An Alabama Education Reforms - American History, 1493-1945

The Calhoun School and African Americans

1901-1904

View the album of cyanotypes of African Americans at Calhoun in the resource

With the end of the American Civil War, the ensalved African Americans were finally free. However, equality with Whites was still a totally unrealised ambition. One way to realise this ambition was through receiving an education. Unfortunately there was a severe lack of funding for this pursuit, especially in the south and it was not an easy dream to fulfil for these former enslaved people. Furthermore, there was fierce opposition to education for Blacks in the south – indoctrination rather than education as opponents of African American education might have seen it.

The widespread obstruction and discrimination is what makes this album of photographs from the Calhoun School in the Deep South of Alabama so remarkable. It shows young African Americans at the Calhoun Industrial School side by side with whites. This was a near-unheard of phenomenon in a state such as Alabama. Although the Civil War and Reconstruction had destroyed the slave society of the south, integration and real equality had never been forthcoming and the rights of Blacks was further eroded by the turn of the century. The years following Reconstruction were not kind to African Americans.

The Calhoun Industrial School was founded in 1892. It was started as a school for freedmen and it focused on industrial education meaning subjects such as agriculture, arithmetic, carpentry, cobbling, cooking, English, geography and sewing. The industrial school was originally an idea of a General Samuel Armstrong who had become responsible for thousands of impoverished African Americans at the end of the Civil War. Realizing that something needed to be done he implemented his father’s missionary techniques and beliefs to emphasize the importance of work in building moral character. In turn he hoped this would improve race relations. His school came into being in Hampton, Virginia and its most storied alumni was none other than Booker T. Washington.

The meeting at a party of a Connecticut socialite, Charlotte Thorn, and Armstrong resulted in a conversion of ideals for the young woman and she came to passionately believe in the education and uplifting of African Americans. In 1892, she fully abandoned her comfortable life and founded the Calhoun School in Alabama. The school though was not free and a small fee was charged in recognition that there was “no charity in giving”, a mantra of Booker T. Washington. One other innovation of the school was its purchase of land to sharecroppers in the belief that agriculture would be conducted more carefully on land people owned themselves. It became a fascinating social experiment with races living side by side and African Americans flocked there to gain an education.

The school continued until 1943 when it was sold to the local Board of Education but its impact on African Americans and race relations is evidenced in these photographs.