Education

The Tennessee Vocational School for Colored Girls opened in Nashville on October 9, 1923. Prior to its opening, the state confined African American girls who needed correctional services in institutions with convicted adults. In opposition to this practice, Frankie Pierce,…

The institution now known as Tennessee Wesleyan College was established in 1857, when the Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South acquired the property of the Athens Female College, chartered in 1854 by the Order of Odd Fellows. The…

Trevecca Nazarene University began in 1901. The Reverend J. O. McClurkan, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister, established the institution dedicated to training Christian workers for the United States and foreign countries as the Pentecostal Literary and Bible Training School for Christian…

Tusculum College is the oldest college in Tennessee, having been chartered on September 9, 1794, by the legislature of the Southwest Territory. It was founded as Greeneville College by the Reverend Hezekiah Balch and Reverend Charles Coffin and later merged…

Located in Jackson, Union University is a private institution of higher learning affiliated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention and traces its lineage through two earlier institutions. Jackson Male Academy opened in 1823 and was chartered by the state in 1825.…

Names reflect an institution's history, and the University of Memphis has undergone several name changes: West Tennessee State Normal School (1912-25), West Tennessee State Teachers College (1925-30), State Teachers College, Memphis (1930-41), Memphis State College (1941-57), Memphis State University (1957-94),…

The University of Tennessee was founded as Blount College, named for Territorial Governor William Blount and chartered on September 10, 1794, by the legislature of the Southwest Territory sitting in Knoxville. Located in a single building in a frontier village…

In 1886 the Methodist Episcopal Church, North founded Chattanooga University. Strife within the church over educational policy in the South soon undermined Chattanooga University and led to its consolidation in 1889 with a rival school, Grant Memorial University in Athens,…

The only public four-year college in West Tennessee outside Memphis, the University of Tennessee at Martin traces its roots to Hall-Moody Institute, founded by local Baptists in 1900. Named for J. N. Hall and J. B. Moody, two prominent Baptist…

Founded in 1911, the UT Health Science Center includes the Colleges of Allied Health Sciences, Dentistry, Graduate Health Sciences, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy; the School of Biomedical Engineering; the Bowld Hospital in Memphis; and the Graduate School of Medicine and…

Fifty-four years after the city-owned and -operated Knoxville General Hospital opened in 1902, it was replaced by the University of Tennessee Memorial Research Center and Hospital. A number of forces converged to bring about the culmination of a nearly twelve-year…

In 1857, when it was learned that the dioceses of the Episcopal Church planned to establish an educational center, citizens of Franklin County made common cause with the Sewanee Mining Company to offer a 10,000-acre parcel, half of which was…

Vanderbilt University in Nashville owes its inception to the vision of a great university dreamed by the leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in the 1850s. Efforts to realize the dream were abandoned during the Civil War and finally…

One of the nation's premier academic health centers, Vanderbilt University Medical Center traces its lineage to the University of Nashville and to Shelby Medical College. The latter institution, open only a brief time (1858-61), was established by the Methodist Episcopal…

Nashville's Wallace University School was established in 1886 through the leadership of A. G. Adams, J. B. O'Bryan, and R. B. Throne. Desiring to establish a boys' school that emphasized character and scholarship, these men offered the position of headmaster…

In 1880, eighty-six-year-old Samuel Watkins--soldier, brick mason, brick manufacturer, and businessman--died. Reputedly the richest man in Nashville, Watkins left one hundred thousand dollars and a lot at the corner of High Street (Sixth Avenue) and Church in trust to the…

W. R. "Sawney" Webb, Confederate veteran and graduate of the University of North Carolina, arrived in Tennessee in 1870 to found a classical school modeled on Bingham's, his former school at Oaks, North Carolina, and similar Virginia schools. Three years…

Robert Webb, a "third generation school man," founded the Webb School of Knoxville in September 1955. From his grandfather and uncles, who established schools in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, and Claremont, California, Webb acquired a distinctive educational vision that emphasized academic…

Sawney Webb was born in a North Carolina farmhouse on November 11, 1842. His father, Alexander Webb, died when he was six years old, leaving most of his rearing to his mother. She taught Sawney the value of hard work…

James Herbert White achieved a national reputation for innovation and excellence in African American education. He successfully created and developed notable institutions and academic programs in social and financial climates that were indifferent, sometimes even hostile to the education of…