Leaders of Their Race

Abstract

This study analyzes the educational objectives of the founders, faculty, students, and alumnae of two Georgia schools that sought to prepare young women for the new circumstances of the post-war South: Spelman Seminary of Atlanta, founded to provide a Christian education for African American women and girls, and Lucy Cobb Institute of Athens, established to educate young white ladies. Focusing on the years 1880 and 1925, an examination of these two private secondary schools provides a way to explore beliefs about women’s roles and duties, racial and class divisions between women, and changes in expectations of women’s citizenship rights and duties. The book demonstrates the importance of secondary-level female education in creating women’s identity, and analyzes the significance of race, gender, sexuality, and region in shaping that education. It identifies the social and ideological backgrounds of founders and influential faculty members, such as Lost Cause and antisuffrage activist Mildred Lewis Rutherford of Lucy Cobb, and also examines motivations and accomplishments of students and alumnae. It highlights the schools’ attention to modesty and sexual restraint, and argues that concerns about female sexuality and respectability united the two schools despite the racial and class differences of students. By examining the actions of women as teachers, students, and alumnae, it analyzes how southern women used their education to negotiate the political, economic, and social upheavals of the New South.