Way Back Wednesday in Calhoun County---April 4-10
With many colleges preparing for graduation ceremonies in a few weeks, let’s look at some the colleges that were established in Calhoun County, Alabama. In the early days of Calhoun County, advanced education was viewed as unnecessary except for only a few select men needed an education past grammar school. After the Civil War, institutions of higher learning were structured very differently than their modern counterparts; separated by both race and gender. Calhoun County, like other parts of the country, had both female and male colleges. The main difference in these colleges was the curriculum offered to students. Female seminaries, as they were referred to, centered on religion, domestic arts, music, and household science. Many of the schools did not last long because they were not profitable and could not maintain enrollment. The female colleges in Calhoun County were the Southern Female University and the Barber Memorial Seminary. The male colleges were Alabama Presbyterian College, Calhoun College, and Oxford College.
The Southern Female University, originally located in Birmingham, relocated to the vacant Anniston Inn property after an 1892 fire destroyed the Birmingham campus. This university was a boarding school with over 100 female students seeking degrees in music, teaching, and bookkeeping. Because of financial issues, the city of Anniston was forced to take over the school and renamed it the Anniston College for Young Ladies in 1897. The school operated in the former hotel for a few more years before it closed.
Like the Anniston College for Young Ladies, Barber Memorial Seminary was a private school. However, the school was operated by the Presbyterian Church to provide instruction for African-American women. The curriculum included religion and the domestic arts. This school, unlike other colleges in the county, was staffed with white instructors. The school operated on South Allen Street from 1896 until 1942. Like other schools of the time, a lack of funds and low enrollment led to closure. The building was torn down in the 1950s.
The male students in Calhoun County and surrounding areas found a much different climate for education. Around 1905, Anniston was home to a college that conferred arts and science degrees. The Presbyterian Synod opened the Alabama Presbyterian College, located near Eighth Street. Originally a male college, by 1917 the college was made coeducational. Because of lack of funding the school closed in 1918 but the building was converted to a college preparatory school, Anniston University School. The college preparatory school lasted about four years before it closed. The building was then occupied by the Alabama Military Institute which was under the direction of the Synod of Alabama. The military school operated until it closed in 1935.
One of the earliest colleges in the county was Calhoun College which was established in 1869 at Jacksonville, the county seat until 1900. A few years after the college was founded, the city of Jacksonville decided to merge Calhoun College with the Jacksonville Male Academy. This new college was a polytechnic school but unlike many other schools of the day, it provided a separate female academy. When the State of Alabama created the Normal School in 1883, or as most know it today Jacksonville State University (JSU), Calhoun College closed and transferred all property, books, buildings, and equipment to the Normal School. The old Calhoun College area was near Hames Hall on the original campus site.
Around the same time Calhoun College was founded, the city of Oxford met to discuss the possibility of a college for the city. It took until the 1870s for the Oxford College to receive a charter form the State of Alabama. John Dodson was selected to be the head master of the college. The city was able to finance the construction of Dodson Hall and the operation of the school through selling shares of stocks. Between 1878 and 1884 the college saw enormous growth in enrollment but after 1884, a steady decline began for students studying arts and sciences, so the school closed in 1889.
When more state land-grant schools were established because of the Morrill Act of 1862 and normal schools to train teachers became more prevalent after the Civil War, Calhoun County began to reflect this change. Many of these Calhoun County colleges were unable to survive various world events such as World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. Of all the colleges that were established in Calhoun County, the only one to survive into modern times is JSU.
To learn more about the history of Calhoun County pick up a copy of Images of America: Calhoun County (ISBN 978-0738589985), Anniston (ISBN 978-0738506012), or Anniston Revisited (ISBN 978-1467114752) by Kimberly O’Dell.
This blog post is ©2018 by Kimberly O’Dell and may not be reprinted (in part or in whole) without written permission and approval of the author Kimberly O’Dell.
