Reconstruction and Colleges

Many of Tennessee's big colleges and universities got started or "turned the corner" during the Reconstruction Era. The three most interesting examples are the University of Tennessee, Fisk University, and Vanderbilt University.
Ayres Hall at the University of Tennessee

The University of Tennessee

“UT,” as it is known in Tennessee, traces its origins to Blount College, which was founded in Knoxville way back in 1794. In 1807 Blount College became known as East Tennessee College, and then East Tennessee University.

Like so many other southern institutions, East Tennessee University was devastated by the Civil War. And although many of its students fought for the Confederacy, most of the trustees (the people responsible for operating the school) were Unionists. So were most of the people in Knoxville.

This ended up being very important. When the war was over, the federal government reimbursed East Tennessee University for damage done to its campus during the war (but did not do the same for any other college in the South).
The University of Tennessee flag
PHOTO: University of Tennessee
After the war, Congress passed a law creating a system of land grant colleges. In 1868, the Tennessee legislature began arguing about where to put its primary land grant college. There were two main contenders: Murfreesboro and Knoxville. One reason Knoxville was a top contender was that it already had East Tennessee State University, which was in better financial shape than just about any college at the time in the South (thanks to the grant that the federal government had just given the school).

At the time, Tennessee’s governor was Parson Brownlow, a Unionist and Methodist newspaper editor from Knoxville. The legislature was also dominated by people who had favored the Union cause during the Civil War. Largely because of this, the state government chose to put its main land grant college in Knoxville. A few years later, East Tennessee University became known as the University of Tennessee .

For more on the history of the University of Tennessee, click here.


A group of Fisk graduates from the 1880s
PHOTO: Fisk University
Fisk University

During the Civil War, as newly freed slaves migrated to population centers such as Nashville, they had a tendency to congregate near Union Army camps. There was a Union Army camp in North Nashville, and after the Civil War African Americans had a tendency to remain in that area and make their homes and businesses there. In 1866 a new university called Fisk was started in this part of Nashville. It was named for a Union General who had been stationed in Nashville during the war.
Jubilee Hall at Fisk University
Fisk University's original students were almost entirely former slaves, so it goes without saying that most of them couldn't pay much in tuition. Originally the school was sponsored by the American Missionary Association, a Christian evangelical association funded mainly by people in the North.

In 1871 a group of students known as the Fisk Jubilee Singers went on a trip across the country to raise money for the university. "The Jubilee Singers introduced much of the world to the spiritual as a musical genre -- and in the process raised funds that preserved their university and permitted construction of Jubilee Hall, the South's first permanent structure built for the education of black students," a school history says.

For more on the history of Fisk, click here.
The Vanderbilt University campus
PHOTO: Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University

In the 1840s, the Methodist Church was one of many denominations that split over the slavery issue. Eventually the denomination decided to put its publishing arm in Nashville -- which meant that southern Methodist books, Sunday School tracts, and newspapers were written and printed in Nashville.

Just before the Civil War, several Methodist bishops began talking about the idea of a new Methodist university which -- unlike existing Methodist colleges -- would be supported by churches across the South, instead of just churches in one state. After the war this institution was approved and became known as "Central University." But for two years the Methodist church was unable to raise money for the cause, mainly because the South was devastated by the war. So for a while it might have seemed as if Central University would exist in name only.

Bishop Holland McTyeire
PHOTO: United Methodist Publishing House
At the time, one of the Methodist bishops was Holland McTyeire. And as luck would have it, in 1869, Holland McTyeire's wife's cousin (you got that?) became the second wife of a very rich man named Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt had made his fortune through ferries, railroads, and countless other ventures. But at that time he hadn't given very much of it away. In 1872 McTyeire and his wife visited the Vanderbilts in New York. McTyeire and Vanderbilt spent several hours together one night, and when it was over, the nation's richest man had decided to donate $500,000 to Central University.

That amount was later raised to $1 million, and Central University was later renamed Vanderbilt University. McTyeire chose a field near Nashville that had previously been the property of former Mississippi Governor Henry Foote as the site of the new school. Before long three beautiful buildings had been built on its new campus.

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