User:Mitzimorgan/sandbox

HISTORY

Indiana Fletcher Williams acquired her wealth from her father, Elijah Fletcher, who created Sweet Briar plantation. Fletcher was an educator who arrived in Virginia from Ludlow, Vermont in 1810 with a teaching degree from the University of Vermont. He was one of fifteen children from a poorer farming family who valued education, industry and hard work. During his lifetime, he amassed a large fortune from land speculation, banking and investing in the stock market; he owned a prosperous newspaper; and he became Mayor of Lynchburg twice.

Upon her death in 1900, Indiana Fletcher Williams willed the bulk of her estate to the purpose of "establishing and maintaining a school or seminary for the education of white girls and young women." In doing so, she and her late husband, James Henry Williams, were able to fulfill their desire to establish "a perpetual memorial for our deceased daughter, Daisy Williams," who died in 1884 at the age of 16. Mrs. Williams intended "the general scope and object of the school to impart to its students such education in sound learning, and such physical, moral and religious training as shall in the judgment of the directors best fit them useful members of society." When Sweet Briar opened in 1906, the directors built on the founder's intentions by seeking to combine the type of "collegiate instruction for women" found in the North at schools like Vassar, Smith and Bryn Mawr with the "industrial training" found in the "normal and industrial schools for girls" found in the South. "The intention of the directors [was] to combine harmoniously literary and scientific studies with thoroughly practical training in certain artistic and industrial branches of knowledge." Sweet Briar granted its first AB degrees in 1910. Its study abroad exchange program with the University of St. Andrews, Scotland was established in 1932, and the nationally renowned Junior Year in France program was begun in 1948.

At Sweet Briar, much of the 1960s was spent reinterpreting the will of Indiana Fletcher Williams in order to eliminate "white" from the charter and to comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Legal action began on August 17, 1964 when Sweet Briar filed a complaint with the Amherst County Circuit and ended on July 17, 1967 when a three-judge court in Charlottesville confirmed the permanence of a restraining order that prevented the racial restriction from being enforced. The first African American student was admitted to the college in September 1966.

Sweet Briar has demonstrated a robust academic reputation. During its first decade, Sweet Briar prepared many students for college-level work. From the onset, Sweet Briar's curriculum included "hands-on" or "practical" courses, as well as physical education, along with literary and scientific branches of study in accordance with Indiana Fletcher Williams' directive that the school produce "useful members of society." This was a forward looking approach that evolved into the current emphasis on students having direct access to their disciplines and gaining real-world experience, as well as classroom learning. In Sweet Briar's early days, this idea quickly gave way to a more traditional liberal arts curriculum.