The “Perils” of Gender Coeducation

Chapter 5 explores the intersection of racial and sexual politics in structuring various forms of higher education for women. A particular private organization—the Association of Collegiate Alumnae (ACA), now the American Association of University Women—played an important role in structuring women’s higher education. For the first time, the ACA initiated an evaluative campaign to measure the quality of higher education opportunities. This produced the first systematic efforts to commensurate educational offerings across colleges. Like contemporary rankings, this system exerted discipline on both coeducational and single-sex colleges.

Education Follows the Flag

Why did integrated education generate so much interest after the Civil War? This chapter contextualizes the anti- caste movement and the postwar rush to launch a mass education system in the South. Integrationists argued that segregation— and maintaining two separate school systems— demanded an irrational and excessive cost. But by filling the void, charitable funds enabled this disparity. Benevolent organizations relieved Southern states of their responsibilities to enforce constitutional commitments to public education. This reliance on private largesse— whether through benevolent organizations or the capitalist philanthropy that followed in subsequent years— had profound consequences for the kind of education groups were able to access.

A New Constituency for Berea

Chapter 7 chronicles the efforts of Berea’s leaders to construct Appalachians as a particular brand of poor whites, and without the stigma of the Confederacy attached to other Southern whites. By the mid-1880s, a new wave of benevolent agencies launched a new form of colleges designed for this newly categorized group— “mountain education.” The mountain education movement treated poor white Southerners as deserving of Northern philanthropic aid by arguing that class oppression could rival racial oppression. Here, competitive dynamics, as navigated by organizational leaders, produced not only particular types of education but also consecrated groups of people.

A Racial Reckoning on Campus?

How did efforts to shift racial boundaries through interracial education fail? This chapter introduces the 19th century Anti-Caste Movement and its goal of revising the social order such that – through promoting colorblind ideology – race would no longer structure the American status hierarchy. I provide a theoretical introduction to the study of racial boundaries and provide a multi-level framework for analyzing the types of racial boundary processes that happen at the level of individual interactions, within organizations, through inter-organizational negotiation, and at the level of law-making and states. I then lay out my argument for studying integration as an organizational achievement and provide an overview of the subsequent chapters.

Conclusion

The prejudices of the whites, descending through generations, imbibed by individuals in infancy, and strengthened by universal sentiment, practice, and association of ideas cannot be easily and soon overcome, and are not, so far as feeling is concerned, wholly within the power of volition, so as to be annihilated at will. They will vanish gradually in the presence of increasing evidence of a noble manhood. Developed intellectual power, the higher education, success in industrial pursuits, the acquirement of wealth and culture and character, will cause them to dis appear. … When I deposit a gold coin on the table, it commands a certain degree of respect. … Will the result not be analogous, when the colored man shall be seen to have an intrinsic value equal to that of the white man? When one shall no longer associate him with the ideas of bondage, pauperism, and barbarism, but those of freedom, prosperity, intelligence, and culture; when he shall not only carry in his person the stamp of American citizenship, but shall come out from a university training a scholar and a gentleman, like a glittering coin from the die....

A Scarcity of Great Men

Chapter 6 explores the paths Howard and Oberlin took to attain elite status. The field of higher education increasingly emphasized liberal arts education for white elites and industrial training for blacks. Yet both Howard and Oberlin framed their students as having a unique capacity for leadership. Indeed, until the early 1900s, Howard was more likely than Oberlin to be linked in the press to the universities that have since been dubbed “the Ivy League” than to other predominantly black schools. Both Howard and Oberlin prioritized masculinity. While neither banned women, as did other universities, women were deprioritized in the colleges’ ascension to elite status.

From Cause to Common Charity

Chapter 4 explains how racial coeducation at Berea, Howard, and Oberlin was undermined when, for the first time, colleges began to compete with one another. As education for blacks and mountain whites was increasingly defined as “charity,” the colleges faced increasingly stiff competition for donations, as well as the attention of the AMA. Whereas students’ higher education choices had previously been organized around religious disciplines and familial legacies, by the mid-1880s a competitive field of higher education emerged. As the chapter shows, law, migration, and external organizations played important roles in diffusing particular models of higher education. In response to competition in this growing field, Berea, Howard, and Oberlin differentiated their positions to maintain resource streams while activating unique articulations of race, class, and gender.

Inside Interracial Colleges, 1837–1880

This chapter provides a local analysis of lived experiences on three integrated college campuses – Berea (KY), Howard (DC) and Oberlin (OH). Selected from among thirty colleges open to blacks and whites after 1870, these three were widely endorsed as models for replication by important cultural, political, and media figures. Diaries and personal letters from college presidents, students, and others reveal the intensity with which campus-level actors were attached to the ideal of integration. Administrative reports, budgets, fundraising materials and detailed minutes from Board of Trustee meetings illustrate decision-making processes and practices in structuring racial contact on campus. Fundraising materials, including speeches, pamphlets and letters to donors show how the colleges depicted their mission to potential students, donors, and policymakers; an independently-constructed data set of over four hundred newspaper articles shows how these colleges were portrayed to readers across the United States. Berea, Howard, and Oberlin differed in racial composition, recruitment strategies, and black representation on faculty and administration. Despite variation on key factors thought to predict inter-racial cooperation, on-campus dynamics were insufficient to resist segregationist pressures from beyond the campus gates.