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Essay Directory
2007 - 2008 Essays
Liberty Ladies
College: A Modern Educational Experience
by Alyssa Emery
Liberty Rising:
the 1934 Fire
by Rachel Ibok
Zerelda Mimms James:
Lover of a
Bandit
by Lindsey Melvin
2006 - 2007 Essays
Convention City
by
Lilia Toson
David Rice Atchison:
A Champion of the
People
by
Jesus Lopez
Dr. Seymore Pearley -
Clay County's First
African American Dentist
by Hayley VanderStel
Humphrey “Yankee” Smith
by Jonathan Entzminger
Missouri City in Black and White
or
Rebuilding a Culture
by Devin DeMoure
The Drake Constitution: When Missouri White
Men Could Not Vote
by
Kali Shipley
The Other James Brother
by Madison McGraw
White Oak: A Tender Side
of the Racial
Divide
by
Evelaca Dobbins
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 Alyssa Emery is a
junior at William Jewell College. She is working to complete a double
major in Philosophy and English, which may mean she lives in a box after
college. She is a member of Alpha Psi Omega (theater honorary fraternity),
Sigma Tau Delta (English honorary fraternity), and was a 2006 Emerging
Leader. Her future plans include graduate school and world traveling—she
hopes to never stop learning.
Liberty Ladies College:
A Modern Educational Experience
As the gateway to the new frontier, early Clay
County saw many of America’s largest cultural changes first. The earliest
settlers cleared trees, forged roads, and built homes around what has
become one of Kansas City’s busiest suburbs. While major highways criss-cross
the landscape today, once log cabins and miles of forest stood in their
places. Liberty was once a bustling town with everything the rural farmer
could need. As the town developed, schools began to open, offering
educational opportunities for a surprising demographic: Liberty ladies.
Women who sought to become teachers
could find an education in Liberty as early as 1830, but a series of
mishaps, such as fires and bankruptcies, forced the schools which housed
these learners to close or change locations (and owners) more than five
times in the span of forty years. In 1867, two schools for females
existed: the Clay County Seminary and the Liberty Female Institute. For
cost, the two schools merged together, but both were demolished in a fire
eleven years later.
J.J. Stogsdale, known by
most in the town as a Civil War veteran and shop owner, believed firmly
that women deserved an education, and began a funding drive for the
Liberty Female College in 1890, 40 years after William Jewell College,
which sat directly opposite the proposed building site for the Female
College, opened its doors to men. In September of 1890, the school was
complete, at a cost of $44,000. The price was well worth it: the building
offered electricity, indoor plumbing (with both hot and cold running
water) and steam heat.
More importantly, Liberty
ladies were given an opportunity to “enlarge, develop, perfect the
intellect, and aspire to noble lives” by earning four-year degrees in
literary studies, or diplomas in music, art and elocution. Two-year
diplomas were also offered by the internationally-acclaimed music academy
housed in the Liberty Female College building. Most of the women who
earned their degrees went on to become teachers.
Women from Missouri and
Kansas flocked to the Liberty Ladies’ College, and students from as far
away as Wisconsin, Colorado, and “Old Mexico” are on the record books as
having attended (1900 Course Catelogue) . For students like Ida Metcalf,
the typical school year was an exciting time. Before the term began (at a
cost of $123, for both tuition and room and board), Miss Metcalf and her
family selected which courses she would take, and sent a letter to the
president requesting a close friend be her roommate in the dorms (Register
and Grade Book). Among the traditional History and French classes offered,
students could also learn to sing harmony, play the mandolin or banjo,
learn bookkeeping, zoology, shorthand, typewriting, Elocution, or
participate in Bible studies. In addition to classes, Miss Metcalf also
painted china, learned to embroider, and shared in the quintessential
college experience of dormitory life (Bowman).
According to course
catalogues dating from the early 1900s, each resident could expect
“carpet, full bedroom suite (of antique finish), wardrobe or closet,
center table, chairs (including rocker), electric light and radiator for
steam heat” in her room. Every morning, the Matron inspected the rooms for
order and tidiness, with demerits and poor grades in Housekeeping earned
by messy, unorganized students.
Miss Metcalf would have
been required to attend an area church while at school, accompanied by
teachers as chaperones. She would have had the opportunity to join
sororities, Beta Sigma Omicron or Eta Upsilon Gamma, as well as attend the
public lectures hosted by William Jewell College. For students living in
the college dorms, a dress code was strictly enforced, consisting of black
or white shirts, full skirts, and college robes; “expensive dressing and
the use of expensive jewelry” was frowned upon by the administration
(Course Catelogue).
The school was sold in
1895 to Charles M. Williams and his wife, who changed the name to Liberty
Ladies College and operated the institution until 1910. The school changed
hands just one more time in 1912, when it was leased by H.H. Savage until
it burned on February 23, 1913.
No competing ladies’
colleges existed in the Liberty area at the turn of the century, and
students left without an academic home because of the fire found it
difficult to complete their educations. William Jewell College agreed to
allow the women whose goals were to become teachers the opportunity to
take classes in a limited setting during World War I. Alumni, trustees,
and many of the students were against this decision, but Jewell was
financially unstable: the United States had entered World War I in 1917,
and many Jewell students enlisted for the fight. Attendance was low at
Jewell, and tuition money was desperately needed. Still, when students
were polled regarding admitting women students, 127 to 59 opposed the
idea.
To compromise, the ladies
who first enrolled in 1918 were not technically Jewell students, but
rather students of their own school who happened to borrow Jewell
facilities and professors. These women were not, for instance, allowed on
the Hill, but instead took classes from Jewell professors in the living
room of Mrs. Swinney, who lived near the College (Bowman). The president
of William Jewell taught Ethics, and several other professors would leave
their classrooms to teach physics, math, and the liberal arts to the
female students.
This soon became
impractical, and the ladies were allowed to attend their History and
French classes as co-eds. The male students of Jewell quickly warmed-up to
their female counterparts, and the all-male faculty was equally impressed
with the women’s performance. Women began to enjoy extracurricular life on
the Hill as well, forming their own chorus and joining the newspaper. In
1920, the first female—a Mathematics major—graduated from Jewell and went
on to have a successful teaching and homemaking career (Bowman). Though
not without some hesitancy, the men of William Jewell began to push the
trustees to open the doors of Jewell fully to women. In 1921 females were
openly admitted to William Jewell College, with the provision that they
were “of sound morals and direction.” Though it took nearly a century,
women seeking a higher education in the Midwest seem to have found a
permanent home at William Jewell College.
Works Cited or Consulted
Bowman, Georgia. The
Distaff Side: Women At William Jewell. 1st ed. 1988. 1-25.
"Liberty Female College."
Advertisement. Liberty Tribune 19 Jan. 1855: 40-tf.
http://libertyfemalecollege.info/images/1855newspaperAd.jpg
Liberty Bell LLC.
"Historic Liberty Female College Timeline." Historic Liberty Female
College.
2005. Jewell Historic
District. 4 Mar. 2008 <http://libertyfemalecollege.info/>.
Liberty Ladies’
College Register and Grade Book. Liberty:
Liberty Ladies’ College, Year
Unknown.
Liberty Ladies'
College Course Catalogue. Liberty: Liberty
Ladies' College, 1900.
Liberty Ladies'
College Course Catalogue. Liberty: Liberty
Ladies' College, 1908.
Liberty Ladies'
College Course Catalogue.
Liberty: Liberty Ladies' College, 1910.
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