicals to

attend."^

13 James H. and E. Henry Fairchild to Joseph B. Clark. Apr. 2, 1835, as quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin I, 186. ------

^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 184.

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Although identification with abolitionism became

the most infamous feature of its public image, antislavery

was regarded within the college as but one aspect of reform.

The college was first and foremost a religious institution,

and total reform--identified as God's command--was its stan­

dard. Oberlin, the institution for educating Christian

crusaders, was "God's College."^ The college placed empha­

sis on revivalistic benevolent reform as a direct result of

the influence of Charles Grandison Finney, who believed

that abolition should be an "appendage of a general revival

in religion," and warned that making abolition a separate

movement would "soon end in civil war."1*’

Some antislavery leaders outside the college har­

bored suspicions about Finney's motivation in de-emphasizing

abolition. Lewis Tappan was particularly concerned about

Finney's preoccupation with revivalism at the college. Tappan

believed that Finney was promoting revivalism to the detriment

of abolitionism and expressed these anxieties in a letter to

Weld. Tappan thought he saw prejudiced attitudes towards

Negroes in Finney. It had been Finney's display of pre­

judice that had prompted Lewis Tappan's angry threat to

■^From Finney's commencement address at Oberlin in 1851; see R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 207-35, for discussion of "God's College."

^ Finney to Weld, Oberlin, July 21, 1836, in Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Grimk^ Weld and Sarah Grimke1, 1822-1844, eds. Gilbert H. Barnes and Dwight L. Dumond, 2 vols. (New York, 1970), I, 318-20.

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withdrawn the support of the Professorship Association from

Oberlin in 1835. Again, Tappan was infuriated with Finney

in March, 1836, when Finney vetoed Tappan's effort toward

desegregation at Chatham Street Chapel, and reinstated

"nigger heaven"--the reserved balcony seats for colored

Christians.1^

In September, 1836, when rumors reached the Tappans

that Finney was recommending segregated seating at Oberlin,

Lewis Tappan was livid. Even his brother Arthur— who some­

times had trouble himself in practicing equality— was per­

turbed enough to write Finney for an explanation. Finney

replied in a letter to Arthur in which he praised Lewis for

his virtues, but--in conspiratorial manner--criticized the

younger Tappan for his excitability in minor matters.

Finney then confessed that he made a distinction between

antislavery and the "constitutional taste" involved in

accepting blacks as equals.1^

At the Tappans1 request, Weld investigated the rumor

^ L . Tappan to Shipherd, May 5, 1835; typed copy can be found in the Robert S. Fletcher Files, Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin, Ohio. For the Chatham Street Chapel incident see the Tappan Diary, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. 18 Finney's "constitutional taste" theory is outlined in Finney to Arthur Tappan, Apr. 30, 1836, Charles Grandison Finney Manuscriptsr Oberlin College Archives. On Finney's prejudices see William G. McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham (New York, 1959), pp. 107-11^; Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Lewis‘~tappan and the Evangelical War Against Slavery (Cleveland, 1969), P P • 177-79.

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at Oberlin. Tactfully, Weld reported to Lewis that he had

interviewed Oberlin students and found that none of them

agreed with "brother Finney about Negro seats.11 He further

reported that he had a long talk with Finney and was con­

vinced that Finney was "beginning to come right." Asking

the Tappans to be patient and tolerant, Weld commented: "He

[Finney] insists that you have always misconceived him on 19 the subject in some aspects.

Whatever Finney's motivations, seating at Oberlin

remained a matter of personal preference— Delazon Smith,

indeed, charged that white students vied with each other to 20 sit near Negro students. Revivalistic benevolent reform

continued to receive major emphasis at the college, and the

initial steps to bring the college into accord with the

American Anti-Slavery Society came only four months after

Oberlin had so cautiously agreed to join the antislavery

crusade.

On June 25, 1835, members of the college and colony

participated in a concert of prayer for the Negro race. The

entire congregation of 230 resolved itself into the Oberlin

Anti-Slavery Society, electing John Jay Shipherd as president

and adopting a constitution which was identical with the one

19Weld to Lewis Tappan, Oberlin, Oct. 24, 1836, in Barnes and Dumond, Weld-Grimke/ Letters, I, 345-46. 20 Smith, Oberlin Unmasked, p. 10.

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that had been drafted by the Lane seminarians the year

before. Based on the New York interpretation of immediatism,

the Oberlin society advocated ''gradual emancipation, immedi­

ately begun," and condemned slavery and the suppression of

Negroes as contrary to the laws of God. The society pro­

posed to effect the abolition of slavery:

Not by instigating the slaves to rebellion . . . not by advocating an interposition of force on the part of the free states . . . but by approaching the minds of the slaveholders with the truth in the spirit of the Gospel . . . and by embodying^and concentrating public sentiment against the systemT21

In other words, the society proposed a program for educating

the public to regard slavery and suppression of Negroes as

sinful and sought to realize their objectives through the

use of "new measures" revival techniques.

Members of the newly-formed society were inspired in

November, 1835, when Theodore Weld, as agent for the American

Anti-Slavery Society, conducted a series of lectures on

abolition for twenty-one nights in the unfinished chapel at

Oberlin. "You may judge something of the interest," Weld

wrote to Lewis Tappan, "when I tell you that from five to

six hundred males and females attend every night and sit

shivering on the rough boards without fire these cold nights 22 without anything to lean back against." Weld's charisma,

21 Constitution of the Oberlin Anti-Slavery Society, Oberlin College Archives; also quoted in Ellsworth, "Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement," p. 26.

22Weld to Lewis Tappan, Nov. 17, 1835, in Barnes and Dumond, Weld-Grinded* Letters, I, 244.

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eloquence, and persuasive abilities so convinced his audience

that "thereafter Oberlin was abolitionized in every thought

and feeling and purpose."

During the 1830's conventions of antislavery soci­

eties served as forums for attempting to achieve unity of

purpose, promoting exchanges of ideas, discussing organiza­

tional schemes, planning strategy, and bearing witness

against the sin of slavery. The students, faculty, and

townspeople of Oberlin built a tradition of leadership during

these conventions--a tradition which started with the organi­

zation of the Ohio State Abolition Society in April, 1835.

Originally scheduled to meet in Zanesville, Ohio, the con­

vention was forced to move to Putnam because of hostility in

Zanesville and the threats of reprisals against local Negroes.

Theodore Weld, James G. Birney, a large contingency of

Quakers, representatives from twenty local societies, and

most of the Lane Rebels from Oberlin and Cincinnati at­

tended. Henry Cowles of Oberlin drafted the constitution;

Finney was elected one of the vice-presidents; and Asa

Mahan— although unable to attend, expressed his support by 24 letter— and was elected one of the managers.

^J. H. Fairchild, Oberlin, p. 75. 24 Dwight L. Dumond, Letters of James Gillespie Birney, 1831-1857, 3 vols. (New York, 1938), I, 192. Ohio Observer, Oct. T6, 1835, as cited in Ellsworth, "Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement," p. 42. Also see R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 238; Benjamin P. Thomas, Theodore Weld: Crusader for Freedom (New Brunswick, N. J., 1950), p. 38.

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At the state society convention the following year,

Oberlin, with twenty-six delegates, had the largest repre­

sentation present. The convention met in a barn just out­

side the corporate limits of Granville, Ohio--a village of

about 400 or 500 people. Although the delegates lived in

the homes of local antislavery society members, the majority

of the villagers protested the use of town facilities for

the convention and closed all churches and other appropriate

places to the meeting. Townspeople further expressed their

opposition by "causing drunken disorder" while the convention

was in session, and pelting delegates with stones and eggs

when they attempted to lecture within the town.

Oberlin delegates made several contributions to the

proceedings at the convention: Asa Mahan introduced a motion

calling for the church to condemn slavery as a sin by excom­

municating slaveholders; Henry Cowles spoke against slavery

in the District of Columbia; "girls from the schools and

other Ladies to the number of 70 or 80" were present and

heard James A. Thome--Lane Rebel and Oberlin student— read

"An Address to Ladies of Ohio," which "took hold of the

women mightily." Of the $4,500 pledged by the total body,

the Oberlin delegation accounted for $300.

James G. Birney, in reporting the proceedings of the

convention to Lewis Tappan, expressed satisfaction that the

meeting was successful despite the trials suffered by the

delegates at the hands of "drunken rabble." He reported

that, as the last session ended, "Some half a dozen horses

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were disfigured by having their manes and tails (the hair)

cut off.11 Some delegates were assaulted with clubs, and

there were several injuries. Thome commented, in a letter

to Weld, "When I saw Birney egged out of town, by a mob, and

no man or Christian or minister or magistrate, to punish 25 the indignity, I could stand no more. I wept." Robert S.

Fletcher observes: "There was just about enough persecution

to maintain the enthusiasm of the reformers at a high pitch.

Members of the Oberlin community continued to be

active in the conventions of the state society throughout the

early 1840's. However, as Ellsworth notes, after 1836 there

was a gradual decline in the number of delegates sent from

the college, and by 1843 only Mr. and Mrs. James Thome repre- 27 sented Oberlin at the state convention.

Starting with the convention in 1835, Oberlin was

consistently represented at the annual meetings of the

American Anti-Slavery Society and was active in the policy­

making decisions of the group. At the meeting in 1837

25 The convention is described in letters from J. A. Thome to Weld, Newark, Licking Co., May 2, 1836, in Barnes and Dumond, Weld-Grimke',, Letters, I, 298-302, and J. G. Birney to Lewis Tappan in Dumond, Birney Letters, I, 318-20. An account is given in Ellsworth, "Oberlin and the Anti-Slav­ ery Movement," pp. 43-45, and R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 238-39.

^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 239.

^ T h e Philanthropist, June 11 and 18, 1839, June 23, 1841, June 12, 1843. See also, Ellsworth, "Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement," pp. 45-46, and R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 240-41.

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President Mahan was elected one of the managers for Ohio,

and George Whipple of Oberlin was appointed to the same 28 position during the meeting in 1839. When dissent divided

the national society into two warring groups in 1840,

Oberlin leaders--ideologically identifying with the New York

or moderate group of abolitionists as opposed to the

Garrisonians--joined in the organization of the American and

Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Thereafter, the Oberlin com-

munity--with the notable exception of Negro and women stu-

dents--supported the new society. Negro students remained

in the American Anti-Slavery Society because there was a

tradition of mutual trust and cooperation between Garrison­

ians and Negro abolitionists. Women continued to adhere

because the Garrisonians offered equal opportunities for

leadership.

When John Keep and William Dawes went to England on

their dual mission of securing funds for Oberlin and of

MOberlinizing England," they acquired invitations as del­

egates from Ohio to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention that

was held in London in June, 1840. Using this occasion--as

they had used every possible occasion while they were in

England— as an opportunity to emphasize the singular impor­

tance of Oberlin to the abolitionist cause in America, Keep

28 American Anti-Slavery Society, Fourth Annual Report (New York, 1837), American Anti-Slavery Society Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Minutes of a meeting for Jan. 15, 1840. R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 241.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. delivered an address to members of the convention, portray­

ing Oberlin as the only institution in the country which

welcomed black students on an equal basis with white and

which trained young Christians to become an "abolition

phalanx" capable of helping to raise the Negro "to the dig- 29 nity of a man.

Three years later an international convention again

met in London; on this occasion Hiram Wilson, a Lane rebel

and an Oberlin graduate, presented an urgent appeal for

money for his Canadian enterprise. Amasa Walker, professor

of political economy at Oberlin, spoke as delegate from the

Oberlin Collegiate Institute and the Ohio Anti-Slavery

Society.

In the 1830's it was customary for some colleges

to have long winter vacations. Because most students used

this time to earn money as teachers, Theodore Weld conceived

the idea of having them earn money instead as antislavery

agents for the national society during winter recess. Con­

sequently, recruitment of students was one of Weld's objec­

tives when he visited Oberlin in November, 1835. While he

29 From Proceedings of the General Anti-Slavery Convention . . . in London • • . 1840, pp. 573-84, quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 466. 30 General Anti-Slavery Conventions, Proceedings, 1840, pp. 138-43; Proceedings, 1843, pp. 206-7,"78‘5‘-88'; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 241; Robin W. Winks, The Blacks in Canada: A History (New Haven, Conn., 1971), pp. 178-79'.------

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was conducting his evening lecture series, he was also

spending an hour or two daily, preparing five Oberlin stu­

dents to serve as agents by "indoctrinating them in the 31 principles, facts, and arguments" of abolitionism. These

students— all Lane Rebels— William T. Allen, John W. Alvord,

Sereno W. Streeter, Huntington Lyman, and James A. Thome,

left the college with Weld that November, and went to

Cleveland where they were joined by another trainee, Samuel

Gould, a classmate at Lane who had not transferred to

Oberlin. In Cleveland--under Weld's guidance--the students

spent two weeks of additional preparation "in earnest and

profitable drill," copying "documents, with hints, dis- 32 courses, and suggestions."

At the end of their training sessions, Allen, Thome,

Alvord, and Streeter were assigned to lecture throughout

Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Gould, having shown a

talent for raising funds for the national society, was sent

on a collection circuit through the East. Huntington Lyman

went to lecture in western New York since he had lived in

that area and had been "a high military officer, Postmaster,

Temperance lecturer, a leader in Politics and universally

^^Weld to L. Tappan, Oberlin, Nov. 17. 1835, in Barnes and Dumond, Weld-Grimke Letters, I, 244. 32 H. Lyman in The Oberlin Jubilee, p. 67, as quoted in Thomas, Theodore Weld, p. 10.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 178 33 known and respected throughout that region.11

The students from Oberlin were successful agents.

In a letter to Lewis Tappan, James Birney expressed approval

of their work and his regret that they were leaving the

field to return to classes at Oberlin. But since they seem­

ed "to have looked to a temporary return to Oberlin with

so much certainty," he did not insist on their "continuing

their agency" at that time.3^ Reports of the American

Anti-Slavery Society agreed with Birney1s assessment of the

student-agents and attested to the effectiveness of con­

ducting protracted meetings in the field. The reports

showed a dramatic increase in the number of antislavery

societies in those regions where agents had worked. For

example, in 1835 Ohio had thirty-eight societies, and New

York, forty. In 1836, the number in Ohio had increased to

133, and in New York, to 103.33

To abolitionists, progress was also indicated by

the turmoil in the country over the slavery and the anti-

33Weld to L. Tappan, Pittsburgh, Pa., Dec. 22, 1835, in Barnes and Dumond, Weld-Grimk^ Letters, I, 247-49. Offi­ cial confirmation of the appointment of "Oberlin worthies" as agents of the American Anti-Slavery Society is found in Elizur Wright, Jr., to Weld, New York, July 16, 1835, in Barnes and Dumond, Weld-Grimk^ Letters, I, 227.

^Birney to L. Tappan, Columbus, Ohio, April 29, 1836, in Dumond, Birney Letters, I, 319. 35 Annual Report, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835, p. 38; 1836, p. 20.

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slavery movement itself.36 Although antislavery agents

sweeping over New England, New York, and the Mississippi

Valley preaching antislavery as a moral issue were but a

small minority, in reality they were attacking areas of

social and political sensitivity--slaveholders who support­

ed the entire Southern economy, enterprising Northern busi­

nessmen who were anxious to maintain amicable relations with

the South, and the preponderance of Northern political senti­

ment which was anti-Southern but also anti-Negro. The South

— on the defensive--closed its mails to antislavery litera­

ture and pressed to make antislavery agitation a penal

offense. The North— caught up in the multiple contradictions

of retaining Southern commerce, defending the civil liberties

of whites, and balancing the various issues and prejudices

related to Negroes--stood irresolute while self-appointed

guardians of white supremacy rioted and vigilante committees

drove citizens from their homes. Abolitionist newspaper

offices were sacked, Elijah Lovejoy was killed, and the

Northern press demanded punishment for antislavery agita-

In "Hints on Abolition Mobs," The Anti-Slavery Record, II(July 1836), 9-10, the abolitionists were advised to regard rioting as an indication that abolition was gain­ ing in a community. Also see James Russell Lowell Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, The Anti-Slavery File, "Mobs," I, 102. 37 Truman Nelson, ed., Documents of Upheaval, Se- lections from William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator, 1831-

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Encouraged by progress the American Anti-Slavery

Society at its annual meeting in May, 1836, discontinued its

pamphlet campaign and enlarged the corps of agents by sev­

enty. Dumond identifies sixty-two of the seventy selected

by the recruitment team headed by Weld, and of these, R. S.

Fletcher identifies sixteen who were or had been students

at Oberlin--twelve of whom had formerly attended L a n e . ^

After a period of rigorous training in New York

under the direction of Weld and with a burst of evangelical

fervor, the enlarged force of agents invaded Northern towns

and villages. Quakers, converts, and hundreds of antislav­

ery sympathizers joined the propaganda campaign, reinforc­

ing the work of the agents, forming local antislavery organi­

zations, and winning new converts of their own.

Several other members of the Oberlin community

joined this second phase of the campaign of moral suasion

in addition to those selected by the national society. The

work of John P. Cowles, an Oberlin professor, is typical of

those who went into the field. Accepting an agency in

1865 (New York, 1966); William H. Pease and Jane H. Pease, eds., The Antislavery Argument (New York, 1965); John L. Thomas, ed., Slavery Attacked: The Abolitionist Crusade (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1965); Russell B'. Nye, Fettered Freedom, Civil Liberties and the Slavery Controversy, 1830^. I860 (East Lansing, Mich., 1949) , pp. 32-177. OQ E. Wright, Jr., to Birney, New York, Sept. 15, 1836, in Dumond, Birney Letters, I, 357. Dumond*s identification is in Birney Letters, I, 357, fn. 2. Oberlin students are identified In R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin. I, 242.

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Michigan during the winter of 1836, Cowles lectured in about

nineteen villages, met varying degrees of indifference, hos­

tility, and success, and was directly responsible for the

formation of the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society. He sum­

marized his own experiences: "On the whole the cause has

got a footing, I think, in Michigan, .... My time will

not suffice to do all that needs to be done--only to make 39 a beginning . . . ."

Through its lecturers in the field, Oberlin earned

a reputation as a training school for agitators. This image

is apparent in a letter from an agent of the Ohio Coloni­

zation Society requesting help in stemming the "flood of

abolition agents and publications" which was undermining

the traditional popularity of colonization in his vicinity:

You are aware that we are but a short distance from Oberlin Institute, where they manufacture the article I. agents J by wholesale. They spring up like mushrooms, and overspread the land, and their pestilential breath is scarcely less withering than the Bohon Upas* The efforts of our societies have been paralyzed. ^

Although there were not as many Oberlin agents as the writer

suggests, those who did go into the field during vacation

were so zealous and enterprising that they made converts of

39 The Emancipator, May 11, 1837. A brief description of Cowles1 agency, based on the letters of J. P. Cowles to his brother H. Cowles, in Ellsworth, "Oberlin and the Anti- Slavery Movement," pp. 37-39; especially see p. 37, fn, 27 and p. 38, fn. 30. 40 Letter dated May 21, 1838, African Repository, XIV (1837), 150-51; also quoted in Ellsworth, "Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement," p. 40.

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many colonizationists

For about three years Oberlin students and faculty

participated in the national society's program of moral

suasion. One student, Amos Dresser, took time out from

lecturing and went to Tennessee to sell Bibles. Unfor­

tunately his books were packed in old antislavery papers

and were confiscated. Dresser was publicly beaten. His

experience was widely publicized in the Emancipator and in

other publications of the American Anti-Slavery Society.^2

Another student had his egg-spattered suit preserved for

posterity in the Oberlin museum when his descendents gave 43 it, still bearing evidence of the eggs, to the college.

Apparently when the student-agents returned to Oberlin for

classes they shared their triumphs and trials with an inter­

ested Oberlin community.^

By 1840, no lecturers from Oberlin went into the

field. William G. McLoughlin makes a case against Finney's

apparent prejudices and accuses him of "openly undermining

the abolition movement because he found that some of the

^ E dward L. Fox, The American Colonization Society, 1817-1840 (Baltimore, 19197, pp. 124, 136-41, 146.------

^2R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin. I, 243. 43 R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 243. 44 Ellsworth, "Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement," pp. 41-42. R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 244-45, quotes excerpts from students*1 letters recounting the ex­ ploits and experiences of student lecturers in the field.

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students at Oberlin were more interested in freeing the

slaves than in preaching revivalism.11 R. S. Fletcher attrib­

utes Finney's consistent emphasis on revivalism to his con­

viction that emancipation could only be won peaceably through

conversion to Christ.^ Certainly the demise of the lecture

program was foreshadowed in a letter to Weld from student-

lecturers in August, 1836. They wrote that Finney held

special meetings with them during which he "poured out his

soul . . . in agony" against their "continuing in the abo­

lition field." He argued that the only reason he had accept­

ed the position at Oberlin was "to educate the young men from

Lane Seminary" to become evangelists. He assured them that

they "would accomplish the abolition work much sooner by

promoting revivals." Their indecision about continuing as

agents is apparent in their description of Weld and Stanton

"groaning on one side" about abolitionism and "Finney groan- 46 ing on the other" about revivalism. With the discontin­

uance of the program Finney's victory was complete, and

thereafter Oberlin evangelized for general, benevolent,

moral reform.

The effective spread of abolitionist doctrine as a

part of the benevolent reform of religious revivalism is

45 McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism, p. 110; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, Y, 252-53. 46 Allan, Streeter, Alvord and Thome to Weld, Aug. 9, 1836, in Barnes and Dumond, Weld-Grimke Letters. I, 323-29.

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nowhere more evident than in the Oberlin Evangelist. The

Oberlin periodical had wide national and international dis­

tribution, not only because of its usually sizeable sub­

scription list--4,300 in 1847 and 1848— but also because of

its popularity among Oberlin graduates and former students

who used it to "keep the Oberlin spirit alive" and shared

it with others wherever they went. The publication was

utilized for purposes of public relations in establishing

a climate of receptivity for the institution in financial,

publicity, and recruitment drives. Keep and Dawes, for

example, made liberal use of the Evangelist during their

fund-raising tour of England as a means of introducing

Oberlin to the British public and as proof that abolition

was a matter of greatest consequence at the college.

Founded on November 1, 1838, and published every

two weeks in eight quarto pages, the Evangelist was discon­

tinued on December 17, 1862, due to public preoccupation 47 with the war. Finney, Cowles, Mahan, Morgan, and Thome

were, by far, the most frequent contributors. The articles

and editorials were mainly of a religious nature— virtually

every issue, for example, contained texts of sermons by

Finney, Mahan, or Morgan. Articles abound about a variety

of reforms, including editorials, propaganda and information

47 Oberlin Evangelist Association Minutes, R. S. Fletcher Files, Oberlin College Archives; Oberlin Evangelist, Jan. 20, 1858, and Dec. 17, 1862. R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 418-22.

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about abolition. Occasional news items about the work of

an Oberlin alumnus were featured.

Dedicated commitment to abolitionism is obvious in

the concern which students, former students, and graduates

showed for the education of Negroes. In this, Oberlin

worked closely with the national society. Reaffirming

traditional faith in Negro education as the instrument for

breaking down discrimination and gaining acceptance of white

people that had been expressed by Negro leaders and earlier

abolitionists, the American Anti-Slavery Society had, since

its founding, strongly advocated the "intellectual, moral,

and religious improvement of Negroes" as a means of prepar­

ing blacks for civil rights. When the national society

appointed Augustus Wattles "generalissimo of the colored

people" in Ohio in the summer of 1836, additional schools

were opened by the national society and its affiliates in

other areas of the state. Financed by a few Negro philan­

thropists and organizations such as the Ohio Ladies' Anti-

Slavery Society--in which many Oberlin ladies were members

--the schools, although woefully inadequate and ill-equipped

to serve the needs of the Negro population, were for many

years--with few exceptions--the only ones which Negroes

could legally attend in Ohio. Reports on the condition of

the schools written by Wattles and his successor, Amzi D.

Barber of Oberlin, state that a majority of the teachers

were Oberlin men and women. The reports are descriptive of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the customary harrassment and persecution that these so

called "nigger teachers" suffered from resentful white 48 people.

Hiram Wilson was one of many Oberlin graduates whose

lives were devoted to Negro education. Whereas the geo­

graphical location in which he worked and his ambition for

founding schools were exceptional, his fervor in the per­

formance of Christian duty and his sense of personal commit­

ment to the cause of educating blacks was typical of other

Oberlin alumni. Immediately after his graduation from the

Oberlin Theological Department in 1836 Wilson was appointed

by the American Anti-Slavery Society as agent for develop­

ing educational and job opportunities for Negroes in a

community of fugitive slaves in Canada West. Recruiting

six Oberlin men and women as teachers, Wilson established a

school--admitting all races— near Amherstburg. As a result

of the panic of 1837, Wilson lost the financial backing of

the national society. Although he was over $10,000 in debt,

he recruited at least ten more Oberlin alumni to teach, and

with the help of Gerrit Smith, who sent him donations from

a group in Rochester, Wilson was instrumental in establish-

^News of Wattles' appointment is in E. Wright, Jr., to Weld, Saratoga, JSIew York, Aug. 5, 1836, in Barnes and Dumond, Weld-Grimke Letters, I, 323. Various reports are in the Emancipator, July 6 and Oct. 19, 1837; Philanthropist, June 11, Oct. 22, Nov. 26, 1839. A discussion of some of the teachers is in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 245-46.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 187 49 ing fifteen schools.

In 1842, through the philanthropy of James Cannings

Fuller of New York, Wilson founded a manual labor school

known as the British-American Institute for the "Education

Mental Moral and physical of the Colored inhabitants of

Canada not excluding white people and Indians.Governed

by an integrated board of trustees, the institute purchased

about 300 acres of land and admitted twelve students in

1842. A community called Dawn— with a total population of

500 Negroes--grew up around the institute. Dawn was never

a part of the school, but ultimately the financial climate

of one affected the other. By 1849, due to a series of

financial misadventures, Dawn and the institute were bank-

49 Theodore Weld s suggestion for the special appoint­ ment to Canada is in Weld to L. Tappan, Utica, New York, Feb. 22, 1836 in Barnes and Dumond, Weld-Grimke' Letters, I, 262-65. The actual appointment is in the Tappan Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, March 2, 1836. See also Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (New York, 1969), pp. 51-52. Information concerning Wilson and the teachers recruited from Oberlin is in the Emancipator, Dec. 22, 1836; Apr. 1, May 11, Oct. 5, Dec. 18, 1837. 5“ brief account with quotations from Wilson's letters is in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 246-47. A full des­ cription with documentation from British sources is in Winks, Blacks in Canada, pp. 178-79.

^^Winks, Blacks in Canada, p. 180,used William H. Pease and Jane H. Pease, eds., Black Utopia, who quoted from the Kent County Registry Office, Chatham, Ohio.

^ A full account of Dawn and the life of Josiah Henson, a leader in the community and a close associate of Wilson, is in Winks, Blacks in Canada, pp. 178-204. Winks

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In the Oberlin community Negro children attended

regular classes with white children, but with a growing

population of fugitive slaves and free Negroes, there was

no appropriate educational facility which adults could

attend. Consequently, Oberlin students set up their own

autonomous community project— The Adult Colored School in

Oberlin which was established in 1842 with a committee of

trust as financial agents and a teaching staff composed

entirely of students. In 1860, the Oberlin Missionary 52 Society expanded the school into a system.

Perhaps the most consummate dispersion of abolition­

ist ideals by Oberlin was in the missionary spirit evidenced

by thousands of former students who went all over the United

States and foreign countries into a multitude of fields.

Imbued with the dedicated zeal often common to people

attributes the failure of Dawn and the institute partly to the persistent myth in Canada that Josiah Henson was in reality "Uncle Tom" of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. Enjoying fame, Henson did much to keep tKe myth going. Since "Uncle Tom" was alive and well on Canadian soil, Canadians— regarding their country as an unprejudiced haven for the poor fugitives from America--congratulated themselves in their press, and erroneously believed that racial conditions in Canada needed no improvement. Winks examines carefully other causes for the failure and concludes that poor leadership on the part of both Henson and Wilson defeated Dawn. 52 The Oberlin Evangelist, July 17, 1844, stated that the results achieved in the school were "encouraging." A description of the school is in Wilbur Greeley Burroughs, "Oberlin s Part in the Slavery Conflict," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly. XX (Apr.-July, 1911), 26^-332. A discussion is in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 248- 49. ------

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consciously engaged in doing Christian work, Oberlin doctrine

invaded Liberia and Costa Rica through missionaries, Kansas

and Ontario through land surveyors, Vermont and Missouri

through ministers, Indiana and New York through professional

distributors of religious propaganda literature, and--de-

spite sectionalism and consequent Southern protests against

hiring Northerners--abolitionist ideals penetrated the South

through teachers of white children. Wherever there were

thrusts toward the promotion of Negro equality, Oberlin

students were in the forefront--encountering antagonism but 53 remaining determinedly antislavery.

Faith in America as a country destined for perfec­

tion also characterized the reform movement at Oberlin.

Believing that the ideal of a Christian democracy was a

mandate to equal civil rights and equal social opportunities

for Negroes, Oberlin sought not to destroy, but to reform

the church and the political institutions of the country.

Oberlin Evangelist, Jan. 21, 1846; June 23, 1847; Oct. 8, 1862. R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 423- 26, describes Oberlin students as "propagandists, citing the total effect of "literally thousands of "Oberlinites" in various fields. The locations and occupations of former students were derived by a spot check in the Oberlin Evan- gelist from 1847 and 1862. For expressions of Southern sen­ timent concerning Northern teachers, see De Bow's Review, VII (Sept. 1849), 229; IX (July 1850), 12T;' Xt'IT (SiptV 1852), 261-62; XV (Sept. 1853), 268; XXII (May 1857), 556. For Oberlin students in the South, see Burroughs, "Oberlin's Part in the Slavery Conflict, pp. 281-82. R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin. I, 425-26, excerpts letters from teachers demonstrating their fearlessness in subtly indoctrinating their classes with abolitionist ideals.

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Dissent in churches over antislavery beliefs had caused

rifts in national church organizations. Oberlin undertook

the task of converting Protestant churches to antislavery

so that Christian denominations could take the leadership in

converting others.

In September, 1835, the Oberlin Church resolved:

"That as slavery is a Sin no person shall be invited to

preach or Minister to this church, or Any Br. be invited to 54 commune who is a slaveholder. Using a non-denominational

approach, Oberlin exerted its considerable influence through

professors and graduates who were ministers in churches and

promoted the adoption of antislavery resolutions at church

conferences and supported church groups that held antislav­

ery sentiment. Freewill Baptists, for example maintained a

close relationship with Oberlin--being supportive at confer­

ences, and since the Freewill Baptists had no college of their

own, they sent their theological students to Oberlin.^

In 1846 Oberlin led in the founding of a powerful

and influential Christian antislavery organization, the Ameri­

can Missionary Association (AMA). With a membership open to

"anyone who is not a slaveholder" and who talked, preached,

^Oberlin Church MS Records, Sept., 1835, and Aug. 12, 1846, as quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 254.

"^G. L. Ball, "Liberty and Slavery," Freewill Baptist Quarterly, IX (Apr. 1861), 146-72. R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 256.

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in its aggressive action for antislavery, engaging in such

enterprises as funding and supplying staff for foreign and

home missions and churches, distributing thousands of anti­

slavery tracts, founding and actuating colonies in Kansas

to counterbalance the pro-slavery population of that terri­

tory after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, keeping

close watch over the principles and practices of benevolent

reform societies for any indication of action contrary to

antislavery belief, and giving financial assistance to such

missionary schools as Hiram Wilson's in Canada. Personnel

for the various enterprises was recruited from the ranks

of Oberlin graduates and former students.

Attempting to establish a beach-head for antislav­

ery in the South, the AMA funded the work of John G. Fee as

abolitionist agent in Kentucky. To assist him in his cam­

paign to win Kentucky through moral suasion, the asso­

ciation sent at least ten other antislavery ministers and

teachers--seven of whom were from Oberlin. Later when Fee

and his associates started a reform colony and a college in

Berea, which was to be "to Kentucky what Oberlin is to Ohio,

Anti-slavery, Anti-caste, Anti-secret societies, Anti-rum,

Anti-sin," E. H. Fairchild of the Oberlin faculty served as

advisor. During the hysteria following Harpers' Ferry,

three members of the faculty were severely beaten, some of

the property was burned, and Fee and his faculty and

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colonists were exiled until after the Civil War. The AMA

raised a relief fund of fifteen hundred dollars for the

assistance of the victims.'**’

Political action at Oberlin was equally as well

organized into strategies to achieve maximum results in

antislavery action. By conviction, tradition, and habit,

Oberlin was Whig. In 1835, the college petitioned the Ohio

legislature in behalf of the civil rights of Ohio's black

citizens. Failing in this, in 1838, Oberlin backed a can­

didate for delegate to the Ohio legislature who promised

in writing that, if elected, he would attempt to abolish

the Black Laws. The candidate won, and the Democratic

candidate attributed his defeat to Oberlin. In 1839 Oberlin

was influential in getting the Lorain County Anti-Slavery

Society to resolve that its members would vote only for men

who promised to work for equal rights. ^

When Whig members of the Ohio legislature--includ-

ing the delegate elected by Oberlin votes— helped to pass

a fugitive slave law, Oberlin supported the proposal made

at a special meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society

^Elizabeth S. Peck, Berea's First Century (Lexing­ ton, Ky., 1955); E. H. Fairchild, Berea uoiiege (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1883); John R. Rogers, Birth of Berea College (Phila­ delphia, 1902). A discussion ot Berea and the A. M. A. is in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 262-63.

"^Ellsworth, "Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement," p. 50 et passim. See also, R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 386-87.

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to form a third political party with an antislavery platform.

At the nominating convention meeting in Albany in April,

1840, Oberlin delegates helped to nominate James G. B i m e y

as the Liberal Party candidate for the presidency. Although

the Oberlin vote was small that year, Oberlin leaders gave

their allegiance to the third party and campaigned for

antislavery supporters to accept the role of a political

minority in order to exploit party politics.

Thereafter, under the management of James Monroe

--a graduate of the college in 1846 and a faculty member

from 1849 to 1862— Oberlin influenced bloc voting in Lorain

County and Russia Township to the extent that actual election

figures show overwhelming Liberal and, later, Republican

majorities in all elections beginning in 1856. James Monroe

was elected to represent Lorain County in the State Assembly,

served as a state senator from 1860 to 1862, and achieved

the passage of the Habeas Corpus Act in 1856 to counteract

the effect of the Fugitive Slave Law.'*® In 1859 the Cleve­

land Plain Dealer complained, MA man can no more go to

Congress from this Reserve without Oberlin, than he can go 59 to heaven in a sling."

58 Ellsworth reviews the career of Monroe in "Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement," pp. 116-31. In R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin I, 390, there is a brief biography. 59 Cleveland Plain Dealer, Apr. 20, 1859, as quoted in Ellsworth, ’’Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement," p. 134, fn. 3. Also cited in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 391. ------

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Political leverage was also used to attack the slave

system by organizing the Kansas Emigrant Aid Association of

Northern Ohio with the purpose of encouraging free soilers

to go to Kansas and, through moral suasion and selective

voting, insure antislavery in that state. Special reduced

railroad fares were arranged, and advance agents were sent

to find the best sites for settlement. The association

sent at least seven different companies of settlers from

Ohio to Kansas with from twenty to over a hundred people in

each. In addition to having organized the association, some

people at Oberlin joined the companies, and Oberlin seniors,

having heard stirring accounts of experiences in Kansas

from others, petitioned for an early graduation so that

they could join the emigration companies. Apparently their

request was denied in favor of their completing the academic

session, for all senior men were present and accounted for

at the regularly scheduled graduation. As R. S. Fletcher

points out, although only a few hundred settlers actually

moved to Kansas under the auspices of the association, the

propaganda value of the organization was important.^

One of the Oberlin community's most dramatic and

effective political blows against slavery was the action

taken in opposition to the Fugitive Slave Laws of 1839 when

Oberlin placed itself firmly in defiance of federal

Excerpts from letters and reports quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 394-95.

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authority. In an important speech before the Ohio Anti-Slav­

ery Society in 1839, Charles Grandison Finney defended the

right to use "higher law" against the legal rights of the

masters and the legislation of state and nation. He intro­

duced a resolution declaring that the Fugitive Slave Laws

were not "obligatory upon the citizens of this State, inas­

much as its requisitions are a palpable violation of the

Constitution of this State, and of the United States, of

the common law and of the law of G o d . " ^

Under "higher law" fugitive slaves found refuge at

Oberlin; many remained in the town, and others were assisted

in their flight to Canada. It was under this law that

Oberlin won a major political victory, gained sympathizers

and followers, and achieved world-wide attention. The polit­

ical vehicle was the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue Case of 1858.

John Price, a runaway slave who had been living in the town

of Oberlin was captured and spirited eight miles to the

Wellington railroad station to be returned to the South by

train. About fifty Oberlin men hurried to Wellington,

freed the captive amidst great clamor and excitement, and

returned him to Oberlin where he hid in the home of James

H. Fairchild, who at the time was a professor at the college

and later became president. After several days, John Price

was sent to Canada. The United States government thereupon

^Quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 396.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. issued warrants for the arrest of fifteen Oberlin citizens

--among them professors from the college and other community

leaders, several of whom were Negroes. They and others who

voluntarily joined them entered a plea of not guilty.

Federal authorities were cast as villains when two

of the accused were put on trial— particularly after the

District Attorney unwisely scoffed at the rescuers, calling

them the "Saints of Oberlin," and referring disparagingly

to "higher law" as the "Devil's Law." Charles H. Langston,

a black former student of Oberlin, was one of the accused.

Given permission to make a statement, he gave a speech

before the crowded court, and his rhetorical questions were

answered en chorale by the spectators. When he finished

speaking, the crowds awarded him with "three cheers." Even

though the judge was a Democrat, he was so moved by

Langston's address that he gave him minimum sentence of 10

days in jail and $100 fine, as opposed to the other pris­

oner's sentence of 60 days and $600 fine.^

Since court was in recess from mid-May to July, the

case was deferred, and the two prisoners plus twelve other

prominent Oberlin men who had been accused of complicity

^ A detailed account of the rescue is in Jacob R. Shipherd, History of the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue (Boston, 1859). The author, nephew of John Jay Shipherd, was a stu­ dent at Oberlin when he participated in the rescue. See also, J. H. Fairchild, Oberlin, pp. 119-32; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 403-16.

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were put into jail in Cleveland. Among them were J. M.

Fitch, superintendent of the Oberlin Sunday School, and

H. E. Peck, a professor at Oberlin. Thus, the cause receiv­

ed its martyrs, and— for a change--Oberlin was regarded as

the hero. Lawyers offered their services free of charge,

while a rescue fund was set up to defray legal costs. Gala

protest rallies took place in the park across the street

from the jail. Professor Peck was permitted to deliver a

sermon from the door of the jail to people in the yard; and

400 Sunday school children from Oberlin, bearing colorful

banners and marching to the music of an Oberlin band, visit­

ed their superintendent in jail then picnicked in the park.

Visitors "from all parts of the land" trooped into the jail

in tribute to the maligned prisoners. All in all, the situa­

tion was exploited to the fullest, and all over the North

the case captured the attention and sympathy of the public.

Eventually, after the four unfortunate slave catch­

ers had been apprehended and indicted for kidnapping in

Lorain County, the charges against the Oberlin men were

dropped and they were released. On July 7, 1859, they

marched to the train station in Cleveland accompanied by an

impressive honor guard of citizens and a brass band. When

the train pulled into the Oberlin depot, cheering crowds,

uniformed firemen, and more brass bands greeted them.

Cannons were fired, and bells rang out every fifteen min­

utes. There were flowers, oratory, and "deafening and

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tremendous shouts of applause." For days thereafter a

carnival atmosphere prevailed as Oberlin celebrated the

effective indictment which had been made against the tyr­

anny of the Fugitive Slave Law, and the freedom which it

gave to Oberlin and Northern Ohio "from the incursions of

the slave-catcher .

R. S. Fletcher judges that the rescue case was as

effective as "Bleeding Kansas" in making Republicans of

Democrats and in calling the attention of the nation and the

world to a democracy which not only countenanced but pro­

tected slavery. Fletcher further states that the case "was

one in the chain of events which led directly to the elec- 64 tion of Lincoln and the Civil War."

The Oberlin-Wellington Case clearly demonstrates

the total and vigorous commitment of the people of Oberlin

to the abolitionist cause. Oberlin was the crucible where

religious revivalism and the antislavery movement were forged

into a dynamic, irrepressible crusade. Abolitionism became

a tenet of religion at Oberlin, which was filled with Chris­

tian obligation to destroy slavery for its sinfulness

against God and intense confidence in the capacity of the

country to realize the principles on which the nation had

been founded. On the day when John Prince was rescued from

6^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin. I, 411-12. 64 R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, I, 411, 413.

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the slave-catchers, the Oberlin community had come a long way

from 1835 when it so apprehensively awaited the arrival of

the first Negro students.

Reproduced with with permission permission of the of copyright the copyright owner. owner.Further reproduction Further reproduction prohibited without prohibited permission. without permission. CHAPTER VI

ANTEBELLUM NEGRO STUDENTS

AT OBERLIN COLLEGE

There were no colored students at the door seeking admittance . . . but they were very generally expected . . . and when at length a solitary colored man was seen entering the settlement, a little boy, the son of one of the trustees, ran to the house calling out, "They're coming, father— they're coming'."!

James H. Fairchild in Oberlin: The Colony and the College

Having made the decision to provide educational

opportunities for "all qualified students regardless of sex,

color or circumstances," the Oberlin community braced for

hordes of Negroes to descend upon them demanding admission

to the institution. Their fears proved groundless. Two

hundred years of virtual illiteracy, dehumanization, and

suppression had not prepared many Negroes for college

entrance.

In effect, Oberlin's open door was an invitation for

the lowest class in society to accommodate itself to one of

the highest aspirations of white upper-class Americans— a

*James H. Fairchild, Oberlin: The Colony and the College. 1833-1883 (Oberlin, Ohio, 1883), pp. 64-65.

200

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college education. The free Negro population— the only

source for black students— was for the most part not in a

position to accept the invitation, since the vast majority

of Negroes in the 1830's were struggling for physical and

psychological survival in an environment designed to prove

them subhuman, and only a few were culturally, financially

and psychologically capable of taking advantage of the

opportunity offered at Oberlin. Negro enrollment at the

institution remained low, reaching its peak during the

academic year 1852-1853 when it represented a little less

than five percent of the total enrollment. Of approximate­

ly 8,800 students who had attended Oberlin prior to the end

of the academic year in 1861, it is estimated that 245 were

Negroes ?"

Following the recommendations of the American

Anti-Slavery Society that "all persons of color who possess

the qualifications" be treated according to the same stan­

dards as whites, Oberlin officials made no concessions to

limiting factors in the Negro's background. Negroes were

admitted to the college on a competitive basis with whites.

Such a policy thwarted the educational opportunity of all

but the few black youths whose backgrounds qualified them

for admission. Those who were admitted, adjusted— along

^Fairchild, Oberlin, pp. 111-112; Robert S. Fletcher, A History of Oberlin College From Its Foundation Through the Civil W a r , 2 vols. (Oberlin, Ohio, 1943), II, 535-536.

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with whites— to the unusual circumstances of living together

in an integrated community on a socially equal basis. De­

spite a few institutionalized discriminatory barriers, Negro

and white students socialized effectively according to the

standards of the Oberlin community.

R. S. Fletcher claims that Oberlin administrators

had subtle ways of protecting the college from what they

considered to be too large an enrollment of Negroes, but

he found no evidence that the officials ever refused to

admit Negro applicants whose qualifications were satisfactory.

Fletcher cites as an example of their control, the response

of the trustees when Samuel Cornish asked, in 1852, if the

board would be "willing and pleased to sell $20,000 of

Scholarships to the colored people of Philadelphia, Bal­

timore, & New York." The board members answered that they

would be "happy to sell $20,000 of $100 Scholarships to all

irrespective of complexion." Thus by specifying the $100

scholarships rather than the more usual twenty-five or

fifty dollar ones, the board was committed to admit fewer 3 Negroes.

Because Negroes were limited in their ability to

compete with white applicants in meeting the requirements

^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 527. As Fletcher notes, the $100 scholarships were perpetual, the fifty dollar scholarships were for 18 years, and the twenty- five dollar ones were for six years. Only one student at a time could use any given scholarship.

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for admission— evidence of good moral character, adequate

preparation at the lowest levels of education, and possess­

ion of sufficient financial resources— more stringent con­

trol of the size of Negro enrollment proved unnecessary.

Belief in the racial depravity of Negroes, for example,

conceivably obfuscated objectivity when character refer­

ences were written for Negro applicants. This is illus­

trated by a letter from a white man whose wife had inherited

a slave girl. Not wanting to own a slave and believing the

girl unfit for freedom without some education, the gentle­

man thought she might be eligible for admission to Oberlin

and stated his estimation of her character as, "She has

many defects of the race--Shiftlessness &c--however has as 4 far as can be observed no lewd tendencies."

Competition with white applicants in meeting the

requirements of educational preparation posed additional

problems for Negroes. Although academic qualifications for

admission to the institution were necessarily flexible for

all students during the period 1835 through 1840 due to the

wide variations in backgrounds of applicants— ranging from

comparatively advanced classical education of a few to

rudimentary education in common schools for most--not many

Negroes could claim even a common school education and were

frequently barely literate. Many applicants, such as Gideon

^H. E. Ring to J. M. Fitch, quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 517.

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and Charles Langston--the first Negroes to be enrolled in

Oberlin^--had a background of private instruction but no

formal schooling.

Gideon Quarles Langston and Charles H. Langston,

their older sister Maria, and their younger brother, John,

were the children of Ralph Quarles and Lucy Langston.

Quarles, a wealthy planter "of broad and varied education

with a love of learning and culture" owned a large estate

in Louisa County, Virginia. Lucy Langston was a mulatto of

African and Indian descent whom Quarles had freed along with

their baby daughter, Maria, in 1806. Although the four

children used the surname of their mother as was customary

and legal with mulatto children, Ralph Quarles did not have

a white wife and children so he gave his mulatto family his

attention and care, fully accepting the children as his.

From the time they were seven years old the two

older boys were required to meet with their father each

morning for academic instruction. According to John, Gideon

showed great promise as a scholar, while Charles was average.

Believing in manual labor as a means of developing strong

bodies, Quarles had the boys report, each day after classes,

^W. E. Bigglestone, "Straightening a Fold in the Record," Oberlin Alumni Magazine, vol. LXVIII, (May/June, 1972), p. 11, proves through research of contemporary rec­ ords that the Langston brothers were the first Negro stu­ dents to enroll at Oberlin. Traditionally, based on J. H. Fairchild's identification, James Bradley, black Lane Rebel, had been cited as first. R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 533, accepts Fairchild's identification.

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for regular duties on the plantation where they worked side

by side with slave boys their own age.

Upon the death of both parents in 1834, the children

inherited the entire estate. To Maria, who had married

earlier and was living on her own land in Virginia, was left

the plantation and those slaves— including her husband— who

were not freed. Liberal financial provisions were made for

the three sons, who were sent to Chillicothe, Ohio, where

Gideon and Charles lived with a half brother, William

Langston. John, only four years old at the time, was sent

by the executors of the will to live with his father's

closest friend, William D. Gooch and his family in Chilli­

cothe. As John's legal guardian, Gooch raised and educated

him as one of his own children. In 1839 when the Gooch fam­

ily decided to move to Missouri— a slave state--William

Langston, fearing for John's safety, obtained a court ruling

restraining them from moving the boy out of the state.^

Meanwhile, Gideon and Charles, without any schooling

other than that gained through private instruction from

their father, entered the Preparatory Department of Oberlin

in September, 1835. Bigglestone quotes trustee John Keep

as obviously referring to the two Langstons when he wrote

on January 16, 1836: "Among the present students, are two,

^The entire account of the Langstons' background is from John Mercer Langston, From Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol: An Autobiography (1894; rpt. New ^fork, 1969).

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from Virginia of color, 6c they are as well received 6c treated

as others." The brothers remained at Oberlin for one academ­

ic year. Gideon then moved to Cincinnati where he lived

until his death in 1848, buying a barber shop which he oper­

ated with a staff of five men.^ Charles re-entered the Pre­

paratory Department in 1841 and studied until the end of the

academic year 1844. Although Charles did not graduate from

Oberlin, he maintained a close association with the institu­

tion through members of his family who attended Oberlin and,

as mentioned earlier, was one of the participants in the

Oberlin-Wellington Rescue.

The Preparatory Department and the Female Department

accounted for a majority of students--both black and white—

until 1875. In 1850, when the name Oberlin Collegiate

Institute was officially changed to Oberlin College, only

69 out of 500 students were enrolled in the Collegiate

Department, and in 1860 only 199 out of 1,311— the total Q enrollment for that year. Apparently no Negro student 9 qualified for the Collegiate Department prior to 1840.

^Biggiestone, "Straightening a Fold in the Record," Oberlin Alumni Magazine, vol. LXVIII, (May/June, 1972).

8R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 710. q This statement is based on a comparison of a list of Negro students attending Oberlin between 1835 to 1862 compiled by Henry Cowles, currently in the Cowles Manuscripts and Papers, Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin, Ohio, and the names of students in the Alumni Register, Graduate and Former Students. Teaching and Administrative Staff, 1833-1960 (Oberlin, Ohio, 1960). John Langston also compiled a list of

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The same principle of color-blind equality which

obtained in evaluating applications for admission, governed

the assignment of responsibilities and the evaluation of

scholastic achievements. In 1883 President James H. Fairchild

wrote: "No adaptation of the course of study to the special

needs of colored persons was ever made. It was not a color­

ed school that was proposed, but a school where colored stu­

dents should have equal privilege with others." Fairchild

comments further that only sixty of approximately 1,000 Negro

students who enrolled between 1835 and 1883 completed their

courses of study.^ Since the Oberlin officers obviously re­

alized that their black students had "special needs," their

unmodified policy may be an indication that their primary

commitment was to the abstract principle of equality rather

than to educating Negroes. Since Negro equality was the abo­

litionist goal, it is not unlikely that by keeping rigidly to

the same academic requirements and making no concessions or

accommodations for black students, Oberlin was making an im­

portant point about the intellectual equality of Negroes.

black students, which identifies two male students not appear­ ing in the Cowles' list. Bigglestone, current archivist at Oberlin, in a letter to the author dated August 25, 1972, suggests a possibility that one Negro student, Harriet E. Hunter, who was enrolled in the Literary Course in 1837, might have qualified for the Collegiate Department since four women took college level work for the first time during that year. However, there is no proof that Miss Hunter was one of the women.

10Fairchild, Oberlin, p. 112.

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Achieving social equality and racial accord among

students was perhaps the most challenging problem that the

Oberlin administrators had to face. Despite the additional

social complication of coeducation at the institution, the

officers took advantage of the precedent set by Oneida and

Lane and adopted a laissez-faire attitude where personal

relationships among students were concerned, while officially

pledging equal treatment for all in the use of college facil­

ities. Neither white nor black students were coerced into

accepting each other as companions in their daily lives.

All students had the right to exercise their own preroga­

tives in selecting their friends and in choosing the people

with whom they associated socially. Officially, all stu­

dents were treated "according to their intrinsic merits—

not according to distinctions over which they . . . had no

control." As J. H. Fairchild explained the "limit of obli­

gation imposed": white students were "not permitted to

abuse" black students and were not forced to sit next to

them in classes, but they were required to attend the same

classes with all other students "or forego the opportun­

ities of the school." Further, every student was allowed

to determine for himself how he would relate to his fellow

students . ^

^Statement of policy of the administration with regard to interracial relationships at the college in the Oberlin Evangelist. September 10, 1851. Also quoted and dis- cussed in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 526-27; Fairchild, Oberlin, p. 113.

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Generally, Oberlin students reacted favorably to the

unique situation of living as peers in an interracial com­

munity. The fears that they had learned since childhood to

associate with racial mixing in a social context were either

repressed or otherwise adjusted to their religious beliefs

as black and white students lived together in the community

and frequently formed lasting friendships. Racial tolerance

became a tradition and in this atmosphere of acceptance

Negro students were apparently able to build a feeling of

self-respect. For example, an influential Negro minister

and former student, John Mifflin Brown, wrote in 1844 that

he believed Oberlin to be the best school in the United

States for a Negro to acquire an inexpensive education "and 12 at the same time, be respected as a man." One black

graduate, meeting racism in the "outside world" after five

years at Oberlin, states: "I had been so long at Oberlin

that I had forgotten about my color." The same student

expresses the idea that everyone at the college "seemed

determined" that she should carry away "nothing but the 13 most pleasant memories" of her life.

Negroes participated freely and without discrimina­

tion in the public social life of the Oberlin community.

12 J. M. Brown quoted in Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (New York, 1969), pp. 113-14. 13 Fanny Jackson-Coppin, Reminiscences of School Life, and Hints of Teaching (Philadelphia, 1913), pp. 14-15.

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Since Oberlin was a religious settlement, it was obvious

— even to a stranger— that much of the socializing centered

around church activities. In 1844, for example, John Mercer

Langston, youngest of the Langston brothers, went to Oberlin

to enroll in the Preparatory Department. In his autobiog­

raphy he recalls his initial impression of the college and

town and describes the magnetic power of the church as he

observed it when he arrived in Oberlin early on a Sabbath

morning. He states that by nine o'clock crowds of people

were hurrying toward the church either to get to the early

prayer meeting or to the Sunday-school. At ten-thirty, the

crowd increased into "a vast swelling of students and people

pressing to the great church, the only one in the place."

He was moved by the "choir . . . in which more than a hun­

dred voices were blended, sustained by instruments of vast

compass and power." He was stirred by the "eloquent rendi­

tion of the Scripture lesson made by . . . Professor John

Morgan" and by the sermon of Charles Grandison Finney— noting

that although the sermon lasted for an hour-and-a-half the

"assembly gave profoundest attention . . . hearing (Finney) 14 apparently as if for life itself.

On-campus literary and debating societies were an

ever-popular source of social activities at Oberlin, attrac­

ting townspeople as well as students to their presentations.

14 J. Langston, Plantation to Capitol, pp. 77-79.

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There was no question in antebellum Oberlin concerning the

eligibility of Negro students for membership in the student

organizations. Many were active members and officers, tak­

ing part in the various programs and meetings.

George B. Vashon, who in 1844 became the first Negro

to receive a bachelor's degree from Oberlin, was very active

in the men's societies, as was William Cuthbert Whitehorne,

a Negro from Jamaica, who graduated the next year. John

Mercer Langston was a freshman in the Collegiate Department

when he joined the Union Society— known as Phi Delta Literary

Society after 1854. Upon being assigned a proposition for

debate— "Do the teachings of phrenology interfere with man's

free moral agency?"--he was seized with stage-fright during

the debate and stood mute before a public audience and his

peers. He attributes much of later success in oratory to

the memory of that moment of humiliation. Having received

his A. B. degree in 1849, Langston entered the Theological

Department in 1850 and joined the Theological Literary

Society, serving as secretary for a year. William Allen

Jones--member of a remarkable Negro family closely associated

with Oberlin and graduate of the class of 1857--was also a

member of Phi Delta. Benjamin Franklin Randolph--a tall

mulatto who had been born free in Kentucky— was a member of

the same organization in 1860.^“*

^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 767.

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Negro women were late in enrolling at Oberlin--prob-

ably due in large part to the ancient taboos against higher

education for women such as acculturation patterns based on

the myth that women were intellectually inferior to men or

that any type of academic knowledge was not feminine, im­

periled their innocence, and interfered with instincts.

While such prohibitions and conceits probably did not apply

to black women, they influenced the black woman's sense of

propriety. Also, no doubt, lack of educational opportun­

ities on the lower level and early marriage took their toll

from the ranks of Negro women and prospective Oberlin stu­

dents .

The possibility exists, of course, that the list of

black students compiled by Henry Cowles is inaccurate, and

that Negro women who attended Oberlin during the 1830's

were not identified as such. At any rate, Sarah J. Watson

(Barnett) is the first name on Cowles' "Catalogue and

Record of Colored Students, 1835-1862," under the heading

"Females." Sarah Watson was enrolled in the Preparatory

Department for one year--1842 to 1843. No other information

mentions Vashon and Whitehorn in connection with membership in the men's societies. J. Langston, Plantation to Capitol, pp. 93-96, gives the details of Langston's embarrassment before the Union Society. Harry N. Frost, ed., Register of the Members Both Graduate and Non-Graduate of Phi Delta Literary Society (Oberlin, Ohio, 1901), p. 18, lists under appropriate years, the names, brief life-sketches of Vashon (p. 18, Langston (p. 31), Jones (p. 31), Randolph (p. 34).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 213

about her is available except that she was from Cincinnati.

Ann M. Taylor, also from Cincinnati, entered the Preparatory

Department on August 2, 1843. On July 3, 1844, she was

married at Oberlin to a gentleman identified only as John

McKinney in a ceremony performed by Charles Grandison Finney.

She did not return to the college.^

Lucy Stanton Day Sessions entered the literary

Department in 1846 and graduated in 1850— the first woman

identified as Negro to have completed a course of study in

higher education at Oberlin. During her senior year she

was elected president of the Young Ladies' Association, and

presided "with dignity and honor" over the society's annual

public exhibit during commencement week.^

Negro graduates and alumni added their share of

color and pomp to the commencement ceremonies. For example,

after William Whitehorne delivered his commencement oration

in 1845, the audience broke into spontaneous applause— al­

though such a desplay of approval was traditionally pro­

hibited. Lucy Stanton earned the same recognition in 1850

when, with appropriate modesty, she read her graduation

essay, "A Plea for the Oppressed." John Langston and his

classmates had already prepared their commencement addresses

^H. C. Cowles, "Catalogue and Record of Colored Students, 1835-1862," Cowles MSS, Oberlin College Archives.

^ Y o u n g Ladies' Association Manuscript Minutes for July 1, Aug. 21, 1850, in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 525.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. in August, 1849, when they received notice that public

commencement ceremonies were canceled due to the cholera

epidemic in nearby Sandusky City. Langston regarded the

cancelation as a "great misfortune," because he had "very

much desired" to deliver his oration— "The Sacrifices and

Recompenses of Literary Life." Seventeen years later, at

the annual meeting and banquet of the Oberlin Alumni Asso­

ciation during commencement week, Langston was the featured

speaker, and delivered an address entitled, "Ethical Recon­

struction."^

Fanny Jackson Coppin, A. B., 1865, graduated "with

special honors from the classical course," was elected class

poet, and distinguished herself further by reading a lengthy,

ponderously patriotic original poem at her graduation ex­

ercises. Entitled "The Grandeur of Our Triumph," the poem

places God squarely on the side of a purified, Christian­

ized America, and ends with a flourish:

Unto God belong the praises; His right arm the vengeance deals; In the whirlwind of the battle We have heard his chariot wheels.

We have heard His mighty trumpet; We have seen his flaming sword, And the grandeur of our triumph Is the triumph of the L o r d . 19

1 R R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 525 men­ tions the applause which followed the addresses. Langston, Plantation to Capitol, p. 96, writes of his disappointment. R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 837, lists Langston as an alumni speaker.

^The quotation about Fanny Jackson Coppin and her

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Such an expression of faith that America would ultimately

reach Christian perfection was in harmony with the dominant

spirit of the college. Before the millennium, Oberlin

evangelists predicted, America would experience a moral

regeneration. Social ills that were inconsistent with the

ideals of Christianity and a democratic government would be

"washed away," and America would become the perfect nation.

For all the liberality at Oberlin, the commitment

to the principles of equality in academic and social life

at the college, and the identification of Negroes as American

citizens and brothers in Christ, white officers, of the in­

stitution, faculty, and students did not accept Negroes in

certain roles— and institutionalized this rejection. The

most obvious example of this ambivalence toward Negroes was

in the matter of faculty appointment.

On February 18, 1852, some members of the Oberlin

community presented a petition to the board of trustees

requesting the "appointment of a colored Professor in the

College." At the same meeting a "counter petition was like­

wise presented from a smaller number of the community."

There was discussion of both petitions at the August 23,

1852, meeting of the board, but no action resulted. A year

later, August 22, 1853, the board resolved: "that in the

poem are from A. L. Shumway and C. De W. Brown, Oberliniana, A Jubilee Volume of Semi Historical Anecdotes Connected with the Past and Present of Oberlin College, l833-l§83" (Oberlin, Ohio, 1883), pp. 120-21, Oberlin College Archives.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 216

choice of Professors and teachers of all grades we are govem- 20 ed by intrinsic merit irrespective of color." Typically,

the pledge was for equality, not for selecting a Negro as

professor in order to demonstrate the unbiased attitudes of

Oberlin.

Points of view expressed during the discussions

were not recorded— which may be significant in itself

because early Oberlin seems to have recorded everything.

It does seem, however, that biases, whether subconscious

or not, influenced the trustees when it came to the import­

ant task of selecting faculty. Not until 1948, when Wade

Ellis was appointed to the Mathematics Department was a

Negro named to the Oberlin faculty. That date, although

exceedingly early when compared with many institutions,

seems incongruously late for Oberlin, which had earlier

made its commitment to racial equality in admitting stu­

dents and in 1852-1853 extended the principle to the hiring

of faculty. It should have been possible for the trustees

to find a suitable candidate, had they been prepared to act

on their resolve, from among Negro graduates of other insti-

tutions--colleges, medical schools, and theological semin- 21 aries--who were becoming fairly numerous by 1852. But

20 Minutes, Board of Trustees, Feb. 18, 1852; Aug. 23, 1852; Aug. 22, 1853, quoted in a letter from Bigglestone, Sept. 12, 1972.

^^Woodson, Carter G., The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (1915; rpt. New York, 19b8), pp. Z/b-/9, tn. 1-4,

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the likeliest candidates were Oberlins' Negro graduates

themselves. Prior to the Civil War Oberlin justifiably

placed such high value on its own training that a large

proportion of the faculty was recruited from its own grad­

uates . Beginning with George Vashon in 1844, black grad­

uates from the Collegiate Department moved toward becoming

successful lawyers, presidents of Negro colleges, professors,

leading ministers, physicians, teachers, newspaper editors,

statesmen, tradesmen, and artisans. By 1852 there had been

seven Negro graduates, and by the mid-1860's at least nine­

teen men and women of "intrinsic merit," to judge by their

later careers, had gone out from Oberlin itself.

The idea of recruiting the best of Oberlin's Negro

graduates for the faculty had occurred to James A. Thome--

Lane Rebel who had graduated from Oberlin in 1836 and was

professor of rhetoric and belles-lettres at the institution

from 1838 to 1849, member of the board of trustees from

1851 to 1873, and instructor in elocution from 1866 to 1869.

In a letter to Theodore Weld in 1841 Thome commented on the

"fine young colored men and girls" who were attending

Oberlin, and mentions George B. Vashon, a sixteen year

old Negro freshman as having "one of the best minds in the

Class," showing good potential for future selection as an

lists twenty-two institutions of higher learning which were open to Negroes by 1852 and the names of some of the Negroes educated at those institutions.

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Oberlin faculty member. Thome continues, "I hope in process

of time to see one or more of our professorships filled with 22 colored men, amply qualified."

Although George Vashon did not serve on the Oberlin

faculty as Thome had hoped, he did become one of the first

three Negroes to integrate the faculty of New York Central

College in McGrawville, New York, which was ahead of Oberlin

by ninety-nine years in this respect. Prior to joining the

Central faculty, Vashon studied law in Pittsburgh and was

admitted to the New York bar in 1848. Awarded the Masters

Degree from Oberlin in 1849, he taught at the College Faustin

in Haiti for three years. Returning to New York, he prac­

ticed law, published several poems of some literary value,

and in 1854 accepted the position at New York Central

College. He became "principal of the colored schools in

Pittsburgh" in 1857 and, later, principal of Avery Institute

in Pennsylvania. In 1867 he was appointed solicitor with

the Freedmen's Bureau in Washington, D. C,, and three years

later accepted a position as professor of belles letters at

Howard University— the same year that he was admitted to

practice before the Supreme Court. In 1872, he went to

Alcorn University in Mississippi, where he was professor

of mathematics, later transferring to the position of

^Thorne to Weld, Oberlin, Apr. 13, 1841, Gilbert H. Barnes and Dwight L. Dumond (eds.), Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, Angeline Grimk^Weld, and Sarah 6rimkd~, 1822-1844. 2 vols. (New York, 1970), II, 864.

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professor of Greek and modern languages at the same institu- 23 tion. He died in Mississippi in 1878.

Despite Vashon1s impressive talents, achievements,

and evidence of good character— officially recognized by

Oberlin when he was awarded the Masters Degree in 1849— and

the close, long-standing relationship that his father had

with leading white abolitionists, there is no evidence that

he was ever offered a position on the Oberlin faculty.

Possibly, during his later years his "moral and religious

qualities" made such an offer from Oberlin unlikely--partic-

ularly since Oberlin looked with suspicion on any drinking

of alcoholic beverages among its faculty. Although nothing

in Vashon's record indicates that he was a tippler, at a

meeting of the Oberlin Alumni Association in June, 1879,

Albert A. Wright--professor at the college from 1874 to

1905— read Vashon1s biography in observance of his death,

commenting that his "personal and scholarly qualities were

excellent in every way," but continuing:

Vashon's Masters Degree was awarded under the arrangement which existed prior to 1898 at Oberlin, when the degree could be conferred on those college graduates of the institution who "sustained good moral character" and were engaged in literary and scientific pursuits. See Alumni Register, 1833-1960, p. 310. Sources for Vashon's life story include: MS Albert A. Wright, Oberlin College Alumni meeting, June, 1879, Oberlin College Archives. Daily Times, Jackson, Mississippi, Aug., 1878, 3:1. Quarles, Black Abolitionists, pp. 114, 128. See also, Barnes and Dumond, Weld-Grimkd* Letters, I, 117, fn. 9; II, 864, fn. 2.

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Few particulars are known of his [Vashon's] later years, but his best friends have feared that his convictions had been dulled by the use of the wine cup, and the indulgence of some similar appetites.

Wright ended the commentary on a more positive note--recall­

ing Vashon's "excellencies of character and attainment.

At least one Negro did teach at Oberlin at a fairly

early date. Fanny Jackson Coppin who graduated in 1865, was

one of forty juniors and seniors employed to teach classes

in the Preparatory Department in 1864 and 1865, with the

understanding that should the students rebel against being

taught by a Negro she was to relinquish the class. Of the

experience Fanny Jackson states that "tho there was a little

surprise on the faces of some students when they came into

the class and saw the teacher, there were no signs of re­

bellion." To the contrary, her teaching proved to be a

source of attraction to students. She tells of the "delight­

ed look on the face of Principal (E. H.) Fairchild" when he

had to divide her class because it had grown so large, and

she was assigned to teach both sections. Her remark, "It

took a little moral courage on the part of the faculty to

put me in my place against the old custom of giving classes

only to white students," indicates that her appointment

violated a strong tradition of an all-white faculty that

was accepted by both blacks and whites at Oberlin. That

the assignment of a Negro to teach white students was

^Wright, Oberlin College Alumni Meeting, June, 1879.

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extraordinary is apparent in her romantic conclusion— based

on her successful teaching experience at Oberlin: "How

easily a colored teacher might be put into some of the pub­

lic schools. It would only take a little bravery, and

might cause a little surprise, but wouldn't even be a nine

days' wonder." In addition to Fanny Jackson, other likely

candidates for a permanent faculty appointment were to be

found among Oberlin's women graduates. Mary Jane Patterson

whose free parents had moved to the town of Oberlin from

Raleigh, North Carolina, when she was an infant, had become

in 1862 the first Negro woman to receive the A.B. degree

and had a long career as principal and teacher in a Negro

high school, as did Frances Norris who graduated with Fanny 25 Jackson in 1865.

Certain behavioral characteristics among students

and faculty at Oberlin indicate further ambivalences toward

full acceptance of Negroes as equals. There are indications

that conflicts existed between the religious values of the

community where race was concerned and the social values to

which the members of the community had been previously

acculturated. Devices, classically employed to relieve

internalized tensions created by such conflicts in inter-

25 Coppin, Reminiscences, pp. 12, 18, 19; On Mary Jane Patterson see Necrology in the Alumni Records, Oberlin College Archives and Mary Church Terrell, "History of the High School for Negroes in Washington," Journal of Negro History, III, (July, 1917), 252-66, hereinafter referred to as JNH.

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racial situations, were used by Oberlin students.^ For

example, there was the behavior of over-reaction. R. S.

Fletcher speculates about the "tendency among certain persons

to overemphasize the virtues and intellectual achievements

of colored students and to lionize them socially" and con­

cludes that such behavior was part of the antislavery propa- 27 ganda. Over-reaction to Negroes was demonstrated by some

white students in such unthreatening social situations as

the dining hall where they vied with each other to sit with

Negro table-mates as proof— to themselves and to others--that

they were indeed unprejudiced.

Mary Church Terrell, a Negro student who entered the

Preparatory Department at Oberlin in 1879 and received her

A.B. degree in 1885, described the over-reaction syndrome

when she recalled— many years after graduation— the extraor­

dinary number of invitations she received to sit at various

Buell G. Gallagher, American Caste and the Negro College (1938; rpt. New York, 1966), pp. 91-114, discusses the variety of racial attitudinal patterns resulting from conflicts between principles and prejudices. See also, Gordon W. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (New York, 1958), pp. 309-21,for a discussion of a classic method for resolv­ ing inner conflict over racial prejudice. George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind, 1817-1914 (New York, 19/1), discusses "Uncle Tom and the Anglo Saxons: Romantic Racialism in the North." In William H. Pease and Jane H. Pease, "Anti-Slavery Ambivalence: Immediatism, Expediency, Race," American Quarterly (Winter 1965), pp. 682- 695, the authors explore the attitudes of white abolition­ ists which reveal their ambivalences toward Negroes. 27 R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 525.

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tables in the dining hall. Using this behavior on the part

of white students as proof of their liberality, she states

that a great deal of confusion was created by her popularity,

causing the teacher in charge to complain frequently that 28 "too many people wanted . . . I Mary] to sit at their table."

Delazon Smith exploited and sensationalized the

attitudes of the white people at Oberlin through exagger­

ation and by attaching sexual significance to their actions.

Making his usual charge that amalgamation was the main pur­

pose of white and black associations at the college, he

wrote of the disgust and embarrassment he felt "in witness­

ing the reception and treatment of the Negro species in

Oberlin." Concerning the behavior of white students, he

noted the same over-reaction in the dining hall that Mary

Church Terrell experienced later:

At the table a contest ensues to see who shall enjoy the pleasure of their [the blacks'] company and mingle in their conversation .... A [white] young lady who is so highly favored, as to obtain a seat at table, by the side of one of these 'southern gentlemen' . . . is then considered a 'sister indeed, in whom there is no guile.'

He described "parties of pleasure" where Negroes were "espe­

cially noticed" and were the recipients of "more courtesies 29 and bows than any of their white brethern and sisters."

Artemus Ward, internationally famous contemporary satirist

28 Mary Church Terrell, A Colored Woman in a White World (Washington, D. C . , 1940), P* 39. 29 Smith, Oberlin Unmasked, pp. 57-58.

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and wit, delivered one of his comic lectures at Oberlin in

1863. Later— using his characteristic literary device of

feigned ignorance of spelling rules— he caricatured the

liberality he had observed in the dining hall into, "the

cullerd people sit at the first table. What they leave is 30 maid into hash for the white people.

Apparently administrative officers were not inhib­

ited by any such desire to give Negro students preferential

treatment. Black students were hauled before a disciplinary

trial board for infringement of rules with as much dispatch

as were white students. On one occasion five Negro girls

were called before the Ladies Board and tried for "general

inattention to their studies, great laxness in observance

of rules of the department 6c disrespectful treatment of

their teachers." The ladies heard the case and prayed with 31 the girls--who were put on probation for three months.

Unable to achieve group support in evaluating white

behavior objectively because of their small number, and

urgently needing white approval, Negro students fully

accepted accommodations made by whites to cultural taboos

at Oberlin, happily judging such behavior as indicative of

good-will. For example, although Negro students were free

30 Clifton Johnson (ed.), Artemus Ward's Best Stories (New York, 1912), p. 71.

■^Ladies Board Minutes, Aug. 21, Sept. 2, 1851, cited in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 683-84.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 225

to room in residence halls, everyone obviously accepted a

tacit agreement against interracial rooming. Indeed, R. S.

Fletcher found evidence that some white girls were not

"pleased with the idea" of the close contact with black

girls which dormitory life imposed. Negro girls, however,

were not denied the privilege of rooming in the dormitory

because of the complaints. No black and white students

roomed together, nor are there any records of students re­

questing such an arrangement. Mary Church— whose sensa­

tional popularity in the dining hall did not extend into the

residence hall--seemed unaware of any discrimination in the

dormitory. She roomed in Ladies Hall for three years:

during her senior preparatory year when she roomed with

another Negro girl, during her college freshman year when

she roomed alone, and in her senior year in college when

her roommate was the only other Negro girl in her class.

Yet, writing during her later years— after she had success­

fully provided leadership in the use of political pressures

to integrate restaurants in Washington, D. C.--she declared

firmly: "Throughout the whole period in Ladies Hall never

once did I feel I was being discriminated against on account 32 of my color."

Fanny Jackson extended her anxiety for white approval

into the larger phenomenon of identifying self with the

^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 605; Terrell, Colored Woman in White World, pp. 39-40.

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entire black race. She admits, "I never rose to recite in

my classes at Oberlin but I felt that I had the honor of

the whole African race upon my shoulders. I felt that,

should I fail, it would be ascribed to the fact that I was

colored." Having heard that her race "was good in languages,

but stumbled when they came to mathematics," she was "par­

ticularly anxious" to show that she was "as safe in math- 33 ematics as in Greek."

Born a slave in Washington, D. C. in 1837 and

orphaned at an early age, Fanny Jackson had been purchased

into freedom by her aunt, Sarah Clark--a former slave who

earned only six dollars a month. At fourteen, Fanny had

gone to live with another aunt in Bedford, Massachusetts,

where she was employed by a white family as housekeeper

and laundress. Encouraged by the personal interest of her

aunts and her employers, she managed to pay for her elemen­

tary education from her salary and later entered the Rhode

Island State Normal School in Bristol. With some financial

assistance from her Aunt Sarah, some money earned by teach­

ing, and a nine dollar scholarship given to her by a bishop

of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, she entered

Oberlin in 1860 and received her A.B. degree five years

33 Coppin, Reminiscences, p. 15. 34 Coppin, Reminiscences, p. 15; George M. Williams,

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Except for a few verbal skirmishes between individ­

uals, students of early Oberlin were apparently able to

solve whatever racial differences they may have had without

requesting official mediation. In 1846 one white student

stated his aversion to being addressed as "brother" by a

black student, and in 1866 Marianne Dascomb, Principal of

the Female Department— doubtlessly basing her observation

on the problem she encountered as matron of Ladies Hall—

reported the existence of an occasional "manifestation of

prejudice against color." James Harris Fairchild, who began

his life-long affiliation with Oberlin as a student in 1834

and was President from 1866 to 1889, recalled "in a few

instances a colored and white boy had a quarrel," and occa­

sionally a black student "imagined that some disrespect was

shown him by a fellow-student," but no major crisis of 35 racial friction ever arose.

In January, 1862, racial overtones in a bizarre

History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880; Negroes as SlavesT Soldiers and as Citizens (New York, 1883), pp. 448-49; M. A. Majors, Noted Negro Women, Their Triumphs and Activities (Chicago, 1893), pp. 1/U-/5; Oberlin Review, Vlll, (1880); 23; Wilhelmina S. Robinson, Historical Negro Biographies (Publishers Company, Inc., The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1968), p. 67; The Negro History Bulletin, V (Dec. 1941), 66-67; G. F. Richings, Evidences of Progress Among Colored People (Chicago, 1969), pp. 258-39; Gerda Lerner (ed.), Black Women in White America. A Documentary History (New York, 19/2), pp. 87-92; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 535, 767, 884. 35 M. P. Dascomb, "Rept. of Fern. Dept, for 1865- 1866," R. S. Fletcher Files, Oberlin College Archives; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 526; Fairchild, Oberlin, pp. 112-13.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 228

court hearing attracted national attention to the possibility

that all was not in racial accord at Oberlin College. The

trial, in which a black student was accused of attempting to

murder two white classmates, rocked the Oberlin community,

aroused a brutal attack on the black girl by vigilantes, and

threatened to undermine Oberlin1s image as the bastion of

Christian morality and champion of racial equality and educa­

tion for women. The central figure in the trial was Edmonia

Lewis, an exotic young woman who had been born in New York

State, the daughter of a free Negro father and a Chippewa

mother. Known by her Indian name, Wildfire, Edmonia had

spent most of her childhood— except for some intermittent

schooling— among her mother's people in the forests of New

York. When both parents died, her brother, who was in busi­

ness in California, sent her to Oberlin. She enrolled in

the Preparatory Department in 1859 and continued in the

Literary Department until 1862 when she was accused of trying

to poison Maria Miles and Christina Ennes.^

The account of Edmonia*s life is from M. A. Majors, Noted Negro Women, pp. 27-30; Mather, ed., Who's Who of the Colored Race, p. 176; Robinson, Historical Negro Biographies, pp. 95-96; James A. Porter, Modern fregro Art (New York, 1943), pp. 57-63. Information about the trial is from contemporary newspaper accounts as indicated, and from J. Langston, Planta­ tion to Capitol, pp. 171-180, where a chapter is devoted to the case. Although he does not name the principals and pur­ posely gives the wrong dates, his account is vivid and lucid, including not only information but interpretations of some in­ teresting emotional reactions of the public. Geoffrey Blodgett, "John Mercer Langston and the Case of Edmonia Lewis," JNH, LIII (1968), 201-218, pulls together information from several sources into a lively and illuminating discussion of the trial and its setting. R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 229 While attending Oberlin, Edmonia lived with twelve

white Oberlin girls in the home of Oberlin trustee, John

Keep. Although Edmonia roomed alone, she was very popular

among the other girls, exchanging visits to their rooms and

sharing confidences with them. During the winter recess of

1862, two of her friends and their beaux planned to go by

sleigh to one of the girl's home in a nearby town. Knowing

their plans, Edmonia invited the two girls to her room for

some hot, spiced wine. After hurriedly drinking the wine,

the girls became violently ill on the sleigh ride. Doctors

in Christina's hometown diagnosed their identical symptoms

as indicating the toxic effects of cantharides--a mixture of

dried, crushed beetles commonly found in Southern Europe,

popularly known as Spanish Fly and traditionally believed to

be a powerful aphrodisiac. Edmonia was accused of having

poisoned the girls and John Mercer Langston, who was practic­

ing law in Oberlin at the time, agreed to defend her.

In an excellent article about the case, Geoffrey

Blodgett questions the availability of Spanish Fly in ascetic

Oberlin, but suggests that if Edmonia was ingenious enough to

conceal wine in the home of abstemious John Keep, she could 37 conceivably procure such an exotic drug. Whatever the

circumstances, Edmonia claimed that she was innocent, and the

Oberlin community--shocked and uncertain--did nothing: no

533, mentions the affair only very briefly. 37 Blodgett, John Mercer Langston and the Case of Edmonia Lewis," JNH, LIII (1968), 212.

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official action was taken for or against Edmonia. She re­

mained at Keep's house and was not arrested despite outside

pressures and antagonistic insinuations from out-of-town

newspapers. One evening, however, as she was leaving Keep1s

house she was brutally beaten by unidentified persons and

left in a nearby field until rescued by a search group. She

sustained such serious injuries that she had not fully re­

covered by the delayed date for her hearing and had to be

assisted into the courtroom by friends."*®

The court was crowded for the hearing, and after the

testimony of an array of witnesses for the prosecution,

Langston called for a dismissal of the case on the grounds

that the corpus delecti had not been proved, pointing out

that the contents of the girls' stomachs had not been saved

or analyzed. The case was dismissed because of insufficient

evidence, and Edmonia was exonerated. As to whether or not

she did, indeed, add Spanish Fly to the wine, it seems likely

that what she intended was a playful joke--related perhaps,

to whatever had been the point of discussion between the

three girls in Edmonia's room--which turned out to be a

nightmare for all concerned. As Blodgett points out, the

only indication from Langston that Edmonia might have inno­

cently concocted the poisonous mixture for her friends is

"^Cleveland Plain Dealer, Jan. 29, 1862; Feb. 1, 1862; Feb. 10. l8b2; Lorain County News. Feb. 1, 1962; Blodgett, "John Mercer Langston and the Case of Edmonia Lewis," JNH,LIII (1968), pp. 206, 210.

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Langston's conjecture that she had been accused "perhaps 39 without reason.

Tension about the trial quickly died at Oberlin.

Edmonia left during that spring or summer, became interested

in sculpture and with the assistance of William Lloyd

Garrison opened a studio in Boston, displaying such native

talent that she went to Rome for further study. She remained

in Italy throughout her life although little is known of her

biography. Her sensitive rendition of pieces centered in the

neo-classical tradition on Indian and Negro themes won her

international fame among wealthy clients, and her work was

exhibited several times in America--the most important being

the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876.

A variety of socio-cultural backgrounds were repre­

sented among antebellum Negro students at Oberlin.. Some,

such as Fanny Jackson, were former slaves whose freedom had

been bought--either while they were slaves or fugitives--by

relatives, church groups, or white philanthropists. Others

such as George Vashon, were free Negroes from Northern urban

centers, whose parents were involved in abolitionist or

other political activities for the betterment of conditions

for the Negro. A few were converts of missionaries in

Africa or the West Indies. Most, such as the Langstons,

were mulattoes--legally black but more than half white--who,

OQ Blodgett, "John Mercer Langston and the Case of Edmonia Lewis," JNH,LIII (1968), 212-213. Italics were added by Blodgett.

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having had closer associations with white culture than with

black, identified with white educational and vocational 40 aspirations and values.

Before he arrived at Oberlin, Anthony Burns, who

— with the exception of one term— attended the Preparatory

Department from 1855 to 1862, triggered more excitement

among Bostonians than they had experienced since the Revolu­

tion, and was the catalyst for legislation which made the

Fugitive Slave Law powerless in Massachusetts.

B o m a slave in Stafford County, Virginia, B u m s

was converted to the Baptist faith while still a youth and

became a "slave preacher." Sent to Richmond to do some

work for which his master would be paid, Burns took advan­

tage of the opportunity and escaped by sea in February, 1854.

He was apprehended for theft in Boston on May 24, 1854, and

arrested under the Fugitive Slave Law. Long lines of black

citizens maintained a silent vigil around the clock in front

of the court house. The situation came to the attention of

a huge convention of abolitionists and women suffragettes

meeting in the city at the time. Enraged by the affrontery

of a functioning Fugitive Slave Law in the "very Cradle of

^®Joel R. Williamson, "Black Self-Assertion Before and After Emancipation," in Nathan I. Huggins, Martin Kilson, Daniel M. Fox (eds.), Key Issues in the Afro-American Exper­ ience (New York, 1971), pp. 213-39, discusses, in part, the unique background which gave mulattoes high potential for success in emulating white ideals.

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Liberty,11 delegates were joined in a mass meeting by more

abolitionists and patriots, who poured into the city from

neighboring suburbs, and were addressed by Wendell Phillips

and Theodore Parker. Inflamed mobs ignored the large gun

mounted in the front door and stormed the court house in an

attempt to free the prisoner. During the melee, a deputy

marshall was killed. Twenty thousand armed soldiers, Marines,

and cavalry with artillery were called--at a cost of $40,000

to the government--to escort Burns out of the city as thou­

sands of citizens, lining the streets, jeered. Feeling ran

so high that legislation against the slave law was passed in

special session.

Anthony Burns, identified later by his master, was

sold to another man, who in turn, sold him to a church group

for the purpose of setting him free. Given an Oberlin

scholarship which was owned by a Boston lady and further

aided by the sale of a book entitled Anthony Burns, A History,

written by Charles Emery Stevens, young Burns entered Oberlin,

leading a comparatively quiet life and leaving for one

session in 1856-1857 when he attended the Fremont Academy.

He returned to Oberlin studying in the Preparatory Department

until January, 1862, when he accepted a position as pastor of

Zion Baptist Church at St. Catherine's in Canada. Attractive,

personable, a good speaker, he was loved and respected by his

large congregation. He died in October, 1 8 6 2 . ^

41 Charles E. Stevens, Anthony Burns, A History

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Although there were many other former slaves en­

rolled at Oberlin, free mulattoes were apparently in the

majority among Negro students. Noticing the prevalence of

mulattoes among black students, one white coed whose parents

had heard that whites were required to kiss Negroes at the

college, wrote

. . . you can tell anybody that asks that we don't have to kiss the Niggars nor to speak to them without we are a mind to. I dont think there are six pure Niggars here that go to school. They are almost all part white . . . they dress a great deal better than the rest of the stu­ dents. You may tell them that ask you that I have not kissed a Niggar yet nor ant a going to nor hant seen any­ one else.

Of the mulatto students— as with George Vashon--some were

the children of parents who had been free for at least one

generation, had stable family relationships, and were eco­

nomically secure. Others had backgrounds similar to that

of the Langston brothers: they were the sons and daughters

of white slaveowners and freed mulatto women. R. S. Fletcher

notes that because of the "surprising number of instances"

(Boston, 1854), passim; M. G. McDougall, Fugitive Slaves (New York, 1891), pp. 111-13; Pacific Appeal, Oct. 18, 1862; The Liberator, June, July, 1854, Oct. 1862; Fred Landon, "Anthony Burns in Canada," XX; Ontario Historical Society Papers and Records, XXII, (L925) , 9-15; William Z. Foster, The Negro People in American History (New York, 1970), pp. 169- 70; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, pp. 207-209, 233; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, If, 532, 533, 535; Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography (New York, 1922-1958), III, 308. 42 E. A. Colestar to Mrs. John Colestar, Apr. 19, 1852; quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 524.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 235

when "masters sent their own children to Oberlin to school

. . . Southern planters contributed quite a bit of money to

support abolitionist Oberlin!"^

It became something of a custom, as was the case

with the Langstons, for the white fathers or relatives of

mulatto children to make usually liberal financial arrange­

ments for their care and send them North to a friend or

well-known abolitionist to be educated in freedom. The

guardian, after sending them to private schools for their

elementary education, would then apply for their admission

to Oberlin. The Quaker underground agent, Levi Coffin, for

example, acted as guardian for a number of these children.

In 1854, he inquired about admission to Oberlin for two

sisters, explaining that their father, "a Man of Wealth and

White" from Washington, Kentucky, had "kept the girls in ..44 school in Ohio for some years. Doubtlessly these are

the two Oberlin students referred to in Slavery Times in

Kentucky, who went home to Kentucky for their father's

funeral and were seized and sold as slaves as part of his

estate. It was quite a local scandal in Kentucky--not

^ R . S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 528-29.

^Records show that many mulattoes attended Oberlin under such arrangements. Levi Coffin makes specific refer­ ences to some whom he sent to Oberlin and to others for whom he assumed responsibility; see Levi Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, the Reputed President of the Underground Rail­ road (18/b; rpt. New York, 1968), pp. 477-81, 490-501. See also letter from Coffin to H. Hill, Mar. 10, 1854, quoted in R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 529.

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because the girls were sold— but because it was so shocking

to see two genteel young ladies who looked so white being

sold on an auction block.^

Coffin, admitting that serving as guardian for so

many mulatto children, although rewarding, "always brought

heavy responsibility and care," writes of another case in

which Duncan S. Cage, son of a wealthy planter and member of

the state legislature in New Orleans, inherited the youngest

four of his eight cousins— the children of his uncle and a

"light mulatto woman" who had been his consort for years.

The four girls had been "brought up as other wealthy gentle­

men's children in the South" with "good educational advan­

tages, and slaves to wait upon them." Not wanting to enslave

his cousins, Duncan Cage sent them and money for their care

and education to Levi Coffin in Cincinnati. However, the

eldest girl--aged twenty-one--preferred her former life of

luxury and leisure and returned to New Orleans to "live the

life of a concubine" despite Coffin's advice and entreaties.

The other three girls, Lizzie, Frances and Amelia, were sent

to Oberlin where Lizzie and Frances enrolled in the Prepar­

atory Department from June to November, 1860. Amelia, the

youngest, apparently attended a lower school in Oberlin.

When Cage lost his money during the Civil War, Coffin found

positions for the three "amiable and beautiful young women"

^ J . W. Coleman, Slavery Times in Kentucky (Chapel Hill, 1941), pp. 135-37.

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as maids in a household in Washington, D. C. where they were

"locked after and cared for" by their employer until their 46 marriages.

Oberlin's policy of educating Negroes as the intellec­

tual and social equals of whites was, in effect, a confirma­

tion of the faith in education as the means of achieving

equality that was characteristic of articulate American

Negroes— a faith which is evident in the emphasis that blacks

placed on education throughout the antebellum period. These

are many examples of the earnestness with which Negroes

sought respect through education: the interest in education

among delegates to national Negro conventions where major

portions of their discussions were devoted to the education

of black youth; the zealous endeavors of Negro self-help

organizations in establishing and supporting Negro schools

in just about every major city despite the stringent opposi­

tion and retaliatory harrassment by whites; the strong

objection by Negro leaders to segregated schools and their

out-spoken support of education as the only means for achiev­

ing a variety of interrelated social purposes--uplifting the

race, gaining access to the American mainstream, refuting

charges of black inferiority, and ending discrimination.

Faith in education among upward mobile black families

46 Levi Coffin, Reminiscences, pp. 477-81; Alumni Register, 1833-1960, p. 335;’ R. S. Fletcher, History of Ob'erTinY IT, '529'. ------Z---

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motivated parents to make heroic efforts to provide educa­

tional opportunities for their children in spite of over­

whelming obstacles. Allen Jones, a slave who was born in

Raleigh, North Carolina, early in the 1800's and whose stub­

born determination enabled his four sons to graduate from

Oberlin College before 1859, exemplifies such a parent. After

working as a blacksmith and gunsmith for years as a slave,

Jones purchased his own freedom and that of his wife and

infant son. He and other freedmen of the city built a school-

house for their children three times, only to have it burned

down each time my whites. Having heard that education was

available to blacks at Oberlin, Jones "loaded his family in

a two-horse wagon" and moved there in 1844, where he estab­

lished a blacksmith shop and enrolled his seventeen year

old son, James, in the Preparatory Department. When James

advanced to the Collegiate Department in 1845, he found

Greek and Latin tiresome. His father supposedly reminded

him of the tremendous task it had been to put him in a posi­

tion to go to Oberlin and said, "Now James, you take your

choice. You go back to college, or you lay your head on this

chopping block and I will chop it off." James received his

bachelors' degree in 1849, followed by his three younger broth­

ers, John Craven, 1856; William Allen, 1857; Elias Toussaint,

1859. Each of Jones' sons was successful in his career, but

it is interesting that three of them went to Canada to live.

James became an accomplished gunsmith and engraver

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in Chatham, Canada, where he was also justice of the peace

for over thirty years. John Craven became principal of the

Negro school in Xenia, Ohio, then served in the same capacity

in schools in Victoria, British Columbia, and— after the

Civil War— in Tarboro, North Carolina. William Allen became

a teacher and then a dentist in Bakersville, British Columbia. 47 Elias Toussaint taught in Ohio.

In assessing the values of antebellum Oberlin*s

experience with black students, James H. Fairchild was cer­

tain that daily contact with black students made fervent

abolitionists of scores of white students. He considered

it probable that having black students at Oberlin "was more

important to white students than to the colored . . . [be­

cause ] a single colored student in each class . . . was more

effective than all the antislavery sermons that Oberlin

could have brought to bear."^ Certainly Fairchild's view

was valid in the context of his times, when slavery was a

burning issue and when the stigma of black inferiority jus­

tified slavery and reinforced the social, political, and

economic repression of supposedly free Americans. Oberlin1s

black students were pointed to with pride by many abolition­

ists in their propaganda efforts. They were valuable,

^'Oberliniana," The Oberlin Alumni Magazine, Apr. 1961, p. 12; The Oberlin News, May lb, l9l/; The Crisis, Aug. 1917; Necrology,' T 8 ' 9 7 ' - W , 1905-06, 1914-15',' T9T6'-‘17, Oberlin College Archives. 48 Fairchild, Oberlin, p. 113.

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living proof that Negroes were the intellectual equals of

whites.

Yet, in addition to the value which an Oberlin edu­

cation had for over 200 individuals who, more than likely,

would not otherwise have been educated, the most critical

impact made by Oberlin in educating black students was the

effect of the college's racial policy on Negro communities.

Not only did the educational opportunities offered at the

institution serve to vindicate Negroes' perception of the

potentialities of their race, but even more significantly

the Oberlin doctrine of equality reinforced American Negroes'

belief that education would end racial discrimination and

black citizens would participate in the American synthesis.

Black students of Oberlin fully expected education magically

to liberate their race from the demeaning position which it

occupied. As true Oberlin students, they shared Oberlin's

faith in the perfectibility of America and were educated at

Oberlin--not for cultural separatism— but for full-fledged

citizenship as Christian brothers in a perfect democracy.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VII

OBERLIN'S PROGENY AND THE EMERGENCE

OF A SOCIAL CLASS

American slavery has corrupted the whole mass of American society. Its in­ fluence has pervaded every crevice and cranny of it . . . . And when the people of the North shall rise and put on their strength, powerful though slavery is and well-nigh omnipotent, it shall die! ^

--John Mercer Langston, Address American Anti-Slavery Society.

We are a part of the American people, and we and our posterity will forever be a con- stitutent part of your population. If we are deprived of education, of equal political privileges . . . the State will reap her harvest of sorrow and crime.2

--Address, Ohio Convention of Colored Men.

When Oberlin began to admit blacks, and indeed

throughout the nineteenth century, college-educated blacks

Address delivered by John Mercer Langston to the American Anti-Slavery Society, May 9, 1855, in John Mercer Langston, From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol, or the First and Only Negro Representative in Congress from the Old Dominion (Hartford, Conn., 1894), p. 155.

^Convention's Address to Ohio Legislature, from "Pro­ ceedings of the State Convention of Colored Men, Held in the City of Columbus, Ohio, January 16th, 17th, and 18th, 1865," in Herbert Aptheker, ed., A Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States (New York, 1951), p. 387. Charles

241

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were a social anomaly. Their achievement contradicted the

beliefs of white Americans that blacks were too limited

intellectually for any but basic education. The prevalence

of this concept of the Negro race is readily apparent in the

preponderance of theories in the literature of the period

positing the inferiority of blacks and the concomitant supe­

riority of whites. Widely-read, psuedo-scientific tomes such

as Types of Mankind by Josiah C. Nott and George R. Gliddon

and later the ever-popular Negroes and Negro "Slavery" by

John Van Evrie institutionalized the image of the Negro as 3 physically incapable of intellectual development.

Racial determinism was so deeply entrenched in the

social and economic culture of the nation that institutions

of higher learning for blacks were usually established as

"experiments." Fanny Jackson Coppin, whose first teaching

assignment after graduation from Oberlin in 1865 was at the

Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia, related how the

Friends started the school in 1837 "to make a test whether or

H. and John Mercer Langston--who was very likely the author of the address--were among the forty delegates at the convention. O Josiah C. Nott and George R. Gliddon, Types of Man­ kind: or Ethnological Researches. Based Upon the Ancient Monu­ ments, Paintings, Sculptures.and Crania of Races, and Upon Their Natural. Geographical, Philological, and Biblical His­ tory (1854; rpt. Miami, Fla., 1969), pp. 246-71, et passim; John H. Van Evrie, Negroes and Negro ^Slavery:" The First an Inferior Race: The Latter Its Normal Condition (New York, 1863) , passim. See George M.Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character ana Destiny, 1817-1914 (New York, 1971), passim.

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not the Negro was capable of acquiring any considerable

degree of education." Citing a challenge allegedly made by

John C. Calhoun that he would believe blacks capable of higher

education if he could be shown one who could conjugate a Greek

verb, Fanny Jackson Coppin--who had already learned to con­

jugate Greek verbs exceptionally well at Oberlin--ingenuously

expected such concepts of racial determinism to be repudiated

and rejected through evidence from schools on the order of the

Institute for Colored Youth. Further, she expected the influ­

ence of these schools to spread and recalled with satisfaction

that "for years . . . the Institute for Colored Youth was

visited by interested persons from different parts of the

United States and Europe."^

In view of the almost universal assumption that blacks

were innately inferior, white supremacists were forced to

rationalize accommodations for the existence of Negroes whose

behavior did not conform to the generally accepted stereo­

type. Consequently, college-educated blacks were either re­

garded as ludicrous mimes of whites or remarkable exceptions

whose "white blood" accounted for their achievement, or they

were simply repressed out of existence by whites.^ John

Fanny Jackson Coppin, Reminiscences of School Life, and Hints on Teaching (Philadelphia, 1913), p. 19.

^Edward Byron Reuter, The Mulatto in the United States Including a Study of the Role of Mixed-Blood Races Throughout the'World (Boston, 1918) , p. lOO, et passim: Gunnar Myrdal. An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy,

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Mercer Langston avoided taking part in a commonly used device

of phantasizing the solution to a racial problem. After grad­

uating from Oberlin in 1849, Langston sought to enter law

school, although as far as he knew "there was not . . . a

negro lawyer in any part of the country, and never had beer,

one from the foundation of the Government." As his friends

and advisors predicted, he was denied admission to every law

school to which he applied. The president of one school

offered him the opportunity to "edge his way" into the class­

room by passing as a "Frenchman or a Spaniard hailing from the

West India Islands, Central or South America." Langston,

"moved by a deep sense of humiliation of his manhood under the

circumstances," refused the offer, declaring that he would not

yield his American birthright as a citizen of the United

States to such pretense. He asserted that before he would

"consent to the humiliation and degradation implied" he would

cut his veins open. "I am a colored American," he protested,

"and I shall not prove false to myself, nor neglect the obli­

gation I owe to the Negro race!"^

2 vols. (New York, 1944), I, 101-12. See also, Horace Mann Bond, Black American Scholars: A Study of Their Beginnings (Detroit, 1572), pp. 21-24. ' '

J. Langston, Plantation to Capitol, pp. 104, 107-08. At least one man preceeded Langston as the first black lawyer in America. Robert Morris, who, according to W. W. Brown, The Black Man: His Genius and His Achievements (New York, 1863) , P P • 227-28, was employed in his early youth as an errand boy in a law office in Boston, later studied law with his employers and in 1843— when he was twenty-one— was ad­ mitted to the Massachusetts bar. George W. Williams, History

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On another occasion, however, Langston bowed to ex­

pediency and played the game according to the devious rules

of racism. Having read law under Philemon Bliss, an attorney

and congressman from Elyria, Langston appeared in court for

his qualifying boards. He was so thoroughly prepared that

there was no question of his having passed the law examination.

He also qualified as a man of high moral character and a citi­

zen of the United States and Ohio. As a "colored man," how­

ever, his very presence in court for the purpose of seeking

admission to the bar was contrary to state laws. The court,

therefore, devised the ruse of recognizing him as a white man

for the occasion, and in this way he was legally admitted.

Of the ploy, Langston--whose father was white and mother an

Indian mulatto--observed cynically that he was indeed a white

man "at once upon sight."^

College-bred Negroes of the mid-nineteenth century

were subjected to extremes in social attitudes. On the one

hand, although qualified educationally, they were firmly

barred from opportunities for economic and social advancement

of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880 (New York, 1883), p"] 133, states that Morris was admitted to the bar on Thurs­ day, June 27, 1850. Having Langston pose as a member of an­ other race was not unusual. Many American mulattoes either "passed" as foreigners or white Americans and some assumed the identity for life. See Myrdal, American Dilemma, I, 683- 88 for a discussion of "passing."

^J. Langston, Plantation to Capitol, pp. 111-25; Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 22 vols. (New York, 1928-1944), X, 597-9$.

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by rigid laws, fears, and customs, and were either humiliated

or ignored according to the racist whims of whites. On the

other hand, in black communities they were exploited as

leaders, exalted as heroes, and eulogized as proof of the

intellectual potential of the race. Yet, despite these

unique handicaps and problems, these educated men and women

managed to lead successful professional careers and fulfill

the mandate for leadership of their people, thus making a

singularly valuable contribution to the development of demo­

cratic ideals in the nation.

During the 1830's the black abolition movement began

to be dominated by the small group of young Negroes who were

college-educated. The advent of these new leaders coincided

with a new mood of urgent militancy in the movement. In his

studies of black abolitionism, the noted black scholar,

Benjamin Quarles, attributes this change in tactics to many

factors--among them, the unifying effect which resistance to

colonization had among blacks, the publication of David

Walker's incendiary Appeal in 1828, and Nat Turner's rebell­

ion three years later. The appearance of the Liberator on

January 1, 1831, with William Lloyd Garrison's unequivocal

stand for the immediate emancipation of slaves and his con­

demnation of the social and political institutions of the

nation was of major significance, as was the formation of the

American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833. It was also during

this time that the Negro Convention Movement gained popularity

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and various black organizations--male and female local anti­

slavery societies, and the juvenile society--and black jour­

nals began to articulate the commitment of substantial num­

bers of blacks to the emancipation of slaves and the improve- Q ment of conditions for free Negroes.

In historical accounts of the antislavery movement

the heroic figure of Frederick Douglass--a self-educated

former slave, brilliant, eloquent, handsome— is frequently

presented as dominating the black crusade for freedom and

equality. The genius of Douglass made a tremendous impact

on the antislavery effort, but for three decades before the

Civil War it was the dynamic force of black college-educated

men who provided the aggressive leadership in the black

movement. Through an active press and their own impassioned

speeches these men, mainly from Boston, New York, and

Philadelphia--physicians, lawyers, and ministers, who were

graduates of Glasgow, Oxford, Oneida, and the Harvard Med­

ical School--organized campaigns in black communities and

flooded Congress and state legislatures with protests and

petitions. Working with poorer and less educated blacks

they assisted in the organization of the Underground Railway

and often succeeded in "kidnapping” fugitives from their

captors and from law officers. Indeed, on one occasion in

Q Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (New York, 1969), pp. 14-39; Benjamin Quarles, "Freedom's Black Vanguard," in Nathan I. Huggins, Martin Kilson, Daniel M. Fox, eds., Key Issues in the Afro-American Experience (New York, 1971), pp. 174-5)0.

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Boston a black woman of ample proportions, who doubtlessly

owed much of her prowess to her job as charwoman, trapped a

law officer in a paralyzing embrace as her compatriots g spirited two fugitive slave girls to safety.

Garrison generally had the allegiance of black abo­

litionists in the 1830's, and black subscribers were vir­

tually the sole support of the Liberator for the first three

vital years of its existence. But with the split in the

national antislavery society in 1840, although Boston Negroes

tended to retain their anti-political stand, Negroes in New

York, the Midwest and the far West--engaged in a fight for

suffrage and political recognition--supported the view of

abolitionism as interpreted by Theodore Weld, the Tappans,

and Oberlin College.^

It was not until after 1840 that black students began

to graduate from Oberlin. True products of the college, they

had faith in the perfectibility of man and his institutions

and accepted the Oberlin position of working through the

political system to achieve that perfection. Oberlin-edu-

cated Negroes reflected Oberlin doctrine in another respect.

9 Leonard W. Levy, "The 'Abolition Riot': Boston's First Slave Rescue," New England Quarterly, XXV (Mar. 1952), 85-92; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, pp. 16-20, 205.

■^Mifflin W. Gibbs, Shadow and Light: An Autobiography (1902; rpt. New York, 1968), pp. 89-91; Quarles, Black Aboli­ tionists , pp. 168-77; Dixon Ryan Fox, "The Negro Vote in Old New )fork," in August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, The Making of Black America: Essays in Negro Life and History (foew YorkT i9T9')V PP. 2'3'2-4§.

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They had an enormous faith in education for all Americans as

the main instrument for achieving true brotherhood and

Christian perfection in a democracy. This devotion to edu­

cation is one of the most consistent characteristics in the

lives of antebellum blacks educated at Oberlin. It is re­

flected throughout their life-styles--for they rather self­

consciously used their very lives as instructive examples of

proof that Negroes had the capacity to become educated,

Christian, productive American citizens. Black alumni of

Oberlin demonstrated their high regard for the education

received at Oberlin in many ways. In several instances they

kept in close contact with the institution, and sometimes a

tradition of attending Oberlin extended for several genera­

tions. But most of all, black alumni infused Oberlin doc­

trine into the Negro race, even to the creation of a new

social class.

John Mercer Langston, youngest brother of Charles

and Gideon, best epitomizes the black Oberlin graduate of the

nineteenth century. R. S. Fletcher considers him to have

been "probably the most distinguished of Oberlin1s Negro

graduates of the earlier period." Geoffrey Blodgett removes

the limitation of race and describes Langston as "beyond a

doubt one of the most remarkable men ever to live in Oberlin

. . . a man whose career was marked with the true stamp of

Horatio Alger mythology." In a biographical sketch by one of

his contemporaries, William H. Ferris, Langston comes across

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as a proud man who took immense satisfaction out of ignoring

the limitations which society attempted to impose upon him

because of his color. He is described by Ferris as "a high

minded, high spirited, and high-toned aristocrat, and a

polished and graceful orator . . . as proud as Lucifer . . .

holding his head high," and boasting the English "aristocratic

blood that flowed in his veins" in much the same way that

Bostonians took pride in their ancestors who were on the

Mayflower and the Bourbons of the South in their Cavalier and

Huguenot forebears. Ferris admits, however, that Langston

was "in spite of his vanity, brave and brilliant and noble.

A heroic quality is reflected in Langston's autobio­

graphy, From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol.

In his account of his life Langston details the circumstances

through which the little orphaned mulatto boy from Louisa

County, Virginia, under the devoted protection of his older

brothers, became an educated and successful professional man

--frequently cited by abolitionists at Oberlin and abroad as

a scintillating example of the Negro's capacity for out­

standing service and citizenship in a democratic nation. He

describes his life as the adopted son of his father's friends,

the Gooches, while Gideon and Charles were attending Oberlin,

■^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 534; Geoffrey Blodgett, "John Langston and the Case of Edmonia Lewis," Journal of Negro History, LIII (1968), 208, 216; William H~Ferris, The African" Abroad, or His Evolution in Western Civilization', Tracing His bevelopment Under Caucasian Milieu, 2 vols. (New Haven, Conn., 1913), II, 743.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and notes that, except for one year in Cincinnati when he

lived in "close association with the best colored families,"

he was raised by white step-parents. He also relates how

he witnessed the abuse of black citizens and white abolition­

ists during a riot in Cincinnati— which left him with a

characteristic admiration for strength and purpose in the

face of adversity. Aside from the horror, he remembered

most vividly the eloquence of Negrc -leaders in Cincinnati

--Gideon included--who through such experiences were "learn­

ing what their rights were, and how to advocate and defend

them."12

After graduation from Oberlin in 1849, Langston was

not in the least discouraged by the unwillingness of law

schools to admit him as a black American. He entered the

Theological Department at Oberlin, received his degree in

1853, and two years later--having studied law with Philemon

Bliss— was admitted to the bar. In 1854, he married Carolyn

Wall, who had completed courses in the Preparatory Department

at Oberlin a.-d was enrolled in the Literary Department at the

time. Her background was similar to Langston's in that she

was the mulatto child of a wealthy white Southerner and had

been sent to Ohio with her brothers and a sister to live in

freedom in "affluent circumstances, under wise and suitable

12 J. Langston, Plantation to Capitol, pp. 37-76; quotations, pp. 54, 59, 66.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 252 13 guardianship for their education and culture.

The Langstons lived with the easy assurance of

wealthy, capable, educated whites. As was evident in his

decision to become a lawyer, Langston did not hesitate to set

a precedent in breaking color-lines. When he left Brownhelm,

Ohio, where he had practiced law for two years, he purchased

and moved into one of the largest houses in the best white

neighborhood in the town of Oberlin. He opened his law

office in the main business district and maintained a lively

practice. Moreover, he and his family claimed their neigh­

bors, the prestigious J. H. Fairchilds, as some of their

best friends. Such behavior from a black man--even at

Oberlin--was downright unique.

Langston established a reputation as a leading citi­

zen in the community early during his career, becoming prob­

ably the first Negro to be chosen to an elective office in

the United States— having run on the Liberty Party ticket as

clerk of Russia Township. He was also a member of the City

Council from 1865 to 1867 and a member of the Oberlin Board

of Education during the following year.

Throughout the 1850's Langston was the acknowledged

leader in each of the seven state conventions of Negroes held

prior to the Civil War. In 1851 he was elected by the state

J. Langston, Plantation to Capitol, pp. 140-44; Alumni questionnaire answered by Carolyn Wall Langston, July 9, 1908, Oberlin College Archives; The Oberlin Alumni Maga­ zine, May, 1915, p. 342.

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convention to head a committee to present a petition concern­

ing the rights of black citizens to the state governor, and

several of the petitions which he wrote were read before the

state legislature between 1854 and 1856— the year that he was

appointed antislavery lecturer by the state society of black

people. An ardent Republican, he consistently worked for the

party in every major campaign during the latter part of the

1850's.14

Langston's personal life also demonstrated his sincere

desire to solve the problems of American Negroes. Fanny

Jackson Coppin remembered that when he lived in Oberlin, his

"comfortable home was always open with a warm welcome to

colored students, or any that cared to share his hospital­

ity."1^ Almost as soon as he moved to Oberlin, three stu-

dents--the sons of "a white Louisiana planter of great wealth"

--were placed in his care and lived in his home. He looked

after the boys until they were grown. Later "several young

ladies, students of Oberlin College"— among them his wife's

sister— lived with the Langstons.1^

Leading a career as varied as it was impressive,

14J. Langston, Plantation to Capitol, pp. 181-432; Wilhelmina S. Robinson, Historical Negro Biographies (New York, 1967), pp. 93-94; William F. Cheek, "A Negro kuns for Congress: John Mercer Langston and the Virginia Campaign of 1888," Journal of Negro History, LII (1967), 14-34; Quarles, Black Abolitionists pp. 175-76.

^Coppin, Reminiscences, p. 18.

^J. Langston, Plantation to Capitol, p. 181; Quarles Black Abolitionists, pp. 96, 176, 1§9.

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Langston served as agent in recruiting Negro troops during

the Civil War, was inspector general of the Freedmen's Bureau

in Washington, D. C., and toured the South in the interests

of Negro education. He was appointed Professor of Law at

Howard University where he organized the law department and

served as dean, as vice-president, and then as acting presi­

dent of the university. After serving in various diplomatic

posts in Haiti and Santo Domingo between the years 1877 and

1885, he was elected president of the Virginia Normal and

Collegiate Institute in Petersburg, Virginia. In 1890 he

was seated as a Republican Congressman from Virginia, and in

the process of being elected took a great deal of delight in

exposing the corrupt political practices of his district.

Retiring from active public life to his home in Washington,

D. C., he spent the last five years before his death in 1897

writing his autobiography. Apparently unaware, even in retro­

spect, of the relationship between his privileged background

and his achievement, he paid tribute to America, the land of

opportunity, dedicating the book to "the young, aspiring

American, who by manly and self-reliant effort," need only

be "true, brave and faithful to win the highest rewards of

dignified life, as bestowed in honors and emoluments by his

fellow citizens.

^J. Langston, Plantation to Capitol, quotation on page, pp. 181-534; New York Tribune, Nov. 16, 1897; Souvenir Journal of the 35th National Celebration at Culpepper,

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Langston was not the only black alumnus of Oberlin to

be elected to the legislature. Several others held high

elective office during Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction,

somewhat undermining the myth of the bungling, ignorant black

legislators of that era. Benjamin Franklin Randolph, for

example, was born free in Kentucky in the early 1820's and

migrated to Ohio where he attended Oberlin from 1857 to 1862.

He became a Methodist minister, moved to South Carolina, and

was elected to the State Senate on the Republican ticket in

February, 1868. An outspoken and decisive man, Randolph in­

troduced several bills for legislating social equality for

citizens who had been traditionally denied their rights

through distinctions made on such qualifications as color,

educational level, and ownership of property. On October 16,

1868, while he was on a lecture tour, he was fatally shot in

the back by three unidentified assassins while aboard a train

in the railroad station at Greenville, South Carolina.

Virginia, under Auspices of the Langston National Monument Historical and Emancipation Association, comp. R. B. Robinson (Washington, t). C., 18^8); William F. Simmons, Men of Mark (1887; rpt. New York, 1968), pp. 510-23; G. Williams, History of Negro in America, II, 446; Johnson and Malone, eds., Dic­ tionary of American Biography, X, 597-98; Letitia Brown and Elsie M. Lewis, Washington in the New Era. 1870-1970 (Washing­ ton, D. C., 1972) pp. 5-4; Robinson, Negro Biographies, 93-94; Rayford W. Logan, Howard University: The First Hundred Years, 1867-1967 (New York, 1969), pp. 48, 62-64, 73-81; James A. Padgett, ’’Diplomats to Haiti and Their Diplomacy," Journal of Negro History. XXV (1940), 265-330; Cheek, "Negro Runs for Congress," Journal of Negro History, LII (1967), 14-34.

“^Harper's Weekly. Nov. 21, 1868; Francis Butler

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Another Oberlin alumnus who was an elected official

was James Henry Piles. Born free in Springfield, Ohio, in

1841, Piles was enrolled in the Preparatory Department at

Oberlin from 1860-1862, and went immediately into the college,

receiving his degree in 1866. After studying law in the

office of an Ohio attorney, he became principal of the Negro

school in Springfield for two years. In December, 1869, he

married Sarah Jane Cooper, who had attended Oberlin from 1866

through 1868. After the couple moved to Mississippi, Piles

was elected to the state legislature in 1870, and five years

later he served as Assistant Secretary of State. From 1883

to 1896 the Piles lived in Washington, D. C., where he served 19 as Examiner in the United States Patent Office.

Josiah T. Settle, another Southern legislator who

attended Oberlin, was born in the Cumberland Mountains of

Tennessee in 1850, while his parents--a white planter and his

mulatto slave— were enroute from North Carolina to Mississippi.

Once in Mississippi, Josiah's father manumitted the slave and

their eight children and lived with them as a family before

Simkins and Robert H. Woody, South Carolina During Reconstruc­ tion (Chapel Hill, 1932), pp. 445-46; Joel Williamson, After Slavery: The Negro in South Carolina During Reconstruction, 1861-l877"TC'hapel Hill, 1965)7 p p . 205-08; "Tribute of Respect," document issued by the Senate, Columbia, South Carolina, Nov. 30, 1868, Oberlin College Archives; Alrutheus Ambush Taylor, The Negro in South Carolina During the Reconstruction ( Wash., D. C., 1924), pp. 128, 131-32; Victor Uliman, Martin R. Delaney: The Beginning of Black Nationalism (Boston, 1 9 7 1 ^ p . 4 0 l . 19 Necrology: Printed in the Annual Reports for 1918- 1919, Oberlin College Archives.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 257

they were forced to leave the state. They migrated to

Hamilton, Ohio, in 1865, where Settle's mother and father

were legally married. Young Josiah attended Oberlin from

1866 to 1877, but upon the death of his father transferred

to Howard University where, in 1872, he became a member of

the first graduating class. Entering the law department, he

received his LL. B. degree in 1875 and returned to Mississippi

where he practiced law and served in the state legislature as

an independent. In 1885 Settle moved to Tennessee, married

the head of the music department at LeMoyne Institute, and 20 practiced law in Memphis until his death in 1915.

One of two black Senators during Reconstruction,

Blanche K. Bruce, Republican from Mississippi, is commonly

cited as having attended Oberlin. But as R. S. Fletcher

observes, there is no record of his having enrolled in the

college, although James Monroe Gregory, who attended Oberlin

from 1865 through 1868 and then graduated from Howard and

became a member of its faculty, claimed that he knew Bruce

at Oberlin.^

^Simmons, Men of Mark, pp. 538-44; G. P. Hamilton, Beacon Lights of the Race (Memphis, 1911), pp. 474-86.

^R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, II, 535; Bruce is cited as an Oberlin graduate in Johnson and Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, II, 180-81; Biographical Dictionary of the American Congress, 1774-1927 (Washington, D. C.. 1928). II. 432; G. Williams, History of Negro in America, pp. 444-46; Smith, Negro in Congress, p. 25; fcorman P. Andrews, "The Negro in Politics,'' Journal of Negro History, V (1920), 420-36; Gregory is quoted in Simmons, Men of Mark, p. 699.

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Undoubtedly the highest political office held by a

black former student of Oberlin was that of Edward James Roy

(or Roye), who became the fifth president of Liberia. Born

in Ohio, educated in the local public schools, and employed

first as a teacher in Chillicothe and then as a sheepherder

and shopkeeper in Iowa, Roy studied French at Oberlin during

the academic year 1846 to 1847 in preparation for emigrating

to Haiti in order to escape American racial prejudice. Admit­

tedly an ambitious man, Roy decided to go to Liberia instead

and arrived in his new country with a stock of goods he used

as base for developing a vigorous export business to Britain

and the United States. He soon amassed a large fortune and

was known as the wealthiest man in Liberia. In 1871, after

holding several political offices, he was elected president

of the republic and, among other ambitious programs, under­

took the task of reorganizing the finances of the country.

Through a series of poor decisions in negotiating a loan

from England, he became unpopular and was accused of embezzle­

ment. When he attempted to extend the two year term of the

presidency by edict, he was deposed and imprisoned before 22 drowning at sea in an attempted escape to a British ship.

22 Letter of Application to Oberlin from Edward J. Roy, Evansville, Iowa, Sept. 22, 1845, Oberlin College Archives; Johnson and Malone, eds., Pictionary of American Biography, XVI, 212; Richard Bardolph, "'Social Origins of Pistinguisned Negroes, 1770-1865,” Journal of Negro History, XL (July, 1955), 236; Benjamin Brawley, A Social History of tne American Negro Being A History of the Negro Problem in the United States

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Other Negro students who attended Oberlin prior to

the Civil War made their careers in foreign countries.

Anderson R. Abbott, for example, was born in Toronto, Canada

in 1837 of parents who are cited by Robin Winks in his his­

torical investigation of black people in Canada as "accepted

at all levels of Toronto society." Abbott's free mulatto

father and mother had fled to Canada from Mobile, Alabama,

where their grocery business, as Winks puts it, "became

prosperous enough to attract the anger of local whites who

drove them from town." In Canada the Abbotts achieved extra­

ordinary success in business and were noted for their work

with a variety of civic organizations. They were also noted

for their philanthropy, particularly toward fugitive slaves.

Winks states that after studying at Toronto Academy,

Anderson Abbott attended and graduated from Oberlin College.

Although there is no record at Oberlin that he graduated and

his name does not appear on any available list of Negro stu­

dents, "A. R. Abbott" from Toronto, Canada, is officially

listed as having been enrolled in the Preparatory Department

of Oberlin from 1856 through 1 8 58.^

Including A History and Study of the Republic of Liberia (1921; paperbound ed., New York, 197(V , pp. 195-96, 204; Charles Henry Hubericn, The Political and Legislative History of Liberia, 2 vols. (New York, 1947), I, 144 states that Roy was an undergraduate in the University of Athens, Ohio. Roy is listed as enrolled in the Preparatory Department at Oberlin 1846-1847, in both the General Catalogue of Oberlin College 1833-1908, sp. 838, and the Alumni Register, 1633-1960, p. 380. 23 The entire account of Abbott s life is from Robin

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When Abbott left Oberlin, he returned to Canada,

studied medicine, and was appointed a surgeon in the Northern

Army of Canada. In addition to private practice, he served

as president from 1873 to 1880 of nearby Wilberforce Educa­

tional Institute in Chatham, Canada— an area famous as a

haven for fugitive slaves. Winks describes Abbott as a "man

of great intellectual curiosity" as reflected in his numerous

manuscripts on a variety of subjects, many of which were for

public speeches. He supported DuBois' position on the Niagara

Movement, basing his rationale on a study of Negroes which he

conducted in Chatham. In 1894 he served as surgeon-in-charge

at the Provident Hospital and Training School in Chicago

although he returned to Canada in 1900.

But it was to the education of the Negro that the

majority of Oberlin's black alumni dedicated their lives.

According to a study published in 1932 by Louis Hartson, the

majority of black graduates of Oberlin to that date became 24 educators. And it was through education that Oberlin

influences spread to other Negroes since Oberlin's alumni

W. Winks, The Blacks in Canada: A History (Montreal, 1971), pp. 328-33T! Abbott is listed in the General Catalogue of Oberlin College, Seventy-fifth Anniversary Issue. 1883-1908, p. 3, and in the Alumni Register, 1833-1960, p. sl6.

^Louis D. Hartson, "The Occupations of Oberlin1s Colored Alumni," Oberlin Alumni Magazine, XXVII (1932), p. 302. For a comparison of the occupations of black Oberlin graduates with those of other Negro graduates, see Charles S. Johnson, The Negro College Graduate (Chapel Hill. 1938). p p . 119, 122- 23, 130, 154.

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were the main source for black teachers. Some black graduates

such as George B. Vashon and John Mercer Langston devoted a

major part of their careers to the higher education of Negroes.

Others, such as Mary Jane Patterson and Fanny Jackson Coppin

became principals and teachers in lower-level schools for

Negroes where— retaining their faith in the future realiza­

tion of democratic ideals, as emphasized at Oberlin--they

trained their students to become full participants in the

American system. For these teachers, education was a form

of abolitionism, simultaneously proving the educability of

Negroes to whites and preparing blacks to be American citi­

zens according to white standards.

Several alumni participated in the founding years of

Negro institutions which became permanent state colleges.

The experiences of Lawrence W. Minor serve as examples of

some of the problems faced by these black administrators.

Minor became the first president of Alta Vista Agricultural

and Mechanical College, an institution for Negro boys estab­

lished near the remote Texas hamlet of Hemp stead--aptly called 25 "Six-shooter Junction by local citizens. As a child, Minor,

his mother, his two sisters, and a brother had been manumitted,

given $10,000 apiece, and sent to live in the town of Oberlin

by his father--a wealthy white man from Louisiana. Young

25 Shelton M. Minor to A. S. Root, Milwaukee, Wis., Mar. 11, 1901, Oberlin College Archives; quotation is from George Ruble Woolfoik, Prairie View: A Study in Public Con­ science , 1878-1946 (New Vork, 1962), p. 29.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 262

Minor was described as handsome, unusually charming and easy­

going but "lazy, incurably lazy" by a classmate who also pre­

dicted that he would "not be likely to rise in the world or

withstand its temptations."^ He entered the Preparatory

Department of Oberlin in 1839 and graduated from the college

in 1850. After several years as a teacher in Mississippi,

Minor accepted the appointment as President of Alta Vista

College which was being established as the Negro branch of

Texas State Agricultural and Mechanical College. Throughout

Minor's brief presidency Alta Vista College struggled along--

failing to attract students because of its isolated location,

unequal academically to the white institution due to various

legal problems and financial dilemmas. Despite Minor's

vigorous protests of the inequalities to the Texas legisla­

ture few improvements were made. In 1879, the institution

was reorganized into Prairie View Agricultural and Mechanical

College. A brighter future seemed assured, but Minor died in

office the next year before the survival problems of the 27 college were solved.

Another administrator, James Milton Turner, was more

successful. He employed political pressures to make public

education available to Negroes in Missouri as required by

state constitution and used his considerable influence in

^ M S "Reminiscences of the Class of 1850," Oberlin College Archives. 27 Woolfolk, Prairie View, pp. 30-33, 90.

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founding the first institution of higher education for Negroes

in that state. Turner was born a slave in St. Louis County

in approximately 1840. At about four years of age he was

thrown in as a fifty dollar bargain when his father--a veter­

inarian who had already bought his own freedom--negotiated to

purchase his mother. In 1855, after young Turner had display­

ed unusual abilities in the "tallow candle" schools for

Negroes and in a Catholic school in St. Louis, his father

sent him to Oberlin where he enrolled in the Preparatory

Department and made "academic progress somewhat beyond average."

He left Oberlin after one year because his father's death made

it necessary for him to return to Missouri to support his 28 mother and sisters.

During the Civil War Turner served as body-servant

to an officer in the Union Army, helped spirit fugitive slaves

to the Illinois shore at night, and was wounded at Shiloh.

After the war he emerged as a talented and popular orator who

used political means to achieve the right for Negro children

to attend free public schools in Missouri. Contemporary

newspaper commentaries on Turner's activities list his Oberlin

28The fullest source of information about Turner is Irving Dillard, "James Milton Turner, A Little Known Benefac­ tor of His People," Journal of Negro History XIX (1934), 372- 411. The author cites newspaper articles, letters, memoranda, and quotes at length from Turner's letters to the Department of State. The (St. Louis, Mo.) Colored Democrat, Oct. 16, 1920, contains a life-sketch of Turner written by George Vashon, Jr., son and namesake of the first Negro to receive a degree from Oberlin.

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background as a significant part of his educational qualifi­

cations. As Irving Dillard, Turner's biographer, points out,

even a year at Oberlin was unusual enough to give him pres­

tige in Missouri at that time.

Turner was elected to the Kansas City School Board

in 1866 and was instrumental in establishing Missouri's first

free school for Negroes. Later he became interested in the

Negro Institute in Jefferson City, Missouri. He gave and

collected money, served as trustee, and introduced the legis­

lation for making it a state-supported college. The institute

is now Lincoln University of Missouri. After serving in var­

ious capacities on the state school board, Turner was appoint­

ed ambassador to Liberia, and when he returned to the United

States after a six year tenure, he used his political acumen

to secure $75,000 as a proportionate share in governmental

allotments for Negro members of the Cherokee nation.

In her Reminiscences, Fanny Jackson Coppin confessed

that her desire to teach her people had been with her since

early youth and the "deep-seated purpose to get an education"

in order to do so "yielded to no inducement of comfort or 29 temporary gain. At Oberlin, in addition to her classes

and her teaching assignment, she had formed an evening class

for freedmen who settled in the town. She found it "deeply

touching . . . to see old men painfully following the simple

29 Coppin, Reminiscences, p. 17.

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30 words of spelling; so intensely eager to learn. Oberlin

had given her not only the means of instructing Negroes, but

the faith that through education blacks would enter the main­

stream of American life.

Having graduated from Oberlin in 1865, Fanny accept­

ed her appointment as teacher at the Institute for Colored

Youth. In 1869 she became principal and served in this

capacity for many years. A vital woman with a passionate

belief in excellence, she developed the curriculum for teach­

er-training, utilizing creative methods and techniques for

instruction among students and faculty. She also introduced

industrial education into the curriculum by establishing a

department of industrial arts--which attracted widespread

attention among educators and later influenced the ideology

of Booker T. Washington at Tuskeegee Institute. In 1881,

Fanny married Levi J. Coppin, a pastor in city missions in

Philadelphia and Baltimore who was later ordained bishop in

the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Coppins began

missionary work in Africa in 1900. After several years they

returned to the United States and travelled extensively in 31 the interests of black education.

30 Coppin, Reminiscences, p. 18. 31 On Fanny Jackson Coppin see Coppin, Reminiscences; Lorain County News, Jan. 30, 1866; Oberlin Review, VlII (1880), 23; G. Williams, History of Negro in America, pp. 448-49; Monroe Alphus Majors, iNoted Negro Women: frheir Truiumphs and Activities pp. 170-75; Jane bill, "Fanny Jackson Coppin,'* ‘The Negro History Bulletin, V (1941), 66-67; Gerda Lerner, ed.,

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Mary Jane Patterson, the first Negro woman to receive

a bachelor's degree, also started her career in teaching imme­

diately after graduation, at the Institute for Colored Youth.

In 1871 she accepted a position as principal of the public

Preparatory School for Negroes in Washington, D. C.— replac­

ing a white woman who had headed the institution during its

founding year. Except for a brief period during her second

year when Richard T. Greener--another Oberlin alumnus and the

first Negro graduate from Harvard— held office, Mary Jane

Patterson was principal for twelve consecutive years. Even

after the appointment of another principal Miss Patterson

continued to serve the school as a teacher until 1894. De­

scribed by a contemporary as "an alert, vivacious, and inde­

fatigable worker" with "high intellectual standards," Mary

Jane Patterson started a tradition of spirited dedication to

superior scholarship and to the thorough preparation of black

students for college and professional life--a tradition which

survived the transplantation of the institution to an immense

new building in 1917 when it was named the Paul Laurence 32 Dunbar High School.

Black Women in White America: A Documentary History (New York, 1972), pp. 87-92; R. S. Fletcher, Nistory of Oberlin, II, 535, 767, 884. 32 MSS in Alumni Records, Oberlin College Archives; the quotations are from Mary Church Terrell, "History of the High School for Negroes in Washington," Journal of Negro History, X (1917), 256; R. S. Fletcher, History of Oberlin, XI, 534- 35; Mary Gibson Hundley, The Dunbar' Story, 1870-1955 (New York, 1965), pp. 17-18.

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The growth and development of Dunbar High School

demonstrates the extent of Oberlin1s influence in Negro

schools, and the ripple-effect which Oberlin graduates had

in forming a social class of blacks who accepted the values

and aspirations that were emphasized at Oberlin College.

Dunbar was a prototype of Negro institutions which would

spring up during the period of intense segregation and Jim

Crow legislation in the 1900's in cities where educated

blacks were denied free access to the cultural, political,

and educational institutions of the community. In a segre­

gated school system with a largely disinterested white board,

Dunbar was directly under the supervision of a succession of

four assistant superintendents in charge of Negro schools,

three of whom--George F. T. Cooke, John Francis Cook, and

Garnet C. Wilkinson--were Oberlin alumni. Dunbar High School

responded totally to white upper-middle class aspirations and

values, and the school became a microcosm of upward mobile

Negroes in the city. It was a normal part of the life-cycle

of Negro professional men and women— as successions of Dunbar

graduates attended college, entered the professions, usually

married within their own social class, and sent their children 33 to Dunbar.

From its earliest days the institution attracted

^ I n Black American Scholars, pp. 24-25, Bond uses Dunbar High School as an example of an institution which helped to develop Negro scholars.

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Oberlin graduates to its faculty and staff. Mary Church

Terrell, a graduate of Oberlin and a teacher at Dunbar at

the time, observes that three of the first ten principals

of the school were Oberlin graduates. After two more prin­

cipals, Anna J. Cooper, who received her undergraduate and

graduate degrees from Oberlin served as teacher of classics

and principal from 1901 to 1906.

The educational background of the faculty was as

impressive, and again, Oberlin graduates formed a large

percentage of the staff. Academic excellence kept pace as

the institution grew larger to accommodate the expanding

curriculum and a growing enrollment. Dunbar rapidly develop­

ed into an institution for the Negro elite. In lower-level

feeder schools, students judged to be unable to meet the rig­

orous academic demands or adjust to the exclusive social

climate at Dunbar were channeled into trade and business

schools. The Dunbar curriculum was carefully nurtured and

enriched, and it was so committed to scholarly ideal and

respectability that none but the highly precocious, the priv­

ileged, and the fair-skinned were selected to pursue it--the

latter partly because the prestige and superior achievement

associated with mulattoes was perpetuated in positive emotional

34 Terrell, History of the High School for Negroes in Washington,1* Journal of Negro History, X (1917), 261; Bond, Black American Scholars, p. llT

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O C response to the potentialities of their offspring.

Since laws discouraged the attendance of Negroes in

such public places as theatres and opera houses, the extra-

curriculum became a center for cultural advancement. Before

the turn of the century it had become an established tradition

for the majority of graduates to enter college, with the

greater number entering Howard University and the Miner Normal

School and others recruited into an array of about twenty-

five white colleges that were seeking either token integra­

tion or--as in the case of Oberlin, Dartmouth, Amherst,

Western Reserve, and a few others— the preservation of a

tradition for educating qualifying Negroes.^

In college, Dunbar graduates won Phi Beta Kappa keys,

Rockefeller and Rosenwald Fellowships, and Pasteur Prizes;

later they were graduate students in American and European

universities. Thus, over several generations, Dunbar sup­

plied its city with a vigorous, vital, socially inbred group

35 For the halo-effect of mulattoes see Buell C. Gallagher, American Caste and the Negro College (New York, 1966), pp. 111-14; Myrdal, American Dilemma, I, 695-705; Richard Bardolph, "Social Origins of Distinguished Negroes," Journal of Negro History, XL (1955), 216-18; E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family in the United States (Chicago, 1967), pp. 34-36; Hundley, The Dunbar Story, p. 175, alludes to recent criticism of bunbar for its traditional neglect of lower class black youth.

■^Hundley, The Dunbar Story, p. 75, refers to a study by W. Montague Cobb conducted in 1943 on the impressive number of Dunbar graduates Amherst, and lists white college as re­ cruiting 250 Dunbar graduates between 1892 and 1954— ninety- one went to Oberlin.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 270

of black professionals: teachers, public school officials,

lawyers, judges, military officers, college professors--at

least ninety-eight for Howard University between 1920 and

1945--college administrators, writers, engineers, government

officials, bank presidents, social workers, physicians, den­

tists, pharmacists, priests, nuns, and ministers. Among its

alumni are several ambassadors, and such national figures as

Sterling Brown--poet and educator, Charles R. Drew--pioneer

hematologist, Robert Weaver— first Negro Cabinet member,

Rayford Logan--educator and historian, Walter E. Washington

--Mayor-Commissioner of the District of Columbia, and Edward

W. Brooke--Republican Senator from Massachusetts. Dunbar,

"the pride of the colored community for more than 80 years,”

changed character around the mid-1950's partly under the com­

bined influence of migration of masses of Negroes into the

ciLy, increase in the s ‘ze of the Negro professional class

and shifts in its geographical location, and the availability

of a greater choice of public and private schools through the 37 desegregation decision of 1954.

Dunbar High School had served an important purpose.

It had been one of the main instruments by which a new social

37 The quotation is from Hundley, The Dunbar Story, p. 13. The occupations and accomplishments of Dunbar gradu- ates are listed according to class in Hundley, The Dunbar Story, pp. 147 ff., from records at Dunbar and personal' inter­ views . The author simply traces the development of the high school from 1870 to 1955 and does not speculate as to the causes of the change in character of the institution.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 271

class, preoccupied with securing its position as successful

Americans, had gathered strength and power. The process of

education started by a comparative handful of early-educated

blacks, largely from Oberlin, had developed the structure

for an ever-expanding new class--with aspirations, values,

and behavior patterns very different from the class from

which they had sprung. Blacks educated prior to the Civil

War had been catalysts of a significant social change, and

Oberlin had made an important contribution to the formation

of a new social class in making higher education available

to Negroes at a time when only a few institutions of higher

learning admitted one or two and others refused their admis­

sion completely.

The new social class of Negroes grew not only horizon­

tally through influences in the schools but vertically as

well through familial influences. In many families college

and advanced degrees became a family tradition, and in some

the tradit'.on took the form of close affiliation with Oberlin

for several generations. The extended family of the Langstons

exemplified these traits. Having inherited wealth from their

father, Charles and Gideon Langston entered Oberlin in 1835

--the first year the institution admitted Negroes. After the

death of Gideon in 1848, Charles married Mary Sampson

Patterson Leary— widow of an Oberlin harness-maker who was

killed with John Brown at Harpers Ferry. Mary Leary Langston

attended Oberlin intermittently between 1857 and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 272 38 1868. Their daughter, Carolyn (or Carrie) Mercer Langston

was a college graduate and their son, Langston Hughes, was

the renowned poet, novelist, translator, and playwright, a

graduate of Lincoln University of Pennsylvania, and the

recipient of national awards and honors for his stimulating 39 interpretation of Negro American life.

Each of the John Mercer Langstons1 children attended

Oberlin: Arthur graduated in 1877; Nettie Langston Napier

was enrolled from 1876 through 1878; Ralph took several

courses from 1872 to 1873 and then graduated from a business

college; Frank Mercer attended Oberlin from 1879 through

1881. Arthur married Ida Napier, who was enrolled at the

Oberlin Conservatory of Music for the year 1877 to 1878.

Both of their children graduated from Oberlin: John Mercer

Langston received his degree in 1901, and Carroll Napier

38 Mary Sampson Patterson Leary Langston is officially listed as two separate students in Oberlin documents— perhaps during the six years that intervened between her first enroll­ ment and her second she had changed her name. In the General Catalogue of Oberlin College, 1833-1908, p. 746, she is listed as "Patterson, Mary S. enr. 57-58 prep; fr. Oberlin, 0." This is followed by the symbol indicating that there is no addi­ tional information. In the same catalogue, p. 581, she is listed as "Leary, Mary S. enr. 64-68 prep. In the Alumni Register. 1833-1960, p. 363, she is listed as "Langston, Mrs. Charles H. (Wary Sheridan Patterson) 1857-1858, 1864-65, 1867-68." 39 Luther P. Jackson, "The Daniel Family of Virginia," The Negro History Bulletin, XI (1947), 51-52; W. E. Bigglestone, "Straightening a Fold in the Record," Oberlin Alumni Magazine. LXVIII (1972), 11; Andrew Billingsley, Black Families in White America (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1968) , pp.' 97-113; C. k. Rollins, Black Troubadour: Langston Hughes (Chicago, 1970), pp. 21-34, 127.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 273

Langston graduated in 1903. His son, Carroll Napier Langston,

Jr. received his degree from Oberlin in 1938. As W. E.

Bigglestone notes in an article about the Langston family, a

connection with Oberlin that lasted for over 100 years "was

severed in 1944 when Lt. Carroll N. Langston, Jr. died in

the service of his country.

The Gibbs family typifies the early, upward mobile

black families that established a long tradition with Oberlin

and in which financial security was earned rather than in­

herited from a white parent. Again interest in professional

careers is also traditional in the family. Mifflin Wistar

Gibbs was the personification of the American success story

— except that he was black. Born in 1828 into a family which

had lived in Philadelphia in comfortable circumstances for

several generations, it was necessary for him to abandon his

education in the free school in the city in order to help

support his family when his father, a minister, died suddenly.

He and his brother, Jonathan, became carpenters, and when

they were of age, Jonathan was sent to Dartmouth by the

Presbyterian General Assembly, received his A.B. in 1853,

attended Princeton Seminary for two years, and became pastor

of the Presbyterian Church in Troy, New York. Despite

terror tactics used against him by the Ku Klux Klan, he

4(k E. Bigglestone, "Straightening a Fold in the Record," Oberlin Alumni Magazine. LXVIII (1972), 11; J. Langston, Plantation to CapitoTT pp. 524-34, writes of his children and grandchildren.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 274

served brilliantly as Secretary of State in the Reconstruction

government of Florida, and from 1872 to 1874 he was superin- 41 tendent of Public Instruction.

Meanwhile, in 1850, Mifflin Gibbs went to live in

San Francisco. Forced out of his trade by union rules, he

opened a boot-black stand, and within a few years he and a

partner had developed the business into a thriving boot and

shoe firm, servicing customers all along the West coast.

Gibbs, however, found the racist customs and the Black Laws

of the state intolerable. He led groups of black businessmen

in protesting the treatment of black Americans; he and his

partner refused to pay poll tax on the grounds that such taxa­

tion was illegal since black people had no rights as citizens.

Finally, outraged, he joined the gold rush to Fraser River

Valley, British Columbia--not to search for gold, but to sell

essential clothing and equipment to miners--and thus became

an extremely wealthy man. In 1859 he returned briefly to the

In Gibbs, Shadow and Light, pp. 111-12, the author refers to the retaliatory threats made on Jonathan's life be­ cause of his fearless political stand, and the fortified attic or "arsenal" in which he slept at night to protect himself from assassins. Poison is suspected as the cause of Jonathan's sudden death a few years later. Information on the Gibbs family is from Gibbs, Shadow and Light, passim; private inter­ view with Phyllis Gibbs Fauntleroy, great-grand-daughter of Jonathan Gibbs, June, 1971; and MSS and personal papers lent to this author by Mrs. Fauntleroy. Simmons, Men of Mark, pp. 597-602; Delilah L. Beasley, The Negro Trail Blazers of California, pp. 110-13; Carter G. Woodson, "The Gibbs Family," *Th'e toegro history Bulletin, V (1947), 3-22; Sue Bailey Thurman, Pioneers ot Negro Origin in California (San Francisco, 1952), pp. 50-69; Montreal Star, April 21, 1962; Winks, Blacks in Canada, pp. 274, 276, 285-86, 340.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 275

United States to marry Maria Ann Alexander, a free mulatto

from Mays Lick, Kentucky, who had attended the Literary

Department at Oberlin from 1852 through 1854.

Going back to Canada with his bride, Gibbs enlarged

his fortune by developing the first railroad to provide trans­

portation of coal between Skidgate Harbor and the Queen

Charlotte Mines. He was also active and influential politi­

cally, studied law under an English attorney, and in 1866 was

elected to the Victoria Common Council, serving as chairman

of the finance committee--positions which he held for two

terms. But Gibbs had never really lost faith in America.

In 1869 he joined his wife and four children in Oberlin, and

in one year had graduated from a local law school.

Gibbs is frequently identified as having graduated

from Oberlin College, but there is no record that he ever

enrolled. An error in identifying him as an Oberlin graduate

might have been made through confusion of Oberlin the town

with Oberlin the college. Gibbs relates in his autobiography:

Soon after my arrival in Oberlin, Ohio where my family, four years before had preceded me, I entered the law department of an Oberlin business college, and after graduation proceeded South, . . .

Oberlin College had no business college nor law department

and granted no degrees in law. He might have enrolled in

either the Union Business and Law Institute, which was estab­

lished in 1859, or in the Oberlin Business College, which is

listed in Camp's Directory of Oberlin, 1873-74 and is now

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 276

42 known as the Oberlin School of Commerce.

The family left Oberlin for Little Rock, Arkansas,

where Gibbs practiced law and made profitable investments in

real estate. In 1879 he was appointed American Counsul to

Madagascar.

Undergraduate and graduate degrees from a spectrum

of colleges and universities, and careers from a variety of

professions characterize each generation of the Gibbs Family

from the mid-1850's to the present. Although diplomatic

service, jurisprudence and education are the most common

career fields in the extended family, both the second and

third Jonathan C. Gibbs graduated from the Howard University

School of Medicine. The most recent Jonathan C. Gibbs is

enrolled at Princeton.

Starting with Maria Ann Alexancer Gibbs' enrollment

42The quotation is from Gibbs, Shadow and Light, p. Ill; William L. Katz, editor of the reprinted edition (1968) of Shadow and Light states in the "Introduction" that Gibbs graduated from Oberlin. Gibbs is cited as having graduated from Oberlin in: Robinson, Historical Negro Biographies, p. 83; Beasley, Negro Trail Blazers, pp. 110-12; Frank Lincoln Mather, ed., Who's Who of the Colored Race (Chicago, 1915), p. 114; Monroe N. Work, Negro Yearbook (Tuskeegee, Ala., 1916- 17), p. 117; Ebony Magazine, July, 1962. Carter G. Woodson, "The Gibbs Family/' tne Negro History Bulletin, V (1947), 4, states that Gibbs took a course in an Oberlin business college. Oberlin News, Sept. 18, 1873, cites the establishment of the Union Business and Law Institute as 1859; Camp's Directory of Oberlin 1874-75, pp. 66-68 contains a listing and drawing of the Oberlin Business College. Charles G. Finney and an­ other Oberlin professor are listed as lecturers in the busin­ ess college.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 277

at Oberlin in 1852, an affiliation with the institution has

continued intermittently through several generations. After

attending lower level schools in the town of Oberlin, both

of Mifflin Gibbs' sons went directly into businesses of their

own. However, his two daughters graduated from Oberlin

College. Ida received her degree in 1884 and her M.A. from

the college in 1892. She taught at Dunbar High School immed­

iately after graduation. The other daughter, Harriet, gradu­

ated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1889. Both

Ida and Harriet were childless, but the connection with

Oberlin continued through Jonathan's son, Thomas Van Rensselear

Gibbs, who attended the Preparatory Department for a year in

1874-75 and left for an appointment to West Point. Josephine

Muse, grand-daughter of Jonathan Gibbs, graduated from the

Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1936. In 1965 Phylicia Ann

Fauntleroy, great-grand-daughter of Jonathan C. Gibbs gradu­

ated from Oberlin.

In an extensive empirical study of black American

scholars, Horace Mann Bond--himself a product of a black

extended family with a long tradition of higher education

--cites Oberlin College as the prototype of missionary col­

leges which have contributed to the development of the major­

ity of black scholars of today by the early education of the

ancestors of those scholars.^ Bond attributes this

^Bond, Black American Scholars, p. 50.

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phenomenon to the fact that the children and grandchildren

of the early-educated blacks Mdid not have to 'start from

scratch1 in an illiterate home and a wretched school or no

school at all."^ Although Bond does not mention it, Oberlin

College had a part in the early introduction of higher educa­

tion in his family.

Horace Mann Bond's father, James, was one of two

sons born to Preston Bond, a white Methodist minister and

Jane Arthur, a mulatto house slave who entered his service

as part of his wife's dowry. After emancipation, Jane

returned with her two young sons to the home of her former

owners, the Arthurs. There she was employed as a housekeeper,

making it possible for her to send James and Henry to a near­

by "blab" school that had been organized by local black 45 people.

In 1879, when James was 16, he took a few possessions

in a pillow case and, with a cow that his mother had given

him to sell for his tuition, walked fifty-five miles to Berea

College--the little coeducational, co-racial institution that

had been founded in 1858 and modeled after Oberlin. Having

been forced by vigilantes to close the school and literally

^Bond, Black American Scholars, p. 23.

^According to Roger M. Williams, The Bonds: An American Family (New York, 1971), p. 10, a "blab" school uses the pedagogical method of oral, repetitious, sing-song memor­ ization in lieu of books. The information about the Bond family is from this biographical history which covers a period of 130 years.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 279

flee for their lives following John Brown's raid, the faculty

had returned and reopened the institution in 1865. Education

at the "blab" school enabled James to enter the Intermediate

Department of the college. After thirteen years of inter­

mittent attendance he was awarded his college degree. He

entered the Graduate School of Theology at Oberlin College

in 1892 in preparation for becoming a minister, and three

years later married Jane Alice Browne, a mulatto who had

graduated from Oberlin two years earlier. During that same

year he took his Bachelor of Divinity degree at Oberlin.

The James Bonds' six children all attended college. When

Lucy, the youngest, entered Oberlin in 1926, her mother—

then sixty years old--accompanied her to college with the

intention of realizing the ambition of acquiring a Master's

degree, which she had held since her graduation from Oberlin

in 1893. The mother did not continue, but Lucy graduated

from Oberlin in 1930. Meanwhile, Horace Mann Bond became a

noted scholar and educator.

Horace Mann Bond's son, Julian, however provides

evidence that what began at Oberlin a hundred years ago

has now begun to change. A member of the Georgia legislature,

charismatic, articulate, and urbane, Julian Bond is viewed

by many as having the potential for becoming a national polit­

ical figure. Although a member of a family which, according

to Roger Williams' biography of the Bonds, traditionally

placed great value on education, Julian Bond believes that

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the future of Negroes in America lies not in education, but

in "political and social action; not accommodation, but con­

frontation; not acceptance of white America's values, but the

formation of a proud, self-sufficient black minority with 46 values of its own. Bond's point of view represents a

break with the past both in his disaffection with formal

education as a vehicle for social redemption and in his

challenge to Negroes to cultivate their own heritage rather

than imitate whites yet still consider themselves Americans.

He repudiates Negroes' faith in formal education as an equal­

izer and their acceptance of "white values" as synonymous

with "American values."

Early education at Oberlin is characteristic of black

families such as the Bonds, the Gibbs, and the Langstons. As

measured by the influences of such families and teachers

educated at Oberlin prior to the Civil War, Oberlin had a

profound effect on the black race in America. Through

Oberlin's indoctrination, a new social class developed among

blacks, which identified with the white values and life­

styles of upper middle class Americans. These families en­

joyed prestige and leadership among Negroes in their commu­

nities . 4 7 In Myth and Reality in Oberlin History Geoffrey

46w illiams, The Bonds, p. 182.

^Geoffrey Blodgett, "Myth and Reality in Oberlin History," Oberlin Alumni Magazine, LXVIII (1972), 5-10.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 281

Blodgett observes that each of Oberlin's four major his­

torians have viewed the effects of the decision to admit

black students according to his own interests. James H.

Fairchild, president, saw the arrival of the Lane Rebels and

the consequent expansion of enrollment as the most signif­

icant result of the decision. Delavan Leonard, a minister,

placed emphasis on the acquisition of Finney and a theolog­

ical department. Wilbur H. Phillips, whom Blodgett identi­

fies as a local businessman, stressed fiscal benefits which

accrued to the institution as a result of the bargain.

Robert S. Fletcher— professor and scholar— naturally per­

ceived the decision in terms of academic freedom for the

faculty, titling his chapter on the Lane rebellion, "The

Test of Academic Freedom," and the chapter about the deci­

sion of the trustees, "The Guarantee of Academic Freedom."

Blodgett remarks that "it has not been until recent years

that the admission of blacks has emerged to dominate the

tale."^® He might have added that Oberlin's historians have

been so immersed in the history of the college that they

have paid scant attention to the impact which the decision

to admit blacks had on American Negroes.

Even before they entered the college, Oberlin's ante­

bellum black students were a select group. For the most part

they were either members of comparatively privileged Northern

^8Blodgett, "Myth and Reality in Oberlin History," Oberlin Alumni Magazine, LXVIII (1972), 10.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. families of freemen, or were the children of white fathers

who felt some responsibility for their welfare. More than

likely, because of their light skin-color, they had experi­

enced preferential treatment among blacks and some whites

and most of them— including the former slaves who were not

mulattoes— had backgrounds of some favorable contact with

whites, even to the extent of setting their life goals and

expectations higher than those of less privileged Negroes.

The black students who aspired to enter college, hoped to 49 become middle-class Americans.

Oberlin had been founded on the principle of evangel­

izing the nation to conform to white Protestant values and

life-styles. Indeed, in "God's college" these values were

a dynamic part of religious belief. Students— both black

and white--learned to embrace them in their personal lives

and were trained to regard proselytization as a moral obliga­

tion. For them education was the instrument for perfecting

the institutions of the nation and preparing Negroes for

full-fledged American citizenship.

The lives of Oberlin's black alumni spanned the years

of the Civil War, and Reconstruction found many of them at

the peaks of their careers. As political leaders and edu­

cators, they promoted the values and goals which they had

A Q In Joel R. Williamson, "Black Self-Assertion Before and After Emancipation," Huggins, Kilson, Fox, eds., Key Issues, p. 216, the author discusses the value which was commonly placed on lighter skin shades.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 283

learned to accept at Oberlin as appropriate to American

citizens--personal piety, belief in political and social

equality, faith in the efficacy of education, and aspiration

for economic betterment. In the process they educated new

generations of blacks in their own image and moulded them

into a social class.

The black professional class, still vigorous today,

has had a unique experience since its inception early in the

twentieth century, growing while virtually isolated from

the mainstream of white American life— shut out of the social,

political, economic and intellectual culture of the nation

until recent times. Their isolation was not confined to the

propaganda of race-hatred, but was enshrined in the socio­

logical portrait painted by the noted black scholar, E.

Franklin Frazier in his Black Bourgeoisie. ^ Satirized in

the brilliant but not well documented work, the black pro­

fessional class was lampooned for its empty mimicry of white

ways, and for its lack of professional discipline. Social

scientists have accepted Frazier's definition of black middle-

class behavior and for about twenty years have rested their

theories on his view of Negro society of the 1940's and 1950's.

The professional class was further isolated by the

social gap--due to differences in values, goals, and expecta-

tions--which formed between it and the lower classes of

■^E. Franklin Frazier, Black Bourgeoisie: The Rise of a New Middle Class in the United States (London, 1957).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 284

blacks. While the lower classes were struggling for survival,

the professional class was striving for more sophisticated

symbols of equality. Mary Church Terrell, for example was

pressing for integration of the restaurants in Washington,

D. C . , while the laboring classes were trying to find jobs

which were not closed to them because of racism in unions.

Distrusted as "Toms," "good niggers," and "oreos"--the brand

name of a chocolate cookie with white filling--the black pro­

fessional class grew within itself, sought identity as

Americans through individual success, and led a constituency

from which it was frequently alienated.

As a direct result of the black Southerners' marches

in the 1960's and the fires which burned in Northern cities,

the black professional class has begun to undergo a transi­

tion. The class has grown larger to include new families

whose members were prepared educationally for the jobs and

for the political and social opportunities which followed in

the wake of the turbulence. Black identity and a greater

sense of participating in the American system as blacks have

invaded the professional class. ^ The young black conserva­

tive professionals of the 1970's represent a dramatic shift

from the young extremists who briefly exercised leadership

during the 1960's and from the young, black antebellum

Oberlin alumni who vested their faith in education and the

"^Jacquelyne Jackson, These Rights They Seek (New York, 1972), pp. 67, et passim.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. political system as the means of achieving full-fledged

citizenship for American blacks. Oberlin1s decision to

admit blacks in 1835 gave social and political direction

to generations of Negroes in their search for national

identity.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

I . Primary Sources

1. Oberlin College Archival Material

Abolitionism Exposed^ Corrected. With a Plan for Abolishing the American Anti-Slavery Society and Its Auxiliaries by a Physician. Philadelphia: J. Snarp, 1838.

Bown, Benjamin. Letter to Hamilton Hill, March 21, 1842.

Henry Cowles Papers.

Obituary and miscellaneous information about Charles Alexander Dorsey.

James H. Fairchild Papers.

Fields, Hervey. Letter to Rev. J. Ship[h]erd, March 10, 1837.

Finney Papers.

Robert S. Fletcher Files.

Jackson, Fanny M. Letter to the Treasurer of Oberlin College, November 27, 1864.

Jones Family File.

Langston, Caroline Matilda Wall. Form filled out on July 9, 1908.

Monroe Papers.

Obituary and miscellaneous information about James Hiram Muse.

Miscellaneous materials about the Oberlin Business College.

Prudden, Nancy. Letter to George P. Prudden, May 16, 1837.

Raye, Edward G. Letter to the President of Oberlin College, September 22, 1845.

287

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 288

Reminiscences of the Class of 1850. [Believed to be by Thomas Robinson and others.]

[Shipherd, Esther Raymond] , "A Sketch of the Life and Labors of John J. Shipherd." A Biographical account composed shortly after Shipherd's death by his wife.

Union Business College and Law Institute. Miscellaneous materials.

Vashon, George B. Letter to A. E. Gillette.

______. Letter to Hamilton Hill, January 14, 1847.

Vashon, John B. Letter to A. E. Gillette, November 19, 1840. Cover letter for George B. Vashon to A. E. Gillette of the same date.

______. Letter to Hamilton Hill, January 14, 1847. Cover letter for George B. Vashon to Hamilton Hill.

Waring Family File.

Wright, Albert A. Text of Speech presented at the June, 1879, meeting of the Oberlin College Alumni.

2. Published Materials on Oberlin

Ballantine, W. G. The Oberlin College Jubilee, 1833-1883. Oberlin: E. J. Goodrich, 1883.

Ellis, John Millott. Oberlin and the American Conflict. Oberlin: Oberlin News, 1865.

Fairchild, E. H. Historical Sketch of Oberlin College. Springfield, Ohio: Republic Printing Company, 1868.

Fairchild, James Harris. Inaugural Address: Educational Arrangements and College Life at Oberlin. New York: Edwara 0. Jenkins, 186b.

Oberlin: The Colony and the College, 1833-1883. Oberlin: E. J. Goodrich, 1883.

Fletcher, Robert S. "Bread and Doctrine at Oberlin." Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, XLIX ( m o ) , 56-67. ------

_____ j__. ed. "Going West to College in the Thirties: Selec- tions from Letters Preserved in the Oberlin College Li­ brary." Oberlin College Library Bulletin, II (1930), 5-20.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 289

Frost, Harry N., ed. Register of the Members, Both Graduate and Non-Graduate, of Phi Delta Literary Society, Oberlin College"Oberlin: News Printing Company, 1901.

Monroe, James. Oberlin Thursday Lectures and Addresses and Essays. Oberlin: Edward J. Goodrich, l89!7.

"Murder of the Rev. B. F. Randolph." Harper's Weekly, XII (November 21, 1868), 740. ------

Oberlin College. Charter and By-Laws with Amendments to Date of January 1, 1916. Oberlin: Oberlin College, 1916.

_ • General Catalogue, 1803-1908. Oberlin: Oberlin College, 1909.

. Semi-Centennial Register of the Officers and Alumni. Chicago: Blakely, Marsh & Co., 1883.

______. Statistics, Illustrations and Descriptions of Buildings. Akron, Ohio: Beacon Publishing Co., 1887.

Triennial Catalogue, 1889. Oberlin: Oberlin — coTiege, im : — ----

Smith, Delazon. A History of Oberlin, or New Lights of the W e s t . Cleveland: S. Underhill & Son, 1837.

3. Other Colleges

Amherst College. A List of the Names of All the Students Connected with Amherst College and Those Receiving Honorary Degrees from Its Foundation in 1821 to Its Eightieth Year of Existence in 1902. Amherst, Mass.: Press of Carpenter & Morehouse, 1903.

Student Life at Amherst College: Its Organizations, Their Membership and HistoryI Amherst, Mass.: Hatch and Williams, 1371.

Tyler, William Seymour. A History of Amherst College During the Administration of Its First Five Presidents From 1821 to 1891~ New York: Frederick H. Hitchcock, 189b.

4. Periodicals

African Repository. XXXIV (1858).

Anti-Slavery Reporter. I (June 1833-August 1834).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 290

Colored American. I-III (September 29, 1838-August 15, 1840).

De Bow's Review and Industrial Statistics, Etc. XI-XX (July 1851-June 1856).

Niles National Register. LX-LXI (September 1841-March 1842).

5. Letters and Autobiographies

Barnes, Gilbert H., and Dwight L. Dumond, eds. Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, Angeline Grimke''Weld, and Sarah Grimke", 1822 -1§44. New York: American Historical Asso­ ciation, 1934; rpt. 2 vols., New York: DaCapo Press, 1970.

Coffin, Levi. Reminiscences of the Reputed President of the Underground kailroad. Cincinnati: Western Tract Society, 1876; rpt. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968.

Coppin, Fanny M. Jackson. Reminiscences of School Life and Hints on Teaching. Philadelphia: A.M.fe. Book Concern,

Dumond, Dwight L., ed. Letters of James Gillespie Birney 1813-1857. 2 vols. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1938.

Finney, Charles Grandison. An Autobiography. New York: Salvation Army Book Department, 1903.

Gibbs Family Clipping File. (Mrs. Phyllis Gibbs Fauntleroy, Washington, D. C.).

Gibbs, Mifflin Wistar. Shadow and Light: An Autobiography. Washington, D. C., 1902; rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968.

Langston, John Mercer. From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol: An Autobiography. Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, 1894; rpt. New York: Bergman Publishers, 1969.

Malvin, John. North into Freedom: The Autobiography of [a] Free Negro. 1795-1880. Ed. Alan Peskin. Cleveland: Press of Western Reserve University, 1966. Original publication as Autobiography of John Malvin. Cleveland: Leader Printing Company, 1879.

Terrell, Mary Church. A Colored Woman in a White World. Wash­ ington, D. C.: By the Author, 1940; rpt. Washington, D. C.: National Association of Colored Women s Clubs Inc., 1968.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 291

Truth, Sojourner. Narrative. [As written down by Olive Gilbert and Frances W. Titus]. Boston: Printed for the Author, 1850; rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968.

6. Antislavery Publications

American Anti-Slavery Society. Annual Report; Including Speeches at the Anniversary Meeting. Constitution, and Minutes of the Business Meeting. 28 vols., New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1834-1861.

American Missionary Association. Archives in Fisk University Library. Comp. Arna Eontemps, Librarian. Nashville: Fisk University, 1947.

Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women. An Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States. Boston: Isaac Knapp, m ------

Anti-Slavery Tracts, 1855-1856. New York: American Anti- Slavery Society, 1855-56; rpt. Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1970.

Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society. The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Societies. Detroit: Negro History Press, 1941.

Grimke', Alice E. "An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South." Anti-Slavery Examiner, I (September 1836), 1-36.

May, Samuel. Anti-Slavery Facts. New Series, No. 15. New York: Anti-Slavery Society, 1861.

Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. Memorial to the General Assembly of the State of Ohio. Cincinnati: Pugh 6c Dodd, 1838.

Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, & c . A Report on the Present State and Condition of the Free People of Color of the City of Philadelphia ancT Adjoining districts. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Soci- ety for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, &c., 1838.

Society for Promoting Manual Labor in Literary Institutions. First Annual Report. Including the Report of Their General Agent, Theodore D. W eld. New York: S. W. Benedict & Co., 1833.

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[Weld, Theodore Dwight, ed.] American Slavery As It Is Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses. New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839; rp t . N e w York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968.

7. Government Records

Atwater, Caleb. A History of the State of Ohio. Cincinnati: Glezen and Shepard, 1838.

Galbreath, Charles B. Constitutional Conventions of Ohio. Cleveland: State Library, lPll.

U. S. Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census. Negro Population, 1790-1915. Washington, D. C.: Government ■Printing Office,' 1918.

8. Contemporary Commentaries

Barnes, Albert. The Church and Slavery. Philadelphia: Parry & McMillan, 1857; rpt. Detroit: Negro History Press 1969.

[Browne, Charles Farrar; pseud.: Artemas Ward] The Complete Works of Artemas W a r d = New York: G. W. Dillingham C o .~ 186T.------

Brown, William Wells. The Black Man: His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements" 4th ed. Boston: Robert F. Wallcut, 1865.

Child, Lydia Maria. The Freedmen's Book. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865; rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968.

Clarke, Walter. A Discourse Delivered Before the First Congregational Church and Society in Canterbury, Conn. Hartford, Conn.: Elihu Greer, 1844.

Dali, Caroline H. The College, the Market, and the Court, or Woman’s Relation to Education, Labor, and Law. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1867.

Eliot, Charles W. Educational Reform: Essays and Addresses. New York: Century Co., 1898.

Finney, Charles Grandison. Lectures on Revivals of Religion. New edition. Oberlin: E. J. Goodrich, 1868; rpt. ^d. William Gerald McLoughlin, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1960.

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Finney, Charles Grandison. Sermons on Important Subiects. New York: J. S. Taylor, 1836.

Grinnell, Josiah Bushwell. Men and Events of Forty Years. Boston: D. Lothrop Company,' 1891.

Headley, Joel Tyler. Pen and Pencil Sketches of the Great Riots. New York: E. B. Treat, 1882; rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969.

Holcombe, Return Ira. History of Marion County, Missouri. St. Louis: E. F. Perkins, 1884.

Jay, William. Inquiry into the Character and Tendency of the American Colonization, and American Anti-Slavery Societies*! New York: R. G. Williams, l838; rpt. from 6th ed., New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969.

Johnson, Clifton, ed. Artemus Ward's Best Stories. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1912.

Johnson, Homer Uri. From Dixie to Canada. Orwell, Ohio: H. U. Johnson, 1894; rpt. Westport, Conn: Negro Univer­ sities Press, 1970.

Johnson, Oliver. W. L. Garrison and His Times. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1881; rpt. Miami, Fla.: Mnemosyne Publishing Co., 1969.

Majors, Monroe Alphus. Noted Negro Women: Their Triumphs and Activities. Chicago: Donohue & Henneberry, 1893.

Martineau, Harriet. The Martyr Age of the United States. Boston: Weeks, Jordan & Co., ±839; rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969.

______. Retrospect of Western Travel. Vol. I. 1838; rpt. New York: Heskell House Publishers Ltd., 1969.

Mitchell, William M. The Underground Railroad. London: W. Tweedie, 1860; rpt. Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1970.

Nott, Josiah Clark. Two Lectures on the Connection Between the Biblical and Physical History of Man. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969.

and George R. Gliddon. Types of Mankind; or Ethno- logical Researches, Based Upon the Ancient Monuments, Paintings, Sculptures, and Crania of Races, and Upon Iheir Natural. Geographical, Philological and Biblical History! Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1854; rpt. Miami, Fla.: Mnemosyne Publishing Co., 1969.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 294

Patton, William. The American Crisis. London: Sampson, Low and Son, 1861.

Payne, Daniel Alexander. History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. NasKville: Publishing House of the A.M.E. Sunday-School Union, 1891; rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969.

Quincy, Edmund. An Examination of the Charges of Mr. John Scoble and Mr. Lewis tappan Against the American Anti- Slavery Society! Dublin: Webb and Chapman, 1852.

Shipherd, Jacob R., Comp. History of the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue. Boston: John P. Jewett and Company, 1859.

Simmons, William J. Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising. Cleveland: Geo. M. Rewell & Co., 1887; rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968.

Stiles, Joseph C. Modern Reform Examined; or, the Union of North and South on the Subject of Slavery'. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1858; rpt. New York: Negro Uni­ versities Press, 1969.

Strieby, Michael E. Oberlin and the American Missionary Association. Cleveland: Cleveland Printing Co., 1891.

Stringfellow, Thornton. Scriptural and Statistical Views in Favor of Slavery. 4th ed. Richmond: J. W. Randolph,

Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. 2 vols. Brussels: L. Hauman et Compe., 1835; rpt., ed. J. P. Mayer, trans. George Lawrence, Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1969.

Van Evrie, John H. Negroes and Negro "Slavery11: The First an Inferior Race, the Latter Its Normal Condition. New York: Van Evrie, Horton & Co., 1863.

Washington, Booker T. The Story of the Negro: The Rise of the Race from Slavery. Kew York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1909; rpt., 2 vols., New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969.

Weld, Theodore Dwight. The Bible Against Slavery. New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1837.

Slavery and the Internal Slave Trade in the United States. London: 'Thomas Ward and Co., 1841; rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 295

Weston, George Melville. The Progress of Slavery in the United States. Washington, d TC.: By the Author, 1857; rpt. Detroit: Negro History Press, 1969.

Wigham, Eliza. The Anti-Slavery Cause in America and Its Martyrs. London: A. W. Bennett, 1865; rpt. Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1970.

II. Documentary Compilations

Aptheker, Herbert. American Negro Slave Revolts. New York: Columbia University Press, 1943. New edition. New York: International Publishers, 1969.

______Essays in the History of the American Negro. 2nd ed. New York: International Publishers, 1964.

Calhoun, Daniel, ed. The Educating of Americans: A Documen­ tary History. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1969.

Chambers, Bradford, ed. Chronicles of Black Protest. New York: New American Library, 1969. Original publication as Chronicles of Negro Protest. New York: Parents' Magazine Press, 1968.

Heimert, Alan E., and Perry Miller, eds. The Great Awaken­ ing: Documents Illustrating the Crisis and Its Conse­ quences" Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967.

Hofstadter, Richard, and Wilson Smith, eds. American Higher Education: A Documentary History. 2 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.

Huggins, Nathan, I.; Martin Kilson, and Daniel Fox, eds., Key Issues in the Afro-American Experience. Vol. I, To 1877. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc., !57l.

Katz, William Loren. Eyewitness: the Negro in American History. New York: Pitman Publishing Company, 1967.

Lerner, Gerda, ed. Black Women in White America: A Documen­ tary History. New York: Random House, 1972.

Nelson, Truman, ed. Documents of Upheaval. New York: Hill and Wang, 1966.

Thomas, John L . , ed. Slavery Attacked: the Abolitionist Crusade. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965.

Winks, Robin W., et al. Four Fugitive Slave Narratives. Reading, Mass. Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1969.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 296

Wish, Harvey, ed. Slavery in the South: First-Hand Accounts of the Ante-Bellum American Southland from Northern & Southern Whites, Negroes, & Foreign Observers. New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1964.

Young, Alfred F., e d . Dissent. De Kalb, 111.: Northern Illinois University Press, 1968.

Ill. Secondary Sources

1. Oberlin

Barnard, John. From Evangelicalism to Progressivism at Oberlin College, 1866-1317. Columbus: Ohio State Univer­ sity Press, 1969.

Biggiestone, W. E. "Oberlin College and the Negro Student, 1865-1940." Journal of Negro History, LVI (July 1971). 198-219.

______. "Straightening a Fold in the Record." Oberlin Xlumni Magazine, LXVIII (Mav/June 1972) 11.

Churchill, Alfred Vance. "Midwestern: An Oberlin Family." Northwest Ohio Quarterly, XXVII (Autumn 1955), 177-190.

"Midwestern:Pioneer Life in Northern Ohio--a Prelude to the History of Oberlin Colony and College." Northwest Ohio Quarterly. XXIII (Winter 1950-51), 5-25.

"Midwestern: The Founding of Oberlin." Northwest OKio Quarterly, XXIII (Spring, 1951), 107-32.

______. "Midwestern: Early Oberlin Personalities." North­ west Ohio Quarterly, XXIII (Autumn 1951), 211-237.

Ellsworth, Clayton Sumner. "Oberlin and the Anti-Slavery Movement Up to the Civil War." Unpublished Ph.D. disser­ tation. Cornell University, 1930.

Fletcher, Robert S. A History of Oberlin College. 2 vols. Oberlin: Oberlin College, 1943.

______. "Oberlin and Co-Education." Ohio State Archaeol- ogical and Historical Quarterly, XLVlI (January 1938), 1-19.

Hartson, Louis D. "The Occupations of Oberlin's Colored Alum­ ni." Oberlin College Alumni Magazine, XXVIII (July 1932),

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 297

Hogeland, Ronald W. "Co-education of the Sexes at Oberlin: A Study of Social Ideas in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America." Journal of Social History. VI (Winter 1972-73)

Horton, Walter M. "Henry Churchill King and Oberlin Liberal­ ism. Oberlin Today. XVIII (Third Quarter 1960), 3-22.

Hosford, Frances G. "Father and Mother Shipherd." Oberlin College Alumni Magazine. XXVII (May 1930), 235. ------

Hosford, Frances Juliette. Father Shipherd's Magna Charta: A Century of Coeducation in Oberlin College. Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1937.

Leonard, Delavan L. The Story of Oberlin: The Institution, the Community. the Idea, the Movement. Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1898. ------

"Mrs. Carrie Wall Langston." Oberlin College Alumni Magazine. XI (May 1915), 342. &------

"Myth and Reality in Oberlin History." Oberlin Alumni Maga­ zine, LXVIII (May/June 1972), 5-10. ------

Phillips, Wilbur H. Oberlin Colony: The Story of a Century. Oberlin: Oberlin Printing Company, 1933.

2. Other Colleges

Chase, Frederick, and John Lord King. A History of Dartmouth College and the Town of Hanover, New Hampshire. 2 vols. V ol. I , Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1891. Vol. II, Concord, N.H.: Rumford Press, 1913.

Cutler, Carroll. A History of Western Reserve College During Its First Half Century. 1836-1876. Cleveland: Crocker’s Publishing House, 1876.

Fitchett, E. Horace. "The Role of Claflin College in Negro Life in South Carolina." Journal of Negro Education. XII (Winter 1943), 42-68. ------

Fuess, Claud Moore. Amherst: The Story of a New England College. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1935.

Logan, Rayford W. Howard University: The First Hundred Years, 1867-196~ New York: New York University Press,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 298

McGinniss, Frederick A. "A History and an Interpretation of Wilberforce University." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Wilberforce University, 1941.

Stephens, John Vant. The Founding of Lane. Cincinnati: n.p., 1840. ------

Waite, Frederick Clayton. Western Reserve University--the Hudson Era: A History of Western Reserve College and Academy at Hudson. QniOj from 1826 to 1882. Cleveland: Western Reserve University Press, 1943.

WooIfoik, George Rubble. Prairie View: A Study in Public Conscience, 1878-1946. New York: Pageant Press, 1962.

3. History of American Education

Beale, Howard K. A History of Freedom of Teaching in American Schools, ftart XV1 of the Report of the Commis­ sion on the Social Studies. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941.------

Bond, Horace Mann. The Education of the Negro in the American Social Order. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1939; rpt. New York: Octagon Books, 1966.

Negro Education in Alabama: A Study in Cotton and Steel. Washington, D. C.: Associated Publishers, Inc., 193$; rpt. New York: Atheneum, 1969.

Brigham, R. I. "Negro Education in Ante-Bellum Missouri." Journal of Negro History, XXX (October 1945), 405-420.

Brown, Letitia W., and Elsie M. Lewis. Washington in the New Era, 1870-1970. Washington, D. C.: Education Dept., National Portrait Gallery, 1972.

Brubacher, John S., and Willis Rudy. Higher Education in Transition: A History of American Colleges and Univer­ sities , 1636-i"$68'. Rev. ed. New York: Harper 6c kow. Publishers, 1468.

Bullock, Henry Allen. A History of Negro Education in the South from 1619 to the Present. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967.

.Caliver, Ambrose. A Personnel Study of Negro College Stu­ dents: A Study of the Relations between Certain Back­ ground Factors of College Students and Their Subsequent Careers in College, fclew York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1931.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 299

Cross, Barbara, ed. The Educated Woman in America. New York: Teachers College Press, 1S55.

Curti, Merle E., and Roderick Nash. Philanthropy in the Shaping of American Higher Education. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University !Press, 1965.

Daniel, W. A. The Education of Negro Ministers. New York: George H. Doran Co., 1925.

Fitchett, E. Horace. "The Development of the Negro Education in the District of Columbia, 1800-1860.'’ Journal of Negro Education, XII (Spring 1943), 189-19^

Gallagher, Buell G. American Caste and the Negro College. New York: Gordian Press, Inc., 1966.

Hawkins, Hugh. “Edward Jones, 1826: First American Negro College Graduate?” Amherst Alumni News, XIV (Winter 1962), 20.

Hofstadter, Richard, and Walter Metzger. The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States. tJew York: Columbia University Press, 1955.

Holmes, Dwight Oliver Wendell. The Evolution of the Negro College. College Park, Md.: McGrath Publishing Company,

Hurwitz, Emanuel, Jr., and Robert Maidment, eds. Criticism, Conflict, and Change. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1970.

Jencks, Christopher, and David Riesman. The Academic Revo­ lution . New York: Doubleday Company, 1969.

Johnson, Charles S. The Negro College Graduate. College Park, Md.: McGrath Publishing Company, 1969.

McNaugher, John. The History of Theological Education in the United Presbyterian Church and Its Ancestries. titts- burgh: United Presbyterian and Bible School Work, 1931.

Rudolph, Frederick. The American College and University: A History. New York: feandom House, Inc., 1962.

“Who Paid the Bills?" Harvard Educational Review, XXXT (Spring 1961), 144-157. Scarborough, W. S. The Educated Negro and His Mission. Occasional Papers, too'. 8. Washington, D.C.: American Negro Academy, 1903.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 300

Terrell, Mary Church. "History of the High School for Negroes in Washington." Journal of Negro History, II (July 1917), 252-266.

Tewksbury, Donald G. The Founding of American Colleges and Universities Before the Civil W a r , blew York: Teachers College Bureau of Publications, 1932.

Thwing, Charles F. A History of Higher Education in America. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1906.

U. S. Department of the Interior. Bureau of Education. Negro Education: A Study of the Private and Higher Schools for Colored People in tne United States'. 2 vols. bulletin No. 38, 1916. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1917; rpt. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969.

U. S. Office of Education. Socio-Economic Approach to Edu­ cational Problems, By Ina Corinne Brown. U. S. Office of Education, Survey of the Higher Education of Negroes, Misc. No. 6, Vol. I. Washington, D.C.: Government Print­ ing Office, 1942.

Woodson, Carter Godwin. The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1915; rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968.

Wormley, G. Smith. "Educators of the First Half Century of Public Schools of the District of Columbia." Journal of Negro History, XVII (April 1932), 124-140.

Wright, James M. The Free Negro in Maryland. New York: Octagon Books, 1971.

4. Biographies

Beckett, Verona E., Jane Hill and Pauline C. Johnson. "James Monroe Gregory." Negro History Bulletin, V (December 1941), 71.

Blackwell, Alice Stone. Lucy Stone: Pioneer of Woman's Rights. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1930.

Blodgett, Geoffrey. "John Mercer Langston and the Case of Edmonia Lewis: Oberlin, 1862." Journal of Negro History, LIII (July 1968), 201-218. ------

Cheek, William F. "A Negro Runs for Congress: John Mercer Langston and the Virginia Campaign of 1888." Journal of Negro History, LII (January 1967), 14-35.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 301

Clark, Dovie King. "Peter Humphries Clark." Negro History Bulletin, VI (May 1942), 176.

Cochran, William C. General Jacob Poison Cox. Oberlin: Bibliotheca Sacra Company, 19 frl.

Charles Grandison Finney. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1908.

Dickinson, Donald C. A Bio-Bibliography of Langston Hughes, 1902-1967. 2nd ed. rev. Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, Inc., 1972.

Dillard, Irving. "Dred Scott Eulogized by James Milton Turner." Journal of Negro History, XXVI (January 1941), 1- 1 1 .

"James Milton Turner." Journal of Negro History, XIX” (October 1934), 372-411.------

Dillon, Merton L. Benjamin Lundy and the Struggle for Negro Freedom. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1966.

Edman, Victor R. Finney Lives On. New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 195T:

Everett, Donald E. "Emigres and Militiamen: Free Persons of Color in New Orleans." Journal of Negro History, XXXVIII (October 1953), 377-402.

Farrison, William Edward. William Wells Brown. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969.

Hamilton, G. P. Beacon Lights of the Race. Memphis: E. H. Clarke & Brother, 1911.

Harlow, Ralph Volney. Ggrrit Smith: Philanthropist and Re former. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1939.

Hill, Jane. "Fanny Jackson Coppin." Negro History Bulletin, V (December 1941), 66-67.

Jackson, L. P. "The Daniel Family of Virginia." Negro History Bulletin, XI (December 1947), 51-58. — &—

Merrill, Walter M. Against Wind and Tide: A Biography of Wm. Lloyd Garrison. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,

Myers, Elisabeth P. Langston Hughes: Poet of His People. Champaign, 111.: Garrard Publishing Company, 1970.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 302

O'Connor, Lillian. Pioneer Women Orators. New York: Colum­ bia University Press, 1954.

Rollins, Charlemae H. Black Troubadour: Langston Hughes. Chicago: Rand McNally & Company 1970.

. They Showed the W a y . New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1964.

Shepperd, Gladys Bryam. Mary Church Terrell: Respectable Person. Baltimore: Human Relations Press, 1959.

Swing, Albert Temple. James Harris Fairchild. New York: Fleming H. Reveil Company, 1907.

Tappan, Lewis. The Life of Arthur Tappan. New York: Hurd and Houghton, IS70.

Thomas, Benjamin P. Theodore Weld: Crusader for Freedom. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1950.

Toppin, Edgar A. A Biographical History of Blacks in America Since 1528. New York: David McKay Company, 1970.

Ullman, Victor. Martin R. Delaney: The Beginnings of Black Nationalism. Boston: Beacon Press, 1971.

Williams, Roger M. The Bonds: An American Family. New York: Atheneum, 1971.

Woodson, Carter Godwin. Negro Makers of History. 2nd ed. rev. Washington, D.C.: Associated Publishers, Inc., 1938.

. Negro Orators and Their Orations. Washington, £>.C.: Associated Publishers, Inc., 1925.

"The Waring Family." Negro History Bulletin, XII (February 1948), 99-107. ------

5. Ohio

Alilunas, Leo. "Fugitive Slave Cases in Ohio Prior to 1850." Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, XLIX (April-June 1540), 'l6'0-184.------

Bond, Beverly W. The Foundations of Ohio. Columbus: Ohio State Archaeological Society, 1941.

Churchill, Alfred Vance. "Midwestern: New England Back­ grounds." Northwest Ohio Quarterly. XXIV (Winter 1951- 1952) , 33-6T:------L

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 303

Galbreath, Charles B. "Anti-Slavery Movement in Columbiana County." Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly. Ixxk (October l92lY. 355-395.

. History of Ohio. 5 vols. Chicago: American Historical Society, Inc., 1925.

Hickok, Charles Thomas. The Negro in Ohio, 1802-1870. Cleveland: Western Reserve University, 1896.

Kennedy, James Henry. A History of the City of Cleveland: Its Settlement, Rise and Progress. Cleveland: Barstow T r e s i s - rS'9'6'.------

Knight, George W., and John R. Commons. The History of Higher Education in Ohio. Contributions to American Educational History, ed. Herbert B. Adams, No. 12. U. S. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, No. 5 Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1891.

McGinnis, Frederick A. The Education of the Negro in Ohio. Wilberforce, Ohio: By the Author, 1962.

Quillin, Frank U- The Color Line in Ohio: A History of Race Prejudice in a Typical Northern State-! Ann Arbor, Mich.: George Wahr, 1913.

Rosebloom, Eugene H., and Frances P. Weisenburger. A History of Ohio. Columbus: Ohio State Archaeological and Histor­ ical Society, 1953.

Sheeler, J. Rubin. "The Struggle of the Negro in Ohio." Journal of Negro History, XXXI (April 1946), 208-226.

Wade, Richard C. "The Negro in Cincinnati, 1800-1830." Journal of Negro History, XXXIX (January 1954), 43-57.

Walsh, Annetta C. "Three Anti-Slavery Newspapers (Published in Ohio Prior to 1823)." Ohio Archaeological and Histor- ical Quarterly, XXXI (April- 1 J Z Z J , 172-212.

Wittke, Carl, ed. The History of the State of Ohio. Colum­ bus: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1943.

Wright, George Frederick, ed. A Standard History of Lorain County, Ohio. Chicago: Lewis Publishing C o ., 1916.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 304

6. Religion

Bodo, John R. The Protestant Clergy and Public Issues, 1812- 1848. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954.

Cole, Charles C. The Social Ideas of the Northern Evange­ lists, 1826-1860. New York: Columbia University Press, 1954.

Cross, Whitney R. The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1950.

Foster, Charles I. An Errand of Mercy: The Evangelical United Front, 1790-1837. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960.

Goodykoontz, Colin Brummitt. Home Missions on the American Frontier with Particular Reference to the American home Missionary Society. Caldwell, Ida.: Caxton Printers, 1939:----- McLoughlin, William G. Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham. New York: Ronald Press Company

Murray, Andrew E. Presbyterians and the Negro: A History. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Historical Society, 1966.

Smith, Timothy Lawrence. Revivalism and Social Reform in Mid-Nineteenth Century America. New York: Abingdon Press, 1957.

Weisberger, Bernard A. They Gathered at the River: The Story of the Great Revivalists and Their Impact upon Religion in America. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1958.

7. Antislavery

Adams, Alice Dana. The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America (1808-1831). Radcliffe College Monographs No. 14. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1964.

Auer, Jeffrey. Anti-Slavery and Disunion. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1968.

Barnes, Gilbert H. The Antislavery Impulse. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1933.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 305

Curry, Richard 0., ed. The Abolitionists: Reformers or Fanatics? New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965.

Duberman, Martin, ed. The Antislavery Vanguard. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965.

Dumond, Dwight Lowell. Antislavery Origins of the Civil War in the United States" Commonwealth Foundation Lectures, University College, London, Second Term, 1938-1939. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1939.

■ A Bibliography of Antislavery in America. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961.

The Sucession Movement, 1860-1961. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1 % » .

Filler, Louis. The Crusade against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, i960.

Fladeland, Betty. "Who Were the Abolitionists?" Journal of Negro History, XLIX (April 1964), 99-115.

Gara, Larry. The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground Railroad. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1961.

Levy, Leonard W. "The 'Abolition Riot': Boston's First Slave Rescue," New England Quarterly, XXV (Mar., 1952), 85-92.

Pease, William H, and Jane H. Pease. The Antislavery Argu­ ment. New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965.

Preston, E. Delores. "The Genesis of the Underground Rail- Road." Journal of Negro History, XVIII (April 1933), 144-170.

Quarles, Benjamin. Black Abolitionists. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.

Savage, W. Sherman. "Abolitionist Literature in the Mails: 1835-1836." Journal of Negro History, XIII (April 1928), 150-184.

Smith, Elbert B. The Death of Slavery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967.

Southall, Eugene P. "Tappan and the Anti-Slavery Movement." Journal of Negro History, XV (April, 1930), 162-197.

Tyler, Alice Felt. Freedom's Ferment: Phases of American Social History from the Colonial Period to the Outbreak of the Civil W a r . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1944; rpt. New York Harper and Row, 1962.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 306

Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical War Against Slavery. Cleveland: Press of: Case Western Reserve University, 1969.

Weisberger, Bernard A., ed. Abolitionism: Disrupter of the Democratic System or Agent of Progress? Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1963.

Wesley, Charles H. "The Negro's Struggle for Freedom in Its Birthplace." Journal of Negro History, XXX (January 1945), 62-81. ------

Wolf, Hazel Catherine. On Freedom's Altar: The Martyr Com­ plex in the Abolition Movement. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1952.

8. Biographical Dictionaries

Boris, Joseph J., ed. Who's WTio in Colored America. New York: Who's Who in Colored America Corp., 1928.

Johnson, Allen, and Dumas Malone, eds. Dictionary of American Biography. 22 vols. and index. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922-1958.

Mather, Frank Lincoln, ed. Who's Who of the Colored Race. Chicago: By the Editor, 1915.

Richings, G. F. An Album of Negro Educators, n.p.: By the Author, 1900.

Robinson, Wilhelmena S. Historical Negro Biographies. 2nd ed. New York: Publishers Company, and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1968.

9. Black History and Other Black Studies

Allen, James Egert. The Negro in New York. New York: Expo­ sition Press, 1964.

Alexander, William T. History of the Colored Race in America. Kansas City, Mo.: Palmetto Publishing Co., 1887; rpt.---- New York: Negro Universities Press, 1968.

Allport, Gordon W. The Nature of Prejudice, Cambridge: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1954. Abridged ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1958.

Andrew, Norman P. "The Negro in Politics." Journal of Negro History. V (October 1920), 420-436. —

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 307

Bardolph, Richard. The Negro Vanguard. New York: Rinehart. 1959. ------

. "Social Origins of Distinguished Negroes, 1770- ISbT." Journal of Negro History. XL (July 1955), 211-249.

Beasley, Delilah H. The Negro Trail Blazers of California. Los Angeles: By the Author, 1919.

Bergman, Peter M., and Mort N. Bergman, comps. The Chrono­ logical History of the Negro in America. New York: New American Library, 1969.

Billingsley, Andrew. Black Families in White America. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-tiall, Inc., 1968.

Brawley, Benjamin. A Social History of the American Negro. New York: Macmillan Company, 1921; rpt. New York: Collier Books, 1970.

Bronz, Stephen H. Roots of Negro Racial Consciousness. New York: Libra, 1964.

Coleman, John Winston. Slavery Times in Kentucky. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1940.

Cole, Stewart G. and Mildred Cole. Minorities and the Amer­ ican Promise New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954.

Cox, La Wanda and John H. Cox. Politics, Principles and Prejudice, 1865-1866: Dilemma of Reconstruction Aunerica. New York: Free Press, 1963.

Cruden, Robert. The Negro in Reconstruction. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969.

Davie, Maurice R. Negroes in American Society. New York: McGraw Hill Book Co., 1949.

Davis, John P., ed. The American Negro Reference Book. New York: Prentice Hall, 1966.

Day, Caroline Bond. A Study of Some Negro-White Families in the United States. Cambridge: Peabody Museum or Har­ vard University, 1932; rpt. Westport, Conn.: Negro Univer­ sities Press, 1970.

DoHard, John. Caste and Class in a Southern Town. 3rd ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1957.

Drimmer, Melvin, ed. Black History: A Reappraisal. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1968.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 308 DuBois, William Edward Burghardt, ed. The Negro American Family. Atlanta: Atlanta University, 1909; rpt. Atlanta University Publication Series, Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1970.

. The Souls of Black folk. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & C o ., 1903; rpt. New York: New American Library, 1969.

Edwards, G. Franklin. The Negro Professional Class. Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1VW.

Elkins, Stanley M. Slavery: A Problem in American Institu­ tional Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959.

Ferris, William Henry. The African Abroad, or His Evolution in Western Civilization, Tracing His Development Under Caucasian Milieu-! New Haven, Conn.: Morehouse and 'Taylor Press, 1913.----

Fitchett, E. Horace. "The Origin and Growth of the Free Negro Population of Charleston, South Carolina." Journal of Negro History, XXVI (October 1941), 421-437.

Foster, Charles I. "The Colonization of Free Negroes in Liberia, 1816-1835." Journal of Negro History, XXXVIII (January 1953), 41-67.

Foster, William Z. The Negro People in American History. New ed. New York: International Publishers, 1970.

Fox, Early Lee. The American Colonization Society, 1817- 1840. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1919; rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1971.

Franklin, John Hope. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of American Negroes. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1947.

______, and the Editors of Time-Life Books. Illustrated History of Black Americans. New York: Time-Life Books, im: — ------. "The Two Worlds of Race: A Historical View." TfeacTalus, XCIV (Fall 1965), 899-920.

Frazier, E. Franklin. Black Bourgeoisie. Glencoe, 111: Free Press, 1957; rpt. London: Collier-MacMillan, Ltd., 1970.

______. The Free Negro Family. Nashville: Fisk University Press, 1932; rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 309

Frazier, E. Franklin. The Negro Family in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939. k ev. e d . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966.

______. "The Negro Middle Class and Desegregation." Social Problems. IV (April 1957), 291-301.

_ . "The Negro Slave Family." Journal of Negro His­ tory. XV (April 1930), 198-259.

Frazier, Thomas R., ed. Afro-American History: Primary Sources. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1970.

Frederickson, George M. The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817- 1914. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.

Galbreath, C. B. "Thomas Jefferson's Views on Slavery." Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, X.IXIV (April 1925), 184-202.

Glazer, Nathan, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Beyond the Melting Pot. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1968.

Glenn, Norval D., and Charles M. Bonjean, eds. Blacks in United States. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Com- pany, 1968.

Grier, William H. and Price M. Cobbs. Black Rage. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1968; Rpt. New York: Bantam Books, 1969.

Grimshaw, Allen Day, ed. Racial Violence in the United States. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1969. :

Herskovits, Melville J. The Myth of the Negro Past. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941.

Huberich, Charles Henry. The Political and Legislative His­ tory of Liberia. Vol. I. New York: [Central Book Co.],

Ingle, Edward. The Negro in the District of Columbia. Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, ed. Herbert B. Adams, Eleventh Series, III-IV. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1893; rpt. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1971.

Jordan, Winthrop D. White Over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812. Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Va. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968; rpt. Baltimore: Penguin Books, Inc., 1969.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 310

Kaplan, Sidney. The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution. 177O-1800. Greenwich: New York Graphic Society, Ltd. and theSmithsonian Institution Press, 1973.

Kronus, Sidney. The Black Middle Class. Columbus: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, 19^1.

Litwack, Leon F. North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States. 1790-1860. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.

Loggins, Vernon. The Negro Author: His Development in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1931.

McPherson, James M. The Negroes Civil War: How American Negroes Felt and Acted During the War for the Union? New York: Pantheon, 1965.

Mannix, Daniel P. Black Cargoes: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 15T5-1865. New York: Viking Press, 1962.

Mehlinger, Louis R. "The Attitude of the Free Negro Toward African Colonization." Journal of Negro History, I (July 1916), 276-301.

Meier, August. "Negro Class Structure and Ideology in the Age of Booker T. Washington." Phylon, XXIII (Fall 1962), 258-266.

Meier, August and Elliott Rudwick. From Plantation to Ghetto. Rev. ed. New York: Hill and Wang, 1970.

, eds. The Making of Black America: Essays in Negro Life and History. Vol. I of The Origins of Black Amer-~ icans. New York: Atheneum, 1969.

Miller, Elizabeth W., comp. The Negro in America: A Bibli­ ography. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966.

Miller, Kelly. Race Adjustment: The Everlasting Stain. New York: Arno Press ana The New York Times, 19o8. (Jriginal publication of Race Adjustment, New York: Neale Publish­ ing Co., 1908. Original publication of Everlasting Stain, Washington, D.C.: Associated Publishers, 1924.

Mollison, Irving C. "Negro Lawyers in Mississippi." Journal of Negro History, XV (January 1930), 46-71.

Myrdal, Gunnar. An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and M o d e m Democracy. 2 vols. New York: Harper 6c Brothers, 1944.

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Newby, Idus A., ed. The Development of Segregationist Thought. Homewood, 111.: Dorsey Press7 1968.

Jim Crow's Defense: Anti-Negro Thought in America, 1900-1930. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,

Nolen, Claude H. The Negro's Image in the South: The Anatomy of White Supremacy. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1967.

Nye, Russel B. Fettered Freedom: Civil Liberties and the Slavery Controversy, 1830-1860. East Lansing: Michigan State College Press * 1 M . ----

Padgett, James A. "Diplomats to Haiti and Their Diplomacy." Journal of Negro History, XXV (July 1940), 265-330.

Paynter, John Henry. Fugitives of the Pearl. Washington, D.C.: Assoicated Publishers, Inc., 1930.

Pettigrew, Thomas F. A Profile of the Negro American. Princeton: Princeton University Press7 1964.

"Complexity and Change in American Racial Patterns: Social Psychological View." Daedalus, XCIV (Fall 1965) 974-1008.

Porter, James A. Modern Negro A r t . New York: Dryden Press, 1943; rpt. New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969.

Reuter, Edward Byron. The Mulatto in the United States. Boston: Richard C. Badger, 19lS; rpt. New ¥ork: Haskell House, 1969.

______. Race Mixture: Studies in Intermarriage and Misce­ genation*! New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1931.

Richardson, Clement, ed. The National Cyclopedia of the Colored Race. Vol. I. Montgomery: National Publishing Company, 1919.

Richings, G. F. Evidences of Progress Among Colored People. Philadelphia: Geo. S. Ferguson Co., 1900; rpt. Chicago: Afro-American Books, Inc., 1969.

Russell, John Henderson. The Free Negro in Virginia, 1619- 1865. Baltimore: Johns tiopkins Press, 1913.

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Scheiner, Seth K., and Edelstein, Tilden G. The Black Ameri­ cans: Interpretative Readings. New York: holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971.

Smith, Arthur L. Rhetoric of Black Revolution. Boston: Allyn and Bacoh, T ' , 1^69.

Smith, Samuel Denny. The Negro in Congress: 1870-1901. Chapel Kill: University of North Carolina Press, 1940; rpt. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1966.

Stampp, Kenneth M. The Peculiar Institution--Slavery in the Ante-Bellum SoutTu New York: Random House, 1956.

Stanton, William R. The Leopard's Spots: Scientific Attitu­ des Toward Race in America, 1815-5$. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960.

Sterkx, H. E. The Free Negro in Ante-Bellyun Louisiana. Rutherford, N.J.:' Fairleign Dickinson University Press, 1972.

Taylor, Alrutheus Ambush. The Negro in South Carolina During the Reconstruction. Washington, D.C.: Association for tne Study of Negro Life and History, 1924.

Thornbrough, Emma Lou. The Negro in Indiana: A Study of a Minority. Indiana Historical Collections, XXXVII. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1957.

Turner, Edward Raymond. The Negro in Pennsylvania: Slavery, Servitude, Freedom, 1639-18ol. Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1911; rpt., New York: Negro Univer­ sities Press, 1969.

Twombly, Robert C. Blacks in White America Since 1865: Issues and Interpretations. New York: David McKay Company, 19?1.

Weisberger, Bernard A. "Julian Bond's Forebears: Black 6c White Together." Review of The Bonds: an American Family, by Roger M. Williams. [WashingtonPost] Book World, Dec- ember 26, 1971, p. 8.

Wesley, Charles H. In Freedom's Footsteps: From the African Background to the Civil W a r . New York: Publishers Com- pany and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1968.

Neglected History: Essays in Negro History by a College President. Wilberforce, Ohio: Central State College Press, 1965.

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Williams, George W. History of the Negro Race in America, Vol. II, 1800-188TT New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, To83.

Williamson, Joel. After Slavery; The Negro in South Carolina During Reconstruction, 1861-18IT. Chapel Sill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965.

, ed. The Origins of Segregation. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company, 1968.

Winks, Robin W. The Blacks in Canada: A History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971.

Winston, Coleman J. Slavery Times in Kentucky. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1940.

Woodson, Carter Godwin. A Century of Negro Migration. Washington, D.C.: Associated Publishers, 1918; rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1970.

Free Negro Heads of Families in the United States in 1830 'Together with a Brief Treatment of the feee Negro. Washington, D.C.: Associated Publishers, Inc., 15)25.

. The Mind of the Negro as Reflected in Letters Written During the Crisis, 1800-1860" Washington, D.C.: Associated Publishers, Inc., 1926; rpt., New York: Negro University Press, 1969.

The Negro Professional Man and the Community with Special Emphasis on the Physician and the Lawyer. Wash­ ington, D.C.: Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 1934; rpt. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969.

, and Charles H. Wesley. The Negro in Our History. 10th ed. Washington, D.C.: Associated Publishers, Inc., 1962.

Work, Monroe, ed. Negro Year Book: An Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro, 1916-1917. Tuskegee, Ala: Tuskegee Institute,

12. General Studies

Curti, Merle Eugene. The American Peace Crusade, 1815-1860. Durham, N .C .: Duke University Press, 15)29.

______. The Growth of American Thought. 3rd ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1964.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 314

Curti, Merle Eugene. The Roots of American Loyalty. New York: Columbia University Press, 1946.

Dumond, Dwight L. America in Our Time. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1947.

America1s Shame and Redemption. Marquette, Mich.: Northern Michigan University Press, 1965.

Oliver, Robert T. History of Public Speaking in America. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1965.

Stein, Herman D., and Richard A. Cloward, eds. Social Per­ spectives on Behavior. Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1958.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.