Former names | Storer Normal School |
---|---|
Active | 1867–1955 |
Location | , , 39°19′25.64″N 77°44′7.49″W / 39.3237889°N 77.7354139°WCoordinates: 39°19′25.64″N 77°44′7.49″W / 39.3237889°N 77.7354139°W |
Storer College, in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, operated from 1867 to 1955. A national icon for Blacks, in the place where the end of American slavery began,[2] it was a unique institution whose programs changed several times; there is no one category of college in which it fits neatly.
Storer began as a one-room elementary school, sponsored by New England Free Baptists, teaching newly-freed slaves to read; it was the first school in West Virginia providing instruction to Blacks at any level. A gift from John Storer led to its charter as "a school which might eventually become a College, to be in located in one of the Southern States, at which youth could be educated without distinction ot race or color". Though called a college from the beginning, it was a normal school until into the twentieth century, providing high school-level instruction to future primary school teachers. It also is not "historically black" in the usual sense. The student body was overwhelmingly Black, but there were some white students; West Virginia would not take it over as a state school, and provided only intermittent state support, as state law prohibited mixed Black-white education in publicly-supported schools. It was also ahead of its time in that it accepted both male and female students, which then was unusual.
The Free Baptists called Storer an inspirational success.[3]:50 The U.S. Congress turned over to it four sturdy buildings that had been used for housing at the former Harpers Ferry National Armory. It lost state funding and closed after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling by the US Supreme Court, which declared that segregated public schools were unconstitutional. The state decided to fund more centrally located colleges, that were regionally accredited.
While it existed it had a great symbolic importance to American Blacks.
One has only to linger there a short time, go through a week of commencement, to realize that that institution is doing a glorious, a far-reaching work, impossible of estimate for the colored race. All over that superb valley [Shenandoah] you find teachers and preachers taking high rank and having great influence who are Storer alumni.[3]:31
The Niagara Movement, predecessor of the NAACP, held its first American meeting there in 1906 (its first meeting was in Canada) and would have met there again in 1907, but the college prohibited it. Attendees walked to John Brown's Fort, which shortly thereafter was moved to the campus. Black tourists came to Harpers Ferry; there was a hotel catering to them, the Hilltop House, built and managed by a Black Storer graduate, Thomas Lovett.[4]:182 In the summer, Storer rented dornitory rooms to tourists, and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad ran excursion trains from Baltimore and Washington.
The college's former campus and buildings were acquired by the National Park Service (NPS), authorized in a 1962 appropriation, as part of what is now called the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. At the same time, the NPS began to develop this facility for use as one of its four national training centers.
History. The Storer campus
Founded as a one-room school for freedmen, Storer developed over the decades as a full-fledged, degree-granting four-year college open to all races, creeds, and colors, both male and female. Former slaves came to Storer as they were eager to learn to read and write, to help them make their way in a new world of free labor. Some wanted to learn new skills and leave the agricultural fields where most had worked.
The Federal Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, on low ground adjoining the rail line and the Potomac, was destroyed during the Civil War and was never rebuilt. However, a sturdy and almost vacant building on higher ground, formerly quarters for the Arsenal Paymaster, was available. This became Storer's first building, Lockwood House.
In 1865, as a representative of New England's Freewill Baptist Home Mission Society, Reverend Nathan Cook Brackett established a primary school in the war-torn building, where he and his family also lived. He taught reading, writing, and arithmetic to the children of former slaves and sometimes to their parents.[5][6]
This school was related to a larger national effort by Northern philanthropic organizations and the government's Freedmen's Bureau to set up schools in order to educate the millions of African Americans freed by the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution. From Harpers Ferry, Reverend Brackett directed the efforts of dedicated missionary teachers, who provided a basic education to thousands of former slaves congregated in the relatively safe haven of the Shenandoah Valley by the end of the American Civil War.
Teaching teachers
Dedicated as they were, these few teachers could not begin to meet the educational needs of the freedmen in the area. Across the South, education of freedmen was an urgent priority within their community. By 1867, some 16 teachers struggled to educate 2,500 students in the Shenandoah Valley. Reverend Brackett realized that he needed to train African-American teachers.
In 1867, Reverend Brackett's school came to the notice of John Storer, a philanthropist from Maine, through Rev. Oren B. Cheney, founder of Bates College, a Free Will Baptist school in Maine. Storer offered a $10,000 grant to the Free Will Baptists for "a school which might eventually become a College, to be in located in one of the Southern States, at which youth could be educated without distinction ot race or color",[7] if the Freewill Baptist Church matched his $10,000 donation by January 1, 1868.
It was Mr. Storer's wish that the institution eventually become a college and it be so chartered—with a proviso that it be operated as a Normal School or Seminary until the endowment funds should be adequate for college purposes. And that it be open to both sexes without regard to race or color.[8]:5
The money was raised, and by March 1868 Storer received its state charter, which was approved in the Legislature by a vote of 13–6.[4]:181 The Normal School opened its doors in October of that year.[7]
Armory buildings and land
According to a bill signed by President Andrew Johnson on December 15, 1868, the U.S. Government donated to the new Storer College the buildings which became the core of its campus, including the building where Brackett had been teaching his classes. These were four sturdy but vacant buildings built as housing for workers and managers at the Armory, together with land.[9][10]
The College was dedicated on December 22, 1869.[11]
The "College" of Storer College
When founded and for most of its existence, Storer did not offer what in the 21th century would be deemed a college education or college credits. Numerous other colleges, such as Tougaloo College, New-York Central College, and Oberlin College, also offered instruction at a pre-college level. They were running in essence college-preparatory schools; in the 19th century, in many areas there were no schools preparing students for college.
At the time, credentials as understood today (2021)—college degrees, for example—were much less important, and the line between college and pre-college instruction was often blurry. Just as today with upper undergraduate and graduate students in the U.S., pre-college and college students might take the same class and be together in the classroom, but at a different level of instruction. Medical school did not require as prerequisite a college education as understood today (2021). Neither did teaching: normal schools to train teachers for public elementary schools offered high school level instruction. "I studied at X College" did not necessarily mean, then, that the person had received a college education. No one saw this as a problem, as a college education was much less important, and somewhat unusual. Having studied at the "prep school" gave some of the prestige of studying at the college.
Storer was the first school at any level for Blacks, ex-slaves or freeborn, in the new state of West Virginia, nor was there any nearby in any neighboring state. While training elementary school teachers in the normal school, there were also lots of illiterate adult students for the student teachers to instruct. Storer College spent much of its early years teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic, as no one else in the state was providing this instruction to Blacks. Storer's Preparatory Division was preparing students for the Normal School, which required literacy. No one saw this as a problem; it was what the West Virginia Legislature expected when they chartered Storer College, described as "a high school for negroes" by a hostile newspaper.[12] No one else in West Virginia was educating those students until the foundation in 1891 of the West Virginia Colored Institute, today West Virginia State University, and in 1895 of the Bluefield Colored Institute, today Bluefield State College. (They are in 2021 the universities in West Virginia with the lowest Black enrollment.) They certainly were not welcome at the segregated state normal school, Shepherd College, founded in 1871 in nearby Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
In 1938 Storer began offering a curriculum that would lead to a college degree.[4]:182
Faculty of Storer College
In 1871 the faculty was the following:
- Rev. N. C. Brackett, Principal (arithmetic, philosophy, and political economy)
- Rev. A. H. Morrell (Bible history and vocal music)
- Miss Lura [sic] E. Brackett, Preceptress (English grammar, algebra, and botany) (sister of N. C. Brackett)
- Mrs. L. W. Brackett (Latin and drawing) (wife of N. C. Brackett)
- Miss Lizzie Morell (instrumental music)
Plus various substitutes, assistants, and a matron.[13]:4
In 1889, the Principal was H. F. McDonald.[3]:103
Enrollment at Storer College
The first 8 graduates of the Storer Normal School graduated in 1872. The first graduates of the Academic Department were in 1880.[13]:21–23
In 1871 there were 203 enrollees. Counting those still students, Academic Department, 42 students; Normal Department, 174 students; Preparatory Division, 101 students. As of that date there had been 285 different students enrolled.[13]:15 The same year, the Spirit of Jefferson newspaper reported "more than 150...of all ages and sexes, and...all shades and colors."[4]:181
In 1881, a report of the Free-Will Baptists indicates that at Storer there were 200 enrolled students, 62 graduates, level unspecified, and the total number who had enrolled at some time was 800.[14]:252 The report also says that the College had "sent out" over 200 teachers and 25 preachers.[14]:230
In its first 20 years, the school trained hundreds of teachers from West Virginia, Ohio, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.[15]:126
In 1889 there were 49 men and 73 female students.[3]:53, 72
Over its 90-year history, about 7,000 students enrolled.[16]
Core buildings
- Lockwood Hoise, described as "one of the finest residences in Harpers Ferry", was built as quarters for the Armory paymaster. It became a military hospital in 1862, and later became the headquarters of Union General Henry Hayes Lockwood. [17] Nathan Brackett set up his first school in 1865, he personally teaching a roomful of illiterate freedmen to read.
Physical plant
In 1889 the school "very much need[ed] a heating system". The school had no running water, and the town of Harper's Ferry was "too poor" to put in a water works system.They have therefore no protection from fire. The Industrial Building was practically completed, and they were seeking $1,000 to buy equipment for it.[3]:48 A physics and chemistry laboratory was set up in the DeWolf Industrial Building, and they are raising money for a carpentry building.[3]:53
Lincoln Hall had three stories, and it was set aside for Black summer boarders.[4]:183
The facilities were dewscribed as "bare bones". For example, no hot water in the men's dormitory, in 1947.[18]
- Lewis W. Anthony Industrial Arts Building was built in 1903. It housed workshops and la oratories. Today (2021j) it houses the National Park Service library reference services.
Storer College, Jefferson County, and West Virginia
In 1867, that the charter of Storer should say "without distinction of race or color" was "fiercely debated" in the Legislature, and approval of the charter was delayed until March 1868.[16] In 1881 the Legislature directed that the state finance the education of 17 prospective "colored" teachers, this being the number, relative to West Virginia's population, that corresponds to the ratio of white prospective teachers supported, to the white population.[19]
Finances of the college
The school did not charge tuition, which most of its students had no immediate way to pay. Rooms were also free to students, so their only expense was for their board.
Students "of any state of advancement", who could "give satisfactory evidence of good moral character", were admitted on any day of the session, and placed by examination. Every student was required to have a Bible and to attend chapel, Sunday school. and 9 AM prayer.[13]:18–20
By 1881, the school had already passed through "severe financial embarrassments".[14]:231
Support of the College was the largest single endeavor of the Free Baptists, to which they were "thoroughly committed".[3]:45
Local hostility
Raising $10,000 turned out to be easy compared to facing local resistance by whites to a "colored school." The Freewill Baptists' other mission school, resembling that in Harpers Ferry, in Beaufort, North Carolina, was abandoned after one year due to "lingering Confederate sympathizers".[20]:xviii Storer's charter aroused intense and violent opposition, and passed by one vote.[8]:10 Residents of Harpers Ferry tried everything from slander and vandalism to pulling political strings in their efforts to shut down the school. They petitioned the Legislature to have Storer's charter revoked.[8]:11 One teacher wrote, "it is unusual for me to go to the Post Office without being hooted at, and twice I have been stoned on the streets at noonday."[8]:10–11[failed verification] Threats by the Ku Klux Klan in the first years caused the faculty and students to carry arms while walking outside.[8]:11 At one point lady teachers required a military escort.[8]:10
These efforts did not succeed in closing Storer Normal School, and eventually, local attitudes changed. In 1891, "the inhabitants of Harper's Ferry hold a true interest and even a pride in the college. Some of its old opponents are now numbered among its most devoted friends. And no person in the community is held in higher honor or greater esterm than Mr. Brackett, once of all men the most hated and despised."[8]:11 However, in 1896 the college ceased renting rooms in the summer to Black vacationers, because of local opposition. It continued accomodating white vacationers. The decision was much criticized by alumni.[20]:
In 1944 Storer's first black president, Richard Ishmael McKinney, was welcomed with a burning cross on his lawn.[20]:xxxi
Benevolent paternalism
Some modern scholars view Storer as a reconstructed plantation.[15]:125 Students were taught that they should efface thenselves. The school had at one point a Modern Minstrel Company, which performed "Plantation Songs and Melodies” and renditions of numbers like “If the Man in the Moon Was a Coon".[15]:125 President Nathan Brackett said that the school’s “humble and illiterate” students "generally show a desire to work and submit to wholesome discipline.” To instill moral character, students were obliged to “march in military columns” between classes, were not permitted to “jump, dance, or scuffle” inside campus buildlngs or go on “pleasure excursions, rides, or walks in mixed company.” Other rules deterred students from socializing in town or mingling with townspeople.[15]:126
Students did most campus labor, cooking meals, cleaning buildings, maintaining the campus, and caring for the animals in the school farm.[15]:121! 127
Education at Storer
Understanding that former slaves needed to learn more than the three Rs to function in society, Storer founders intended to provide more than a basic education. According to the first college catalog, students were to "receive counsel and sympathy, learn what constitutes correct living, and become qualified for the performance of the great work of life." In its early years, in the press to expand literacy among the freedmen and their children, Storer taught freedmen to read, write, spell, do sums, and to go back into their communities to teach others these lessons.
Storer remained primarily a teachers college, but added courses in higher education as well as industrial training. Students graduated with a "normal degree," for teaching elementary school students, or an academic degree, for those going on to college. Buildings were constructed through the 1930s, with Permelia Eastman Cook Hall, a handsome grey stone building, completed 1939-1940.[1]
In 1911, the West Virginia Legislature struck Storer from its list of accredited normal programs, meaning its graduates could not receive teaching certificates, because "the curriculum did not adequately include enough professional training."[15]:138
Industrial education
Starting in the 1880s, Storer started offering vocational and industrial courses; in 1897 the trustees made industrial education a course of study. "This formalization of manual labor at Storer corresponded with a widespread movement in the South that was predicated upon white supremacists['] notions of black inferiority. ...Manual labor made African Americans fit for citizenship by instilling Christian values and moral character." The school eventually required all normal students to take industrial courses, so that by 1904 it was training more tradespeople than teachers.[15]:121–122
Henry T. McDonald, also white, in 1899 became Storer's second president. He strongly advocated manual-labor education, overseeing major aspects of the school’s transition.[15]:123
Events at Storer
Frederick Douglass' speech, 1881
Storer College was a site of various important events in West Virginia and national African-American history.[18] In 1881, the noted abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who had escaped slavery as a young man in the antebellum years and become a noted orator, delivered his famous speech on abolitionist John Brown at Storer College. His intent was to raise funds for an endowed John Brown professorship,[2] to be held by a black man.[21] It never materialized.
There was a "large gathering of people" from Maryland, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and some from as far as New England. They attended a ceremonial laying of the cornerstone for Anthony Hall.[22]
Free Baptists Conference, 1889
The Free Baptists, who had founded Storer College, held their 1889 General Conference at the College. Attendance, including locals, was 500.[3]:72
Niagara Movement conference, 1906
In August 1906, Storer Normal School hosted (against the wishes of its white administrators) the second conference of the Niagara Movement and the first on American soil. Formed by a group of leading African-American intellectuals, the Niagara Movement planned a campaign to eliminate discrimination based on race. The movement's leader, W. E. B. Du Bois, a sociologist with a PhD, rejected the prevalent theory of "accommodation" promoted by Booker T. Washington, President of the Tuskegee Institute. Washington advocated conciliation and advancement of the "race" rather than confrontation as a means of gaining social equality. He encouraged the teaching of rural and industrial skills at his campus to prepare students for the rural worlds most would return to.
The Niagara Movement published an annual "Address to the World", demanding voting rights (the mass of African Americans in the South had been essentially disenfranchised by the turn of the century), educational and economic opportunities, justice in the courts, and recognition in unions and the military. Many conservative African-American and white leaders became alienated by their approach, which eroded potential political support. During the 1906 conference, Storer staff expressed discomfort with the group's militancy, and dismay at their tendency to consider even progressive whites as the enemy.[citation needed]
By 1910, five years after it was formed, the Niagara Movement was dissolved. While it did not produce material gains in the civil rights arena, its leaders had announced their intention to pursue full civil rights, thereby laying a valuable foundation for the development of a more broad-based push for equality.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was formed in New York City in 1910 with an interracial board, and many of the members of the failing Niagara Movement quickly joined it. The NAACP had many of the same goals of the Niagara Movement; it also pursued a concentrated program of litigation campaigns in the effort to overturn of barriers to voter registration and voting, end state and local jurisdictions' segregation of housing, gain integrated public transportation and other facilities, seek integrated public education, achieve fair jury trials for blacks, and similar goals.
John Brown's Fort, 1909
John Brown's Fort, the firehouse at the former Harpers Ferry Armory, was moved to the Storer campus in 1909. It "was a tourist destination—almost a shrine—for African Americans in the late nineteenth century."[23] In 1968, after closure of the college and establishment of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, the National Park Service moved it back to as close to its original location as possible.
Storer College
In 1938, under the leadership of school president Henry T. McDonald, Storer became a four-year college. The last new building was completed in 1939-1940. Enrollment peaked at around 400, as Storer and other colleges had struggled during the privations of the Great Depression. The number of students dipped lower with the high rate of participation by young men in World War II. The college had received some financial support from the state of West Virginia, as it helped educate blacks, who were limited to segregated schools and colleges.
Although the school granted four-year degrees, it never received regional accreditation; it never applied. As a result, it was forced to turn away some students. Those who wanted to be doctors, for example, were not admitted. The college was unable to fund the laboratories and other scientific equipment necessary for a pre-med degree.
Closure of the College
In 1954, the NAACP achieved a victory with the US Supreme Court decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case, which declared racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional. "The West Virginia Legislature withdrew its annual appropriation from Storer because of the Supreme Court ruling outlawing segregation in public schools, and the resultant policy of integration in state schools. The Legislature said the appropriation was intended to finance studies by Negro students at Storer but is now unnecessary because Negroes now are eligible to enroll at other state colleges. The enrollment at Storer has been exclusively Negro." The state appropriation was $20,000. In its final year, the College had 88 students.[24]
Storer had been accumulating debt for a decade, and could not survive without the state appropriation. In June 1955, Storer College closed its doors forever. (West Virginia has continued to support Bluefield State College and West Virginia State University, larger historically black colleges that achieved regional accreditation and could offer more types of classes.)
Legacy
In 1962, Congress appropriated funds for the National Park Service to acquire the surviving buildings on campus, some occupied by squatters,[4]:194 as part of what is now known as Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. It had been established in 1944 as a National Monument, taking in much of the declining town.
As part of this change, in 1964, the movable physical assets of the college were transferred to the historically white Alderson-Broaddus College, a Baptist college, and used to establish scholarships for black students. The college's endowment was transferred to Virginia Union University, a historically Black college.
Since 1964, Virginia Union University has considered, and treats, graduates of the college as alumni of VUU. VUU's L. Douglas Wilder Library and Learning Resource Center holds Storer College's former library collection and some of the college's records.[25] Other Storer College records are held at the library of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, West Virginia University's West Virginia and Regional History Center, and at Howard University's Moorland–Spingarn Research Center.
The campus of the college is now maintained as a part of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. The three remaining college structures now house the National Park Service's Stephen T. Mather Training Center and the Service's library. The Training Center is one of four major training centers operated by and for the National Park Service. It is named for the Service's first Director, Stephen Mather.
Each August, the alumni of Storer College gather in Harpers Ferry for an annual reunion. At last count fewer than 70 alumni survive.
Archival material
The archives of Storer College are located at the WVU Libraries, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia. "The West Virginia and Regional History Center holds five archives and manuscripts collections that exclusively contain Storer College materials."[26]
Notable alumni and faculty
Name | Class year | Notability | Reference(s) |
---|---|---|---|
John Dunjee | Prominent Free Will Baptist preacher and early fundraiser for Storer | ||
J. R. Clifford | 1875 | first African-American attorney from WV | |
Hamilton Hatter | 1878 | first president of Bluefield State College, inventor | |
Coralie Franklin Cook | 1880 | Professor at Howard University | |
John Francis Wheaton | 1882 | First African American member of the Minnesota State Legislature[27] | |
Lewis Penick Clinton | West African prince and Baptist missionary | ||
Jared Maurice Arter | Writer, missionary, academic | ||
Robert Page Sims | 1887 | college president, academic, civil rights leader | |
Stella James Sims | 1893 | professor at Storer College and Bluefield State College | |
Don Redman | arranger for the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra during the 1920s and 1930s. He also played saxophone and clarinet in the group. | ||
Nnamdi Azikiwe | 1926 | First President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria | |
Ella P. Stewart | African-American pharmacist |
See also
References
- ^ a b HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY ADDENDUM TO STORER COLLEGE, COOK HALL (Permelia Eastman Cook Hall), p. 3. Note: Permelia Eastman Cook Hall was not constructed until 1939-1940. Archived 2017-02-25 at the Wayback Machine, HABS Survey, Library of Congress
- ^ a b Douglass, Frederick (1881). John Brown. An address by Frederick Douglass, at the fourteenth anniversary of Storer College, Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, May 30, 1881. Dover, New Hampshire.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Minutes of the General Conference of Free Baptists. Boston. 1890.
- ^ a b c d e f Meyer, Eugene L. (2018). Five for Freedom. The African American Soldiers in John Brown's Army. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books (Chicago Review Press). ISBN 9781613735725.
- ^ "Harpers Ferry National Historical Park - Storer College (U.S. National Park Service)". Archived from the original on 2015-02-15. Retrieved 2007-12-23.
- ^ "Storer College". Archived from the original on 2007-08-31. Retrieved 2007-12-23.
- ^ a b "Storer College". New Era (Washington, D.C.). January 27, 1870. p. 1 – via newspapers.com.
- ^ a b c d e f g Anthony, Kate J. (1891). Storer College : Harper's Ferry, W. Va. : A Brief Historical Sketch : With Supplementary Notes :1867–1891 (PDF). Boston: Morning Star. Retrieved March 15, 2021.
- ^ Observer (January 9, 1869). "Reminiscences of John Brown's Men". Leavenworth Times (Leavenworth, Kansas). p. 2 – via newspapers.com.
- ^ U.S. Congress (January 9, 1869). "AN ACT Provldlng for the sale of the, lands, tenements and water privileges belonging to tlie United States at and near Harper's Ferry, in the county of Jefferson, West Virginia". Alabama State Journal (Montgomery, Alabama). p. 4 – via newspapers.com.
- ^ "Educational Notes". Buffalo Courier (Buffalo, New York). January 17, 1870. p. 2 – via newspapers.com.
- ^ "The Democracy Mixed—They Divide on 'nigger suffrage'". Wheeling Daily Intelligencer (Wheeling, West Virginia). February 18, 1870. p. 2 – via newspapers.com.
- ^ a b c d Biennial catalogue of the officers and students of Storer College, Academic and Normal Departments, located at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, October 7, 1879—May 30, 1881. Storer College. 1881.
- ^ a b c Waterman, G. C. (1881). "Educational Institutions". Centennial record of Freewill Baptists, 1780–1880. Dover, New Hampshire.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Terry, Douglas (Fall 2017). "Reading the Storer Record: Negotiating Race and Industrial Education at Storer College During the Age of Jim Crow". West Virginia History. 11 (new series) (2): 121–148.
- ^ a b "Notes on the Origens of Storer College". West Virginia University Libraries. Retrieved March 1, 2021. CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- ^ "Storer College: An American Phoenix. Gallery 1" (PDF). West Virginia and Regional History Center. 2015. Retrieved April 2, 2021. CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- ^ a b Shapiro, Stephanie (October 22, 2015). "A black college closed in 1955, but its fading alumni fight to pass on a legacy". Washington Post.
- ^ "Educating Colored Teachers". Daily Register (Wheeling, West Virginia). April 11, 1881. p. 4 – via newspapers.com.
- ^ a b c Burke, Dawne Raines (2015). An American Phoenix: A History of Storer College from Slavery to Desegregation, 1865–1955. Morgantown, West Virginia: Storer College Books, an imprint of West Virginia University Press. ISBN 978-1940425771.
- ^ "Local Items". Shepherdstown Register (Shepherdstown, West Virginia). January 21, 1882. p. 2 – via VirginiaChronicle.
- ^ "Fred. Douglass on John Brown". Washington Evening Star (Washington, D.C.). May 31, 1881. p. 4 – via newspapers.com.
- ^ Brophy, Alfred L. (April 2008). "The Creation of Harpers Ferry". h-Net (h-Civil War). Archived from the original on December 21, 2018. Retrieved December 15, 2018.
- ^ "Storer College To Close Down For Fund Lack". The Daily Mail (Hagerstown, Maryland). April 14, 1955. p. 8. Archived from the original on November 8, 2019. Retrieved November 8, 2019.
- ^ "Virginia Union University | Records of Storer College". www.vuu.edu. Archived from the original on 2015-09-05. Retrieved 2016-08-17.
- ^ "Storer College Finding Aids". West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries. Archived from the original on June 10, 2020. Retrieved March 1, 2021. CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- ^ An Ebony Legislator Archived 2012-10-14 at the Wayback Machine, St. Paul Daily Globe, February 12, 1899, accessed December 15, 2010.
Further reading
- Powers, Nick (October 26, 2017). "The Legacy of Storer College (1867-1955), Part 1". Museum of the Shenandoah Valley. Retrieved March 1, 2021. CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- Powers, Nick (November 13, 2017). "The Legacy of Storer College (1867-1955), Part 2". Museum of the Shenandoah Valley. Retrieved March 1, 2021. CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- Gordon, Vivian Verde (Autumn 1961). "A History of Storer College, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia". Journal of Negro Education. 30 (4): 445–449. JSTOR 2294066.
- Davis, Mary A (1900). "The South and Its Claims. Storer College". History of the Free Baptist woman's missionary society. Boston: Morning Star. pp. 30–36.
External links
- Storer College Digital Collection at West Virginia and Regional History Center https://storercollege.lib.wvu.edu/
- Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) No. WV-277, "Storer College, Harpers Ferry, Jefferson County, WV"
- HABS No. WV-277-A, "Storer College, Anthony Hall"
- HABS No. WV-277-B, "Storer College, Mosher Hall"
- HABS No. WV-277-C, "Storer College, Lewis Anthony Library"
- HABS No. WV-277-D, "Storer College, Brackett Hall"
- HABS No. WV-277-E, "Storer College, Cook Hall, 252 McDowell Street"