Whitworth Female College

{{Short description|Methodist women's college in Brookhaven, Mississippi}}

File:Whitworth.female.college.brookhaven.mississippi.jpg

Whitworth Female College was a Methodist women's college in Brookhaven, Mississippi, founded in 1858 by Milton Whitworth. It is a Mississippi Landmark.

History

The college was founded in 1858 by Milton J. Whitworth,{{cite news|title=Renovation Funds in Housing Bill Old College Will Benefit|publisher=The Sun Herald|date=October 9, 1998|page=A14}} opened in 1859,{{cite book|author1=Works Progress Administration|author2=Robert S. McElvaine|title=Mississippi: The WPA Guide to the Magnolia State|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C4VQ8viRWvYC&pg=PA515|year=2009|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|isbn=978-1-60473-289-4|page=515}} and disestablished in 1984.{{cite book|author1=Patti Carr Black|author2=Marion Barnwell|title=Touring Literary Mississippi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EVLjDK5othUC&pg=PA110|year=2002|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|isbn=978-1-57806-367-3|page=110}} It was associated with the Mississippi Methodist Conference until 1938.{{cite web|url=http://www.llf.lib.ms.us/LLF/Archival%20Project%202002-2003/Whitworth/M1b.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111003102108/http://www.llf.lib.ms.us/LLF/Archival%20Project%202002-2003/Whitworth/M1b.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 3, 2011|title=Whitworth College Archive|publisher=Lincoln-Lawrence-Franklin-Regional Library|accessdate=January 22, 2014}}

During the Civil War the college was used as a Confederate hospital and managed to reopen after the war's end.

File:1884.07.24.whitworth.female.college.advert.daily.picayune.png Daily Picayune, July 24, 1878]]

In August 1878, local freemasons laid the cornerstone for a new brick building at the college, into which a time capsule was placed. Both U.S. Senator from Mississippi Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II and Jefferson Davis were expected to attend the ceremony but were "unavoidably absent."{{cite news|publisher=The Daily Picayune (Times-Picayune)|page=10|date=August 25, 1878|title=Agricultural. The Farm--Work-Shop--Factory-Home--School--Church.|author=Dan'l Dennett}}

In 1925 the College was first accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. In 1928 the College began operation as a two-year institution associated with Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1938, because of financial difficulties, the board of trustees of the College voted to cease operations and merge the school with Millsaps College. The city of Brookhaven bought the campus and leased it out to various short-lived colleges between 1941 and 1984, when all educational operations at the location ceased.

In 2003 the state of Mississippi opened the Mississippi School of the Arts on the grounds of the former college.{{cite news|title=Arts school director retiring, MS|publisher=Associated Press News Service|date=May 25, 2009}}

Vardaman's visit

File:1913.04.24.costumed.group.of.whitworth.college.students.jpg

During his term as Governor of Mississippi (1904-1908), white supremacist politician James Kimble Vardaman, known as the "Great White Chief," spoke at the college and was presented with a bouquet and the following poem:

TO THE "WHITE CHIEFTAIN."

White flowers to our chieftain white,

Brookhaven's daughters send;

To welcome him with glad delight

The Southland's truest friend.

Be not afraid! Thou white man's chief,

The Anglo-Saxon Race

Has yet to bend its neck beneath

A victor's cruel mace.

The blood is yours on land and sea

Uphold thro' its supremacy.{{cite book|author=Trent A. Watts|title=One Homogeneous People: Narratives of White Southern Identity, 1890–1920|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jYMllgAlKckC&pg=PA33|date=30 September 2010|publisher=Univ. of Tennessee Press|isbn=978-1-57233-743-5|page=33}}

Notable alumnae

Annie Coleman Peyton (1852-1898), co-founder of first state supported college for women in the US – Industrial Institute and College (now Mississippi University for Women) in Columbus, Mississippi
Alice Cary McKinney (1865-1928), temperance and social reformer
Lulah Ragsdale (1862-1953), poet, novelist and actor
Nellie Nugent Somerville (1863–1952), first woman elected to the Mississippi Legislature{{cite web|url=https://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/legislators/Mississippi.html|title=Women Wielding Power-Mississippi|work=nwhm.org|accessdate=21 September 2015}}

Whitworth Female College

History

Vardaman's visit

Notable alumnae

References

Further reading