Education and the evolution of the South : a history of the Berry Schools, 1902-1970

The history of the Berry Schools parallels important social and educational changes in the South throughout the twentieth century. In its first forty years, the school embraced a philosophy similar to that of the Southern Education Movement, whose leaders advocated practical mechanical and agricultural training as a means to uplift the South, Also, the school strove to inculcate its rural students with the paternalistic, planter-class values of its founder, Martha Berry. The school did this by developing a work program which trained students in practical matters such as farming, animal husbandry, construction, and carpentry. The student work program also enabled Berry, a boarding school, to keep its operating expenses at a minimum. With the onset of the Depression and the designation of the South as the "number one" problem facing America, leaders at the Berry Schools found themselves struggling against a tide of change. Radical leftists, such as Don West, charged Berry exploited its students for their labor. Berry students began to balk at the restrictive social life policies. With Martha Berry's death in 1942, school officials found themselves facing enormous pressures both within and outside Berry. During the late-1940's and early-1950's, as educational expenditures in the South rose. Berry struggled to redefine itself before it became obsolete. Berry ran through a succession of presidents, looking for a successor to Martha Berry. The Berry Schools needed a leader who could resolve the conflict between those supporters who wanted to cling to Berry's traditional rural identified, work-oriented past and those who wanted to modernize the school to meet the demands of post-World War II America.