In the Footsteps of Notable Women A Self-Guided Tour of Rutherford County j 1. The Heritage Center of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County Welcome to Rutherford County, Tennessee! 225 West College Street, Murfreesboro We have a fascinating history that includes The Heritage Center tells the community’s stories many compelling stories of women and through exhibits, programs, and tours. “The Time That their achievements. Throughout the years, Changed Everything: Murfreesboro’s Civil War Era” features a women have had a powerful influence display about here. They have raised families, tilled fields, Kate Carney, taught children, upheld churches, written who wrote a riveting account novels, nursed soldiers, preserved buildings, of the July 13, and governed citizens—just to name some 1862, Battle of Murfreesboro. of their contributions. “Entering the Modern Era: This guide looks at many of the county’s Murfreesboro’s Jazz Age” looks historic sites and community landmarks at the from the perspective of women’s history. transitional years between Rutherford County’s rich tradition of female the world wars, education and community service becomes highlighting the evident when one retraces the footsteps Tennessee College for Women, African American nurse and of local women over the years. journalist Mary Ellen Vaughn, and the county’s many farm women. “From the Nation’s Capital to Neighborhood Classrooms: Rutherford County Women, Past and Present” profiles ten female leaders and rotates with other temporary exhibits. 2. Rutherford County Courthouse Many of the sites listed here are privately and Square, Murfreesboro owned. Please respect the owners’ privacy Between the intersections of East Main and Church and West Main and Maple and view these sites from the public right- In the 1900s, women promoted commemoration and of-way only. preservation in and around the courthouse (1859). Women’s organizations raised funds for the Confederate monument (1901); the United Daughters On the cover: Miss Mary Hall (courtesy of Digital Initiatives, of the Confederacy placed a plaque (1912) in memory James E. Walker Library, MTSU); Myrtle G. Lord; display, of General Nathan Bedford Forrest for his role in the Heritage Center of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County; 1862 Battle of Murfreesboro; and the Daughters of the Hilltop-Rosenwald Park; Sarah Childress Polk (courtesy of American Revolution contributed to the monument James K. Polk Home); Bradley Academy continued 1 (1946) to faculty. The school reached its apex in 1904, when 28 General Griffith women received diplomas under the leadership of Rutherford. In progressive educator Virginia Oceania Wardlaw. The the 1950s, 1908 catalog emphasized that the college was “not a Sarah King and fashionable society school” but a place designed to other women teach women “how to live as well as how to think.” lobbied county Well-known local women who attended Soule include leaders to Mattie Ready (who later married General John Hunt restore, rather Morgan), Kate Carney (who later taught at Soule), than demolish, artist Willie Betty Newman, and Jean Marie Faircloth (who later married General Douglas MacArthur). the courthouse. The lobby painting The Pride of Tennessee 4. Historic Rutherford County (1990) includes Ida B. Health Department Wells-Barnett, 303 North Church Street, Murfreesboro journalist and anti- lynching activist, and Anne Dallas Dudley, women’s suffrage leader. 3. Soule College Site 415 North Maple Street, Murfreesboro Located here from 1853 to 1917, Soule College was Murfreesboro’s longest-lived female academy. Soule offered instruction from primary education through Courtesy of the Ridley Wills II Postcard Collection, college. Women always made up more than half the Center for Historic Preservation, MTSU Built by the Commonwealth Fund of New York in 1931, the Rutherford County Health Department was the first of its kind in any rural county in the United States. The county’s partnership with the Commonwealth Fund was the idea of Red Cross public health nurse Maud Ferguson and began with the establishment of a child health demonstration unit in 1924 that succeed ed in dramatically reducing death rates among mothers and infants. Remarkably influential across the state and throughout the South, the Health Depart ment early on reached out to student nursing programs, and many women from throughout the Soule College, 1909 (courtesy of the Ridley Wills II country and abroad received training here. Postcard Collection, Center for Historic Preservation, MTSU) 2 3 5. Collier-Lane-Crichlow-Wagnon House year. Its activities have included making bandages during WWI, maintaining a publicly accessible library, 500 North Spring Street, Murfreesboro hosting recitals, producing plays, sponsoring lectures, Built in about 1850, this house was purchased in 1858 promoting downtown beautification, and endorsing by Jesse and Newton Collier for their widowed such reforms as regular trash pickup and traffic mother, Martha Covington Collier. Ten years later, control. The Woman’s Club continues to thrive. a nephew of the Collier brothers, Ingram Collier Jr., bought the house for his 7. King House sister, Martha 303 East Lytle Street, Murfreesboro Collier Lane, This Queen and her Anne house husband, (1892–94) is William. Their associated with daughter, Emily the family of “Emma” Lane Sarah McKelley (1847–1923), King, who kept a diary purchased it from 1864 to 1866 (now housed in the Albert Gore in the 1950s. Research Center at MTSU). Extraordinary for her King was born insights into the war, Lane lamented that it had not far from here on North Spring Street and in the brought “trouble, sorrow, and desolation to the late 1950s became one of the most influential preser- hearthstones of so many.” Emma Lane and her v a tionists in Murfreesboro. She and others worked to husband, James Crichlow, raised their family here. save the county courthouse and Oaklands Mansion from demolition. King once said, “Twenty-five ladies 6. Baskette House can move the earth.” In 1983, she was the first Tennessean elected president general of the National 221 East College Street, Murfreesboro Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Built as a home for Dr. William T. Baskette in 1856, this building has been owned by the Murfreesboro Woman’s Club since 1916. A social, 8. Bradley Academy Museum philanthropic, and community- and Cultural Center improvement organization, the new 415 South Academy Street, Murfreesboro club recorded 175 members its first Originally open to white boys only, Bradley Academy became a coed- ucational school for African American students in 1884 and evolved into a thriving community center when a new building was con- structed in 1917. continued Seven women graduated from Bradley High School in 1922 (courtesy of Earnestine Tucker) 4 5 husband, Fred, and three children. A graduate of Bradley Academy, daughter Lillian Jordan Hammons taught in the county for more than fifty years and for a brief period held nursery school here. Daughter Ola Jordan Hutchings became the first black woman on the Rutherford County Board of Education (1972) and was church clerk at First Baptist for fifty years. Both women belonged to the Criterion Club, an African American women’s group. One of Bradley’s 10. Oaklands Historic House Museum best-known graduates 900 North Maney Avenue, Murfreesboro was Myrtle Glanton Lord, Sallie Murfree Maney (1793–1857) inherited this land who taught here and from her father, Colonel Hardy Murfree, for whom served on the museum’s the town is named. She and her husband, Dr. James board; the Heritage Maney, raised their family here and managed the Classroom is named for Myrtle Lord growing plantation. James Maney was a supporter her. Exhibits feature such prominent women as Nannie G. Rucker, the first black woman elected as a Tennessee delegate to the Democratic National Convention (1972) and Emma G. (Rogers) Roberts, a principal at Bradley and the first African American educator from the county inducted into the Tennessee Teachers Hall of Fame (1995). 9. Windrow-Jordan House 403 South Academy Street, Murfreesboro of two schools for young women, Eaton College and Soule College. Female slaves worked both in the fields and in the house; a permanent exhibit tells their story. In the late 1850s, Rachel Adeline Cannon Maney (1826–1911) and her husband, Lewis, redesigned the house, built in the 1820s, with an Italianate façade. In 1959, local women led by Sarah King formed the Oaklands Association to restore the house and turn it into a museum, which King called “a product of love and labor.” This house was built in 1903 for Delora Scales Windrow and her husband James by her nephew, Preston H. Scales. After Mrs. Windrow’s death in 1918, her sister, Cora Scales Jordan, moved in with her 6 7 SAM R IDLEY 266 L O W Sm yrna R Y R E 19 In the Footsteps of K C S AM DAVIS U T D LaVergne ROCK S PRINGS N Notable Women N 20 A O L K S R A A E O M 22 B M U 41 C MA 19 YFIEL 24 20 D 266 266 21 21 840 ENO N SPRIN O D GS L O 1 Heritage Center D O N BELAIRE 2 Courthouse and Square Smyrna A W S L H 3 Soule College site V TO E 266 DD Z IL 4 Historic Rutherford County L A E H 96 Health Department 5 Collier-Lane-Crichlow-Wagnon 18 House 231 6 Baskette House 7 Sarah McKelley King House 96 8 Bradley Academy Museum and Cultural Center Murfreesboro 9 Windrow-Jordan House 840 10 Oaklands Historic House Museum 96 2 11 Clardy House 12 Historic Rutherford Hospital 70S 13 Tennessee College 17 for Women site 14 Homer Pittard Campus School 99 99 15 Albert Gore Research Center, 24 MTSU 41 96 Murfreesboro 231 CLARK D 231 N A Y L M H E L E H L A G 41A I D I P C G R A 10 H A R N C Y 99 O I D U M N E T A E M R A H L E E U N P N C E S N A M S E S L R M G E A 16 McFadden School BEL N W 3 5 L BURTO N 17 Piedmont N E 4 7 LYTLE 12 T 15 E 18 Rucker-Betty-LaRoche House B 1 14 E G R 6 COLL L EGE 19 Sam Davis Home and Museum D O D I 2 A 11 D 20 Tucker House R D 13 MAI I B N VINE M 21 Hilltop-Rosenwald Park 16 41 9 22 Mary Kate Patterson House M E L 8 A S D H L O C R M Rutherford County map created by Anna Tegarden, Rutherford County GIS, U ERCU H RY for the Center for Historic Preservation, Dec.