Reconstructing higher education in Arkansas

Arkansas Industrial University
History of the University of Arkansas

Here we'll discuss public higher education in Arkansas during Reconstruction.

Creating higher education in Arkansas

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, education in Arkansas was in an underdeveloped state. There was no state-supported university, and the education that was available was largely offered by private institutions. Higher education was provided by St. Johns' College, Cane Hill College, and Arkansas College. 

In general, Arkansas was largely a frontier state. However, it was developing rapidly as the economy was propelled by cotton planting. From 1850 to 1860, the population roughly doubled, growing from 209,897 to 435,450. Despite the growth, the total population remained small: Arkansas was the second smallest of the states that would make up the Confederacy. Slavery remained relatively underdeveloped. Enslaved workers formed about a quarter of the state population, the lowest percentage within the Confederacy. 

The state only reluctantly seceded from the Union. In response to Lincoln's election, a state convention to debate secession was held in March 1861. However, a proposed ordinance of secession was defeated. Arkansas remained in the Union until May 1861. That month the state convention was reconvened following the Battle of Fort Sumter. Many convention delegates were outraged at Lincoln's call for Arkansas to provide troops to put down the rebellion, and an ordinance of secession was adopted.

Secession placed Arkansas in the front line of the Civil War as it bordered the Union state of Missouri. Federal forces entered the state and achieved major military victory over Confederates in early 1862. For the remainder of the war, the state was an active war zone. Civil government largely broke down. The military took over governing parts of the state while other parts fell into anarchy.

Within the state, organized educational activities largely stopped during the war. However, there were positive developments on the national level. In 1862, Congress passed the Morrill Land-Grant Acts. These acts provided states with funding (through land sales) to build colleges devoted to agriculture and the mechanical arts.

In order receive benefits, state legislatures had to accept the Morrill Acts. This presented a difficulty for Arkansas. By 1864, federal troops had taken control of the state capital of Little Rock, and a loyalist state government had been formed. The newly formed legislature accepted the Acts in May 1864. However, the legal meaning of the legislature's actions was unclear as the Morrill Acts explicitly excluded state that were in rebellion. Thus, in January 1867, after hostilities had come to an end, the state legislature accepted the Acts for a second time.

Despite the acceptance of the Morrill Acts, the Arkansas legislature only made took up the problem of establishing a univeristy in 1868, at the start of Congressional Reconstruction. That year the state adopted a new constitution which set one of legislature's duties to be establishing and maintaining a state univeristy. During the first session (in July 1868) held under constitution, the legislature passed an act creating a public univeristy. The new university was to be governed by the Superintendent of Public Instruction together with a board of trustees appointed by the governor. Its purpose was to instruct students in both the standard liberal arts curriculum as well as agriculture, "the mechanic arts," engineering and military science.

While the legislature created a Board of Trustees charged with creating and running a public university, the trustees had made little progress by 1871, so the legislature revisited the issue. That year a second act creating a public university was passed. The new act revised the previous one and created significant structural changes. For example, the new univeristy was named the "Arkansas Industrial University." Most significantly, the Board structure was changed so that trustees who had been appointed by the governor were now elected by the legislature and the university president was given an ex-officio seat.

The new Board of Trustees was more active than the old one, and it soon began selecting a location for the newly created Arkansas Industrial University. The Board solicited bids from counties and towns and then considered them in September 1871. That month the Board passed a resolution establishing the univeristy in Washington County. After considering a few possible locations within the county, the Board decided to establish the university in the town of Fayetteville, the county seat.

The location of the univeristy

Washington County lies in northwest of the state. At the outbreak of the Civil War, the county was largely populated by small farms run by families engaged in subsistence farming. About 15,000 people resided in the county. Of these, only a small minority (about 2%) were slave-owners. Individual slave-owners owned relatively few slaves: most owned fewer than four, and slaves only made up about a tenth of the county population. However, slave-owners wielded a large amount of economic and political power. They held the majority of the elected positions, for example.

The town of Fayetteville formed a cultural and political center within Arkansas. In addition to being the county seat, it housed Arkansas College, one of the few college in the state. About 1,000 people lived in the Fayetteville. Of these, about a third were enslaved.

Fayetteville experienced tremendous hardship during the Civil War. The town was occupied by federal troops early on (in February 1862) and was site of a battle. By the end of the war, parts of the town were in ruin. Winning the location of the new public univeristy was a way for the town to assert its continued significance in the aftermath of the war.

The opening of the univeristy

Arkansas Industrial Univeristy first opened its doors in January 1872, shortly after the trustees selected Fayetteville for its location. The univeristy began modestly. On the first day of the univeristy, only seven students matriculated. The student population had grown to about one hundred by the end of the year. Most students arrived at the university ill-prepared for college-work, so the courses offered were largely college preparatory courses.

The first students were overwhelming Arkansans, and Fayetteville locals were strongly represented. The first students included the children of prominent county residents, for examples the sons of state Associate Judge Lafayette Gregg. Judge Gregg had served in the state Congress during the Antebellum and fought for the Union during the war. He had played an important role in securing Fayetteville as the location of the new univeristy.

The new students included both men and women. One of the first acts of the trustees had been to declare the university open equally to men and women. Women fully took advantage of the opportunity: six of the first ten college students were women, for example.

The issue of African-American enrollment was more delicate. The trustees took up this issue shortly after the university opened. At a January 1872 meeting, a resolution instructing the Univeristy President to admit both White and African-American students was proposed. However, the resolution was replaced by one stating that the question of African-American enrollment was to be disposed of "as the sound discretion of the Executive Committee may dictate." The Committee evidently decided that African-Americans should be admitted: in an April 1873 address to the Board, the Univeristy President reported that univeristy had open its doors to all "without regard to race, sex or sect."

Despite the President's statement, the university was open to African-Americans only in a perfunctory sense. The number of African-American students was small, and those students were forbidden from attending classes with White students. Instead, they received private tutoring from the University President.

It is unclear how many African-American students actually attended. Reynolds and Thomas' History of the University of Arkansas state that only one student applied for admission. That student is likely James McGahee. McGahee was from Woodruff County. He appears in university records as a scholarship student attending the Preparatory Department for the 1872-73 academic year.

A different estimate is provided by Rothrock in his article "Joseph Carter Corbin and Negro Education in the University of Arkansas.” Rothrock states that, in fact, several African-American students attended the university. He quotes a 1922 letter by the wife of Lucy Gates, the wife of UA's first president, stating that "two or three Negro boys applied for admission." Newspapers from the time reported that two other African-Americans, Mark Wallace Alexander and Isom Washington, received university scholarships for the 1873-74 academic year. However, they are not among the listed students in the university catalogue.

The first faculty

During the university's first semester, classes were taught be three faculty members: Noah P. Gates, Mary Gorton, and Charles H. Leverett. Professor Leverett taught ancient languages, and the other two were responsible for the Normal (or teacher training) Department. A year later the faculty had expanded to include Miss Stanard as an Instructress of the Training School and Henry L. Burnell as Professor of Military Science. The next year Burnell was replaced by Edwin S. Curtis, and the university added Tom L. Thompson as Professor of Chemistry, Nicholas B. Pearce as Professor of Mathematics and Engineering, and W. D. C. Botefuhr as Professor of Music.

The faculty demonstrated regional and political diversity, a remarkable development given the political polarization in Arkansas at the time. Burnell and Curtis had both served in the Union army, while Leverett and Pearce had served the Confederacy. Pearce had even commanded troops that won a major battle early in the war. Of the other faculty members, Gates was from the border state of Kentucky, while Botefuhr, Gorton, and Thompson were from the midwest. (It is not known where Stanard was from.)

Of the faculty, Curtis and Pearce had graduated from the Military Academy at West Point, Leverett from the South Carolina College, Thompson from Iowa State College, and Gorton from Illinois Normal University. Nothing is known about Stanard, but the other three faculty members, Gates, Burnell, and Botefuhr, had not completed a college education, although some had taken college classes. 

The end of Reconstruction

Reconstruction came to an end during the university's third year. The first three years of the university were a time of tremendous chaos in Arkansas state politics. The Republican Party had split into two rival factions, and each contested the other's claim to have won the 1872 gubernatorial election. The dispute culminated in widespread political violence in Little Rock during the summer of 1874. 

The ultimate outcome of the dispute within the Republican Party was that the party was largely removed from political power. During a special session held that summer, the General Assembly called for a constitutional convention. Political restrictions on ex-Confederates had recently lifted, so Conservative Democrats were able to dominate the convention. In October, a new Constitution was approved, a new Democratic governor was elected, and Democratic politicians gained a large majority within the state legislature. 

The end of Reconstruction had surprisingly little impact on the university. The legislature declared all trustee positions to be vacated and created a new Board of Trustees. However, there were no major changes to the faculty and students. For example, despite having fought for the Union, Edwin S. Curtis retained his professorship until 1875 when he came into conflict with other faculty over issues like student discipline. Leverett remained at the university for the next 20 years.

The end of Reconstruction signaled the end of the university's limited efforts toward racial integration. However, those efforts were already being reversed during the last years of Reconstruction. In 1873, the state legislature created the Branch Normal College in Pine Bluff. It was tacitly understood that this college would be for African-Americans and Arkansas Industrial University would be for Whites. For the next seven decades, no African-Americans would attend the university.