Fairmount College

For other uses, see Wichita State University § History.

Fairmount College (1872 – 1917/18), also known as Fairmount Female College and Fairmount School for Girls, was an American private college for females. It was located at Fairmont^[a] and College Streets in Monteagle, Tennessee.^[1]

Fairmount College

Former name	Fairmount Female College and Fairmount School for Girls
Type	Private college
Active	1872; 152 years ago (1872) – 1918; 106 years ago (1918)
Address	Fairmont and College Streets , Monteagle , Tennessee , United States

History

The institution was established in 1872 with the aid of John Moffatt, a Scottish-born temperance preacher and landowner.^[2] It was Moffat and business partner Oliver Maybee who convinced Fairmount's first headmistresses, Louise Yerger and Harriet B. Kells,^[3] to move their girls' school from Jackson, Mississippi to Tennessee.

Silas McBee, who later gained fame as an author and architect, became the principal of Fairmount College in the late 1800s. McBee turned the school into a church institution that might be "for girls what Sewanee was for young men".

The school ceased operations in 1917/18.^[4] In 1921, Reverend William Stirling Claiborne and Dr. Mercer P. Logan founded the DuBose Memorial Church Training School (later, DuBose Conference Center) on the school's former site.

Fairmount College's papers are held in the University Archives and Special Collections of Sewanee: The University of the South.^[4]

Student activities

The school hosted an early chapter of Delta Gamma, a general sorority, and a chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi, a now-dormant general sorority.^[b]

Notable alumni

Among its students, in 1910, the school hosted two of the Soong sisters, one of whom later became Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the other, Soong Ching-ling, who married Sun Yat-sen.^[5][6]

Notes

1. This street spelling appears correct from current maps, even though it differs slightly from the name of the college.
2. Not to be confused with the business fraternity of the same name.

References

1. Anchora of Delta Gamma. Vol. 31. 1914. p. 125. Retrieved 30 January 2024. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
2. Manning, Russ (1 December 2011). 40 Hikes in Tennessee's South Cumberland: The True Story of the Kidnap and Escape of Four Climbers in Central Asia. Mountaineers Books. ISBN 978-1-59485-402-6. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
3. Bratton, Theodore DuBose (1936). An Apostle of Reality: The Life and Thought of the Reverend William Porcher DuBose, S. T. D., D. C. L. A Series of Lectures on the DuBose Foundation, Delivered at the University of the South. Longmans, Green and Company. p. 85. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
4. "Collection: Fairmount School for Girls Collection - ArchivesSpace Public Interface". archivesguides.sewanee.edu. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
5. "Southeast Tennessee Tourist Association". Southeast Tourist Tourist Association. Archived from the original on 3 October 2011. Retrieved 9 July 2011.
6. Chitty, Arthur and Elizabeth, Sewanee Sampler, 1978, p. 106, ISBN 0-9627687-7-4