Martha McChesney Berry (1866-1942)
Excerpted from Martha Berry: A Woman of Courageous Spirit and Bold Dreams: A Biography by Joyce Blackburn (Peachtree Publishers, 1992, ISBN: 1561450715) by the staff of NewsScan http://www.newsscan.com/http://www.newsscan.com/, in the March 18, 2003 edition.
Today's Honorary Subscriber is the American philanthropist and rural education pioneer Martha McChesney Berry (1866-1942), who is remembered today for the Mount Berry education complex she founded on her family plantation in Rome, Georgia.
In 1902, as a pioneer of work-study educational programs and with a staff of two teachers, she opened the Mount Berry Boys Industrial School. The students paid for their tuition by working on the school farm or in workshops on the property. At the time of her death the Mount Berry Schools, including an accredited college, had 125 buildings, built and maintained by student labor. The 1,300 students could work in the mill, quarry, pastures, or farmlands on the 28,000-acre campus.
Born shortly after the Civil War to wealthy parents, Berry grew up comfortably on her family's plantation. After completing her education, she spent a year traveling in Europe. By sheer accident, she found her life's work -- teaching the boys and girls of rural north Georgia. One Sunday afternoon, while passing the time by playing a melodeon in her old log cabin playhouse, she was startled when she looked up to see three rag-tag country boys staring at her. She invited them in and began telling them Bible stories. She invited them to come back the next week and to bring some friends. They did -- the next week and for weeks thereafter -- until the playhouse quickly became too small to fit them all.
At the time, the entire state of Georgia had only five public schools. So on her own 83 acres of land and with her own funds, Martha created the Boys Industrial School where the boys were not only taught academic subjects, but practical skills as well -- washing, cooking, agriculture, and industrial arts.
To support her rapidly growing school, Berry traveled extensively to raise cash. Among the largest donors were Andrew Carnegie and, later, Henry Ford. President Theodore Roosevelt, who held a dinner in the White House to raise money, encouraged her to build a girls school as well, and on Thanksgiving Day in 1909 The Berry Schools opened with a coeducational program. After World War I, when public schools were being established all over the state of Georgia, Berry opened Berry Junior College in 1926. Two years later, Berry College became a full 4-year institution, with the first graduates receiving their diplomas in 1932.
In recognition of her contributions to education, Berry earned eight honorary doctoral degrees, and was the first woman appointed to a seat on the Georgia University Board of Regents. At 65, she was advised to "slow down" by her doctors. But the depression had left her fledgling college short of funds and over the next seven years she worked tirelessly at raising money, only occasionally slowed by physical ailments. Toward the end of her life a heart condition required her to be frequently rushed to Atlanta in the black sedan given to her by her benefactor Henry Ford. It was on one of these trips that she died.