USA > South Carolina > Spartanburg County > A history of Spartanburg county > Part 21
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This teachers' institute lasted from August 3 to August 27, 1880, and was directed by Professor Louis Soldan, of St. Louis, a grad- uate of the University of Berlin. The faculty included A. T. Peete of Spartanburg, E. W. Riemann of Lexington, R. M. Davis of Winnsboro, and H. P. Archer of Charleston. Classes were held daily at Wofford College for three or four hours. In the evenings lectures were given in the courthouse, and were open to the public free of charge. The lecturers included, besides the regular staff, Professor G. J. Orr, State Commissioner of Education of Georgia ; Professor S. P. Sanford, of Mercer University; President Kemp Battle, of the University of North Carolina; and Professor E. S. Joynes, of the University of Tennessee. Local citizens extended the visitors many courtesies, the most important being an excursion to Hendersonville as guests of the city council.
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The Graded School System
The first session of the Spartanburg graded school began October 6, 1884, and ended June 1885. The year's enrollment was 222 white and 175 colored pupils. On the board of trustees were: C. E. Fleming, President; Charles Petty, Chairman; John B. Cleveland, Clerk; George Cofield; and W. E. Harris. The first superintendent was William S. Morrison, previous- ly principal of the Wellford high school, who received a monthly salary of $75. The other white teachers were Misses Sallie Carson and M. H. Girardeau and Mrs. E. E. Evins. R. M. Alexander taught the colored school.
ยท No records were preserved for the first two years, but the "First Annual Report of the City Superintendent of Public Schools," pre- pared by Lyman H. Ford, appeared June 14, 1887. Ford reported four schools: Carlisle school, with six teachers, for white pupils ; Silver Hill, with three teachers, for Negroes; Grant and Lincoln, each with two teachers, for Negroes. These schools enrolled 338 white and 491 colored pupils. The total amount of the salaries of the thirteen teachers was $3,398.25 for a session beginning Septem- ber 27, 1886, and closing June 10, 1887. The operating expenses- janitor's pay, brooms, chalk, report blanks, repairs-amounted to $157.80, and were provided for by charging each pupil a "contingent fee" of ten cents. The entire cost per pupil enrolled was $3.76. Ford complained that no school building had sufficient seating ca- pacity for the children enrolled. He protested that seven grades were insufficient, and urged the trustees to raise the curriculum at once to ten grades and to set their ultimate goal as twelve grades. He also requested additional blackboards and furniture. He reported his introduction into the course of study of physiology, industrial drawing, and vocal music. He also urged the board to appeal to the legislature for permission to extend the scholastic age beyond sixteen years.
In 1889 the city erected a modern school building on the lot ad- joining the present site of the Kennedy Library, and it was occupied April 7, 1890. The buildings previously used had been rented, and the historian Landrum recorded as a fact that this was "the first building erected specifically for graded school purposes in the State outside Charleston." It was of brick, three stories high, with an auditorium on the third floor, and five large class rooms on each of the other floors. There were offices, and large playgrounds.
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The first white class was graduated from the city schools in 1896, and the first Negroes in 1898. The white children then had two schools, on Converse and Magnolia Streets; and the colored children had one, on Dean Street. From that time progress and improvement in the city school system proceeded steadily.
Converse College Converse College grew out of the civic pride of Spartans and their desire to keep their daughters at home while, at the same time, providing them with the best possible educational facilities. Similar motives had actuated the founders of the Spar- tanburg Female College, with the removal of which a chapter in the educational history of Spartanburg closed. However, it had a sequel, which began March 22, 1889, when a group of citizens organized a corporation for the purpose of building a "higher girls' school" in Spartanburg. The incorporators were D. E. Converse, J. B. Cleve- land, Charles H. Carlisle, W. E. Burnett, H. E. Ravenel, George Cofield, George R. Dean, D. R. Duncan, H. E. Heinitsh, Bishop A. Coke Smith, Joseph Walker, and B. F. Wilson. H. E. Ravenel was secretary, and was the last survivor of this group. These men pro- ceeded as they would in launching any business enterprise, by agree- ing to issue one thousand shares of stock at $25 each. These sub- scriptions were made with no expectations of financial returns on the investment. After the success of the undertaking was assured a board of directors was chosen : D. E. Converse, President ; D. R. Duncan, C. E. Fleming, Joseph Walker, John H. Montgomery, J. B. Cleve- land, N. F. Walker, W. E. Burnett, W. S. Manning, Secretary and Treasurer. The St. John's School property, a small group of brick buildings on a campus of forty-four acres, was bought ; a new building was erected; the institution was given the name Converse College; and the first session began October 1, 1890.
The first faculty included : B. F. Wilson, A. B., President ; D. A. DuPre, A. M., of Wofford College; A. Coke Smith, A. M., D. D., of Wofford College; T. D. Bratton, A. B .; George Heinitsh, M. D .; Carl S. Gaertner, Music Director; the Misses Nannie Gary Black- well, A. B., A. M .; Mattie B. Gamewell; Fannie A. Camp, A. B .; Mary V. Woodward; Eleanor L, Long, Art ; and Cora Steele, Pri- mary Department; Mrs. Lula Butler Thompson, Matron. W. K. Blake, at one time president of the Spartanburg Female College, pre- sided over the opening exercises, and President James H. Carlisle, of Wofford College, made the principal address. Charles Petty, editor
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of the Spartan, wrote: "Never in the history of the State has any institution for boys or girls been started with so many favorable sur- roundings."
An unusual, and most fortunate, arrangement was made by which the board of directors leased the new institution for five years to D. E. Converse and B. F. Wilson. These two men had vision and courage. A friend, E. E. Bomar, remonstrated with Converse that the new building and its appointments were too elegant. His reply was: "If we make the best appointments, even though they seem costly, the people will patronize them. The American people always want the best." When the end of each year rolled around, D. E. Converse made up from his private purse all deficits in the operating expenses of the college. Other trustees made additional gifts from time to time. B. F. Wilson, president for the first twelve years, set before the institution as its ultimate goal a standard equal to that of any woman's college in the country, and every act of his administra- tion was determined by that goal.
In 1896 the original subscribers surrendered their stock and Con- verse College was incorporated with a self-perpetuating board of trustees, the act of incorporation including the following names : D. Edgar Converse, John B. Cleveland, Joseph Walker, John H. Mont- gomery, David R. Duncan, Newton F. Walker, William S. Manning, Wilbur E. Burnett, Albert H. Twichell, John Earle Bomar, H. Ar- thur Ligon, Benjamin F. Wilson.
The endowment of the college grew steadily, the bequest of D. E. Converse in 1899 adding to it $600,000. In 1902, after twelve years of service, B. F. Wilson resigned the presidency of Converse College, and was succeeded by Robert P. Pell, whose presidency continued through thirty years of constantly increasing prosperity. President Pell's ideal, like that of Wilson, was to build up a college second to none in academic character and prestige. In 1908 the entrance re- quirements were raised from eight to twelve units, and the curriculum was greatly enriched. This was the year, too, when self-government was instituted. During the succeeding years Converse College achieved a position among the leading colleges of the country, building up its plant and endowment through the efforts of its alumnae and trustees, and with the assistance of the General Education Board and Andrew Carnegie, to a degree that secured for it membership in all the leading educational associations, literary and musical.
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Pioneer Work in The Textile Industrial Institute and the classes for Adult Education adult illiterates organized by Miss Julia Selden were the first undertakings of their sort in the State, their especial purpose being to provide educational advantages for those classes whom isola- tion or labor conditions had deprived of normal opportunities. Sep- tember 5, 1911, David English Camak, a Methodist preacher, opened "an elementary school for disadvantaged young people of the South." Several mill presidents gave Camak hearty cooperation in his plan that every student should work two weeks in a mill to earn his ex- penses, and devote an alternative two weeks to school. The students were thus enrolled in pairs, and exchanged places with each other in mill and school at the end of each two weeks. Twenty-five years later this school, begun in 1911 with a loan of $100 and a single stu- dent, reported "an enrollment of 352 young men and women from rural, urban, industrial, and mountain areas of eleven Southern States." The institution had become "a standard junior college where every student earns all, or approximately one-half of his or her ex- penses." The earnings of these students in 1937-38 amounted to $43,560. The school today has a campus of thirty-five acres and four stone buildings, besides several wooden structures.
In 1913 Miss Julia Selden of Spartanburg, recognizing the need for adult education, organized, with the cooperation of mill authori- ties and teachers, a number of night schools in mill villages. Teachers were paid $1.00 per night, and the expenses of these schools were defrayed by the mills. The next year other counties followed this example, and soon the State Federation of Women's Clubs asked the legislature to appoint an Illiteracy Commission. In 1918 Wil Lou Gray was employed by this commission, and she eventually created South Carolina's widely known Department of Adult Education.
Musical From the days of Singing Billy Walker and his "Normal History Schools," music was a dominant interest in Spartanburg life. The plain folk had their singing associations, the female schools stressed vocal and instrumental music, there were neighborhood bands in various communities, music was an essential feature of every public program. Christmas caroling was customary, and May Day was celebrated most usually with elaborate musical entertainments. Mus- ters and picnics always had bands. After the railroads were built the musicians of Spartanburg, Gaffney, and Union cooperated in
THE KENNEDY FREE LIBRARY, 1906
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WILSON BUILDING, CONVERSE COLLEGE, 1892
TEXTILE INSTITUTE, 1913
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ambitious presentations, and sometimes operated excursions to enable the music-lovers of one place to enjoy the production of another.
Esther and The Presbyterian choir, under the direction of A. H. Other Oratorios Twichell and Dr. Wm. T. Russell, who served re- spectively as organist and choir director for many years, seems to have been the first organization to present the popular oratorio, Esther, the Beautiful Queen, to a Spartanburg audience. The first rendition was made by "a choir of twelve ladies and gentlemen, ac- companied by the solemn notes of a fine organ presided over by a master hand," July 11, 1867, and was repeated in a few days, in response to popular demand. This oratorio probably had more ren- ditions in Spartanburg than any other musical work of equal length except The Messiah.
The first and second presentations were made for the organ fund. In November the same choir repeated Esther for the "church bell fund." In 1872 Esther was again sung for the benefit of a fund being raised to repair the steps of Wofford College. All of these performances took place in the courthouse, and the organ was moved each time. In June 1879, Esther was again presented, this time under the auspices of the Spartanburg Choral Union, with guest artists. This performance was so successful that it was repeated in Union two weeks later. By this time the number of performers had greatly increased, and rich oriental costumes, choruses, and appro- priate scenery were utilized to enhance the pleasure of auditors. The solos were rendered by outstanding musical amateurs from Green- ville, Spartanburg, Union, Limestone Springs, and Glendale. On June 2, 1880, a Greenville group presented Esther in the new Spar- tanburg Opera House for the benefit of the building fund of the Pres- byterian Church in Greenville. As late as November 30, 1893, the news columns of the Carolina Spartan reported that a Spartanburg group was to render the cantata Esther in Greenville.
Other oratorios and cantatas sung by local musicians in the eighties and nineties included Joseph in Bondage, Ruth, and Belshas- car. Operettas were also popular, for example Laila, Two Blind Beg- gars, and Little Red-Riding-Hood. In the Opera House music-lovers heard Clara Kellogg, the Boston Symphony Club in a Haydn pro- gram, and less famous traveling artists.
The Spartanburg The Carolina Spartan of August 6, 1879, recorded Choral Union the organization of the Spartanburg Choral Union.
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Its first officers were : President, J. A. Gamewell; Secretary-Treas- urer, W. E. Burnett ; Musical Director, Professor A. T. Peete. For several years this society-which was apparently exactly what its name implied, a combination of the choirs and music teachers of the town-dominated Spartanburg's musical life. In 1882 the Spartan- burg Choral Union was still active, holding weekly practices on Wed- nesday evening at the Piedmont Seminary, under the direction of Professor William L. Johnson. Probably the burning of the Semi- nary, late in 1882, broke up its activity, for it seems to have disinte- grated about this time. If so, it was soon to spring up again with renewed vigor and a new name.
The Spartanburg Musical Association In March 1884, through the joint efforts of Professor D. A. DuPre of Wofford College and Mrs. George Cofield, an organization was perfected and named the Spartanburg Musical Association. The first meeting was held in Mrs. Cofield's home ; D. A. DuPre was elected president ; and W. L. Johnson was made director. The first annual concert was given in May 1885, and this was followed by another the next May. This Association had a large membership and an abundance of musical talent, and always drew very large and cultivated audiences. It made a practice of giving annual concerts and took the lead in all the town's musical activities.
The South Atlantic States Musical Festival When Converse College was established in 1889, it entered upon a rich heritage of musical culture ; and no other of its contributions to the development of the city, and in fact of the whole Southeast, has sur- passed in importance its varied musical program. Its first music teachers and pupils formed an organization, which they named the Mozart Choral Club. The second director of music at Converse Col- lege, R. H. Peters, was a brilliant young Englishman, a doctor of music, Fellow of the Guild of Organists, and Associate of the Royal College of Organists, London, England. In 1895, under the guidance of this accomplished musician and with the assistance of A. H. Twichell, himself a skilled amateur organist and successful financier, an annual "Festival of Music," the first of its kind in the Southeast, was begun. The Spartanburg Musical Association gave up its iden- tity, and its members united with members of the Mozart Club to form the Converse College Choral Society, which inaugurated the annual music festival on a modest basis in 1895.
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The success of such an undertaking required united community support. The business men responded cordially to the request for financial aid by forming a list of guarantors. The musicians of the town joined the Choral Society and practiced faithfully throughout the year, so that each spring Spartanburg had trained choruses of from one hundred and fifty to one thousand voices-the number vary- ing in different years-eager to contribute their part to the festival program.
The program early took a pattern which was adhered to for thirty-two years-with two years of omission during the World War. The promoters of this ambitious project named their undertaking The South Atlantic States Music Festival, and built up, throughout the Southeast, a large patronage, which after its first few years taxed to their limit the city's private and public facilities for hospitality. The Festival was held preferably the first week of May-sometimes earlier or later-and there were five concerts. Wednesday evening was designated as Choral Night, and the programs included such works as Mendelssohn's Hymn of Praise, Haydn's Creation, Handel's Elijah, and Messiah, or light operas, in which the solo parts were sung by professional artists and the accompaniments were played by visit- ing orchestras, while the locally trained choruses bore the main burden of the program. Some numbers on each year's choral concert were largely determined by local preferences, often influenced by world- wide musical interest in special celebrations. Thursday afternoon was always devoted to a symphony concert, in which one or more distinguished soloists appeared with the orchestra. Thursday evening there was an opera, which was rendered without stage effects, but with Metropolitan soloists and full orchestral and choral accompani- ment. Friday afternoon, in the early years, was given over to a popular concert mainly for children, and became, from 1913, a concert in which the Spartanburg Children's Festival Chorus was the out- standing feature. The climax of the Festival was reached in the Friday night concert-Artists' Night-when such preeminent artists as Homer, Schumann-Heink, Mary Garden, Farrar, Tetrazzini, Gadski, Hempel, Gigli, Nordica, Ponselle, Bonelli, Case, Braslau, Bori, Alda, Martinelli, and Easton appeared on the programs.
The usual practice was to employ for each season an orchestra of national reputation and ten or more professional artists of high rank as soloists, and to train local singers and performers to partici-
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pate in choral parts of the programs. After some years the festival became known as the Spartanburg Music Festival. Its last program after the old pattern was presented May 4, 5, 6, 1927 ; for the under- current of financial strain, the competition from other cities which were emulating Spartanburg's musical activities, and the increasing number of conflicting interests, all led in 1928 to a modification of the usual routine.
The Changed Festival of 1928 Probably the determining factor in bringing about a change in the nature of the Festival was the de- sire of the entire community to give first place in the 1928 program to a fit celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the presidency of Robert Paine Pell, of Converse College. President Pell was un- willing that the Festival be abandoned, and he suggested combining it with the special commencement program, eliminating one of the concerts. This suggestion was adopted, and the Festival in its thirty- third year was an especially brilliant one.
The Festival of 1930 brought a thrill to the community because on its programs appeared as a professional artist Lily Strickland, who was one of the alumnae of Converse College. With that year an era in Spartanburg's history ended, for that was the last Festival of its kind. Spartanburg's social world had for thirty years shaped its plans and activities about "Festival Week." Hotels, boarding houses, pri- vate homes, were all crowded with music-lovers-invited kin, social visitors, paying guests. Plans for luncheons, dinners, suppers, dances, costumes absorbed fashionable attention for weeks beforehand. Nothing in Spartanburg's community life has replaced that brilliant Festival Week.
The New In 1939 Dean Ernst Bacon of the Converse School of Festival Music, with the approval and cooperation of President Edward M. Gwathmey, undertook a "New Festival," which appeals to music-lovers from a new angle. Instead of transporting to Spar- tanburg the leading artists of the world, as was the old goal, the New Festival presents local artists and provides music-lovers an oppor- tunity to present and hear compositions of local origin. Another phase of the New Festival is the integration of dramatic and other esthetic elements in its programs. The programs include a chamber music concert, a musical drama or opera, and a concert made up of piano, vocal, and symphony numbers.
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In certain aspects, this undertaking is a more ambitious one than was its prototype, but the Converse School of Music today is more nearly adequate to such an undertaking and the local talent available is more encouraging than in the earlier days; for this institution has attained a position of commanding influence in the musical world and now gives the bachelor's and the master's degree in music. The compositions of Dean-Emeritus N. Irving Hyatt are known and used in many schools of music, as are also the songs of Lily Strick- land. Converse graduates command recognition from the best of the great musical foundations, and many of them have been awarded valuable scholarships. The monthly student recitals are enjoyable, and the occasional faculty recitals have the technical and artistic ex- cellence of professional performances.
Music in the Spartanburg Schools
Sight-singing was a part of the grammar grade curriculum in the city schools from 1886, and for many years the high school pupils had glee clubs and orchestras among their extra-curricular activities. The Children's Chorus was organized by Miss Carrie McMakin, supervisor of music in the Spar- tanburg City Schools, in 1913, and from that time sang in every Fes- tival. When the Festival was abandoned, the Children's Chorus continued, and still gives an annual concert, which always crowds to capacity the largest auditorium available. In the superintendent's annual report for 1925-1926, mention is made of a seventh grade boys' chorus, a band, a high school glee club, and a violin class. In 1937 music was introduced into the high school curriculum as an accredited subject. Vernon Bouknight, the first supervisor of music in the Spartanburg High Schools, presented his pupils in their first concert November 10, 1937. On November 10, 1938, the music department gave its first anniversary concert, participated in by the two hundred and fifty students who had elected music as a subject for credit. Two choruses, two orchestras, and two bands took part in the program, which was so balanced as to offer something that appealed to every taste. Already the crimson-and-black-uniformed Spartanburg High School Band is an essential feature in every civic celebration, and the annual concert of the high school music department vies in popular favor with that of the Children's Chorus, which is made up of pupils from the grammar schools.
Musical Organizations
Directly traceable to the influence of the Festival are three vigorous organizations : the Woman's Music
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Club, founded in 1905 ; the Spartanburg Children's Chorus, founded in 1913; the Male Chorus, organized in 1932.
The Woman's Music Club was formed almost entirely of gradu- ates from the Converse School of Music. Their main objective was self-improvement, and they took two very definite means of achieving their goal: by undertaking systematic study courses and programs, and by cooperating with Converse College in establishing a series of winter concerts, which were designed to supplement the festival. So successful was this organization that others similar to it were formed, and now there are in Spartanburg many cooperating music clubs, besides a number of junior clubs, which are under the guidance and sponsorship of committees appointed by the older music clubs.
The Male Chorus, founded by Wilson Price in 1932 and directed by him ever since, has won an enviable reputation and has given con- certs in many Carolina towns besides Spartanburg. Wilson Price lays stress on developing and fostering public appreciation of, and participation in, group singing. The Male Chorus has led to the dis- covery and development of several solo voices of concert quality. In 1936 a group of civic-minded music-lovers organized a Civic Music Association, with the purpose of reviving some at least of the values lost by the discontinuance of the Festival. Public support has justified this undertaking.
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