Meta Chestnutt in Tennessee, 1886-1888

The previous post ended with a question: If Meta Chestnutt grew up in a liberal, "digressive" Disciples environment in North Carolina in the 1860s and 70s, why did she hold conservative, "anti" views as a young adult and for the rest of her life?

The most likely answer has everything to do with her time in Nashville, from 1886 until 1888. During her student days at the State Normal College, Chestnutt found herself in a thriving church environment. For example, she would have heard the the preaching and teaching of David Lipscomb (pictured here) and E. G. Sewell, co-editors of the anti-instrument and anti-society Gospel Advocate magazine, published from Nashville.

In 1870, Lipscomb realized he needed help in producing the Advocate. He asked Sewell to edit the magazine with him, and from that time until Lipscomb's death forty-seven years later, the two men worked together. Each was a powerful voice for the distinctive viewpoint of the emerging Churches of Christ. In addition to their teaching through the Advocate, the two leaders preached to thousands of people in Middle Tennessee and beyond. During those years, Sewell help to establish the Woodland Street Christian Church in East Nashville. He preached for the congregation for twelve years and for a time served as one of the church's elders. Lipscomb was also an active as a leader among Restoration Movement churches in and around Nashville. In 1891, he and James A. Harding would establish the Nashville Bible School, known today as Lipscomb University.[1] 

By the end of 1889, Lipscomb looked back over the past twenty years with pride: "In 1869 we had one church in Nashville with a membership of about 500. Now we have five churches and three promising missions with a membership of over 2,500 in the city."[2] The five congregations Lipscomb mentioned were the old first church, established in the mid-1820s, with its brand new building on Vine Street; North Nashville Christian Church (organized in 1882); Woodland Street in East Nashville (1883); and the Foster Street and South Nashville congregations, both established in 1887.[3]

Notes

[1] On David Lipscomb, see H. Leo Boles, Biographical Sketches of Gospel Preachers (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Company, 1932), 243-47; and Robert E. Hooper, "Lipscomb, David (1831-1917)," in Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, 480-82. On E. G. Sewell, see Boles, 238-42; and David H. Warren, "Sewell, Elisha Granville (1830-1924)," in ESCM, 680-681. See also David L. Little, "Gospel Advocate," in ESCM, 361-63. 

[2] "From the Papers," Gospel Advocate 31 no. 47 (November 20, 1889), 737.

[3] "History of the Christian Church in Nashville," Daily American (Nashville), (January 26, 1890), 10.

Stone-Campbell Churches in North Carolina and Meta Chestnutt

In his history of the Restoration Movement in North Carolina, Charles C. Ware reveals that during the decades following the Civil War, Disciples in the Tar Heel State did not side with the emerging Churches of Christ. That is to say, they did not oppose instrumental music in worship nor the various para-church organizations like the Disciples' American Christian Missionary Society. For example, in describing the opposite side of the division, Ware wrote:

An ultra conservative group of Disciples, who opposed use of musical instruments in the Churches, and the functioning of missionary societies in the Church, developed under the leadership of Tolbert Fanning and David Lipscomb, both of Tennessee. The strength of this group is mainly in Tennessee and Texas.  . . . They were aggressive in blighting effectually every church of Christ, where they could prevail. . . . The cause of liberal and progressive Christianity received many a hard blow from this source, and its growth was materially retarded.[1]

Clearly, then, Meta Chestnutt grew up among congregations that did not object to instruments in worship and that supported regional and national church societies. Yet, when she wrote to supporters of her mission in Minco in 1897, she set out correct a recent report about her.

I learn that my name has appeared as holding an office in some society. I hope I shall be permitted to state that I do not belong to any religious society of any name or order and never did; also that the Apostles constitute the board and Jesus Christ the President of the only  institution to which I belong, or to which I ever expect to belong.[2]

In addition to its classic anti-society statement, the same newsletter indicates that, among other topics, Chestnutt had recently led a Bible study with the title "Reasons for Discarding the Organ from Worship."[3] Not only anti-society, she was also anti-instrument. What had happened?

Notes

[1] Charles C. Ware, North Carolina Disciples of Christ: A History of Their Rise and Progress, and of Their Contribution to Their General Brotherhood (St. Louis: Christian Board of Education, 1927), 120-121.

[2] Meta Chestnutt, "1897," Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection, box 3, folder 35.

[3] Ibid.

Women Teachers on the American Frontier

Women teachers who went to the American frontier in the nineteenth century quickly gained a new identity. Often, they experienced a radical contrast between their status in the schools where they had trained compared to their newfound status in the West. Back east, a teacher in training was only one among many students, all of them striving to excel in their studies and to gain the approval of their professors. But in the West, a newly-minted teacher soon realized that she was the best-educated, most eloquent person in the community. For example, Asenath Hammond, a teacher from Maine who moved to Indiana, was surprised by her new and improved standing: "I never thought I was anything of a teacher until I came here and here they almost think I am perfection."[1]

Note

[1] Polly Welts Kaufman, Women Teachers on the Frontier (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984), 33.

Origins of the State Normal College of Tennessee

Founded in 1875, the State Normal College of Tennessee was the result of a post-Civil War gift from George Peabody. Born in Danvers (now Peabody), Massachusetts, in 1795, he became an incredibly-wealthy merchant and international financier. (His one-time junior partner was Junius Spencer Morgan, father of J. P. Morgan. In fact, the House of Morgan was successor to the firm built by George Peabody).[1] In 1837, he had moved to London, a center of world banking. Alarmed by reports and personal letters sent to him at the end of the war, Peabody established a fund designed to enable the American South to rebuild and develop its educational system. In a letter he wrote to a friend in February 1867, he said it was "the duty and privilege of the more favored and wealthy . . . to assist those who are less fortunate."[2] He called together a board of sixteen American leaders, two of whom were General Ulysses S. Grant and Admiral David G. Farragut, and entrusted to them $1 million. The proceeds of the endowment were to be used "for the promotion and encouragement of intellectual, moral, or industrial education among the young of the more destitute portion of the Southern and Southwestern States of our Union."[3] In time, the board would determine that this meant the eleven states of the former Confederacy plus West Virginia. 

Notes

[1] Paul K. Conkin, Peabody College, 103.

[2] Ibid., 104.

[3] Ibid.

Tennessee's State Normal College, 1880-1887

During the years just before Meta Chestnutt arrived in Nashville, the State Normal College went through two moments of crisis. Both episodes, as they turned out, effectively strengthened the school. The first related to the near-constant concern of many institutions of higher learning: money. Since the founding of the college in 1875, the State of Tennessee, impoverished as a result of the Civil War, contributed nothing to it. The college was able to survive only because the University of Nashville, its parent institution, provided the facilities and the Peabody Education Fund covered virtually all of the operating costs. Under those conditions, the school could subsist, but it could not thrive and grow. In 1880, President Eben Stearns (pictured here) and Barnas Sears, the general agent for the Peabody Education Fund, visited Georgia and considered an offer from state leaders to bring the school to either Athens or Atlanta. They promised that, unlike Tennessee, Georgia was willing and able to provide funding. Naturally, the prospect of moving the school to another state presented its own set of problems. But before any more plans could be made, wealthy residents of Nashville, alarmed by the news about a possible move, immediately contributed $4,000 and promised there would be more. Soon afterwards, in 1881, the Tennessee legislature appropriated $6,000 for the college with a pledge to support it in the future. The state kept its promise. In fact, from 1881 until 1905, the General Assembly appropriated $429,000 for the college. During the same time period, the Peabody Education Fund contributed something close to the same amount. As a result, the school was able to develop as never before.[1]

In 1883, several new graduates of the college appeared before the Tennessee State Board of Education. In a petition with seventeen separate complaints they criticized their alma mater, especially the leadership of Stearns. Many of the items on the petition echoed the grumblings of some of the school's professors: some of the faculty were insufficiently-trained; alumni and faculty were denied power to influence the direction of the school; and textbooks were too few and of poor quality. For his part, President Stearns refused to respond. He was able to remain quiet mainly because he had the confidence of the state board as well as the trustees of the Peabody Fund. And, many of the current students expressed their support for the administration. The crisis came and went. But this was partly because, until his presidency ended with his death in 1887, Stearns effectively addressed almost every point in the petition and increased the pace of needed change.[2] Consequently, when Chestnutt began her studies in Nashville, the State Normal College was better than it had ever been before.

Notes

[1] Paul K. Conkin, Peabody College: From a Frontier Academy to the Frontiers of Teaching and Learning (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2002), 122-25; Franklin Parker and Betty J. Parker, "Peabody Education Fund in Tennessee," in Tennessee Encyclopedia of History & Culture, ed. Carroll Van West (Nashville: Tennessee Historical Society, 1998), 725-26. 

[2] Conkin, Peabody College, 125-128.