Constructing Black Education at Oberlin College: A Documentary History

Notes

NOTES Abbreviations ANB American National Biography CHE Chronicle of Higher Education LCN Lorain County News OAM Oberlin Alumni Magazine OCA Oberlin College Archives ONT Oberlin News-Tribune OR Oberlin Review Preface 1. James C. Millette, “Welcome Address Delivered by Professor James C. Millette on the Occasion of the Inauguration of the 30th Anniversary Celebration of the African American Studies Department on Saturday, April 5, 2003, at 9:30 A.M., in King 306, Oberlin College,” African American Studies Department, Records of the College of Arts and Sciences, Oberlin College Archives (OCA). Introduction 1. Quoted in Charles S. Farrell, “Oberlin Marks 150-Year History of Commitment to Women and Blacks,” Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE), March 16, 1983, 6. On the opening of Oberlin’s doors to black students as the college’s fourth “big decision” since its founding, see Geofrey Blodgett, “Oberlin College: Early Decisions,” in Cradles of Conscience: Ohio’s Independent Colleges and Universities, ed. John William Oliver Jr., James A. Hodges, and James H. O’Donnell (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2003), 360. 2. Letter of J[ohn] J. Shipherd, April 14, 1834, in Robert S. Fletcher, A History of Oberlin College: From Its Foundation throughthe CivilWar, 2 vols. (Oberlin, Ohio: Oberlin College , 1943), 1:205. 3. “A Grand Scheme” is the title of chap. 9 of book 1 in vol. 1 of Fletcher’s History ofOberlinCollege. On Shipherd’s role in the establishment of the Oberlin Colony and the Oberlin Collegiate Institute, see Fletcher, ibid., 1:92–101, 117–25. Neither Shipherd nor Stewart received a biographical treatment in the twentieth century. 4. The Western Reserve (formerly known as the Connecticut Western Reserve) was a tract of about four million acres running from the border of Pennsylvania to 295 points west in Ohio. To better understand Protestant home missions in Ohio’s Western Reserve, see Amy DeRogatis, MoralGeography:Maps,Missionaries,andtheAmericanFrontier (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), esp. chap. 5, which is on Oberlin. 5. The founders purchased an additional six thousand acres in Russia Township for resale to raise funds to establish the Collegiate Institute and a church. 6. James Harris Fairchild, “Baccalaureate Sermon: Providential Aspects of the Oberlin Enterprise,” in The Oberlin Jubilee, 1833–1883, ed. W. G. Ballantine (Oberlin, Ohio: E. J. Goodrich, 1883), 85–115. Quoted words are on p. 95. See also Fairchild, Oberlin: Its Origin, Progress and Results (Oberlin, Ohio: Shankland and Harmon, 1860), a reprint of Fairchild’s August 22, 1860, address to Oberlin College alumni; and Fairchild, Oberlin: The Colony and the College, 1833–1883 (Oberlin, Ohio: E. J. Goodrich, 1883). 7. John Keep to Lydia H. Keep, November 5–13, 1839, Keep Letters (typescripts), in Robert S. Fletcher Papers, box 7, OCA; statement by T. B. H[udson], New York Independent, January 22, 1857. Both items are cited in Fletcher, History of Oberlin College, 1:202. 8. For more on the naming of Oberlin, see John W. Kurtz, “What’s in a Name: Why Oberlin?” Oberlin Alumni Magazine (OAM) 68 (November–December 1972): 4–9. For the larger story of J. F. Oberlin’s achievements and humanity, see Kurtz, JohnFrederic Oberlin (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1976). 9. For this paragraph, I have drawn on and quoted from Geofrey Blodgett’s “Oberlin College: A Historical Sketch,” an insert in the spring 1983 issue of OAM. See also Blodgett, “Myth and Reality in Oberlin History,” OAM 68 (May–June 1972): 4–10; and Blodgett, “Recent Developments in [American] History,” OAM 58 (November 1962): 18–19. Blodgett’s scholarship has been collected in Oberlin History (Oberlin, Ohio: Oberlin College, 2006). 10. For a history of the use of this phrase, see William E. Bigglestone, “Irrespective of Color,” OAM 77 (Spring 1981): 35–36. 11. Fletcher and others make the standard statement on this point. 12. Fletcher, who studied with Frederick Merk, Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr., and Edward Channing, followed Charles A. Beard and Frederick Jackson Turner in focusing on the social forces that led to the Oberlin experiment and settlement on the frontier area of the Western Reserve. 13. James Oliver Horton’s article “Black Education at Oberlin College: A Controversial Commitment” appeared in the Journal of Negro Education 54 (Fall 1985): 477–99. See especially pages 488–91. He drew heavily on the work of R. S. Fletcher and W. E. Bigglestone. Horton made a number of visits to Oberlin College between 1975 and 2005. During the summer of 1975, he assisted Ruth Turner Perot, one of three African American...