The Southern Education Board was established in 1901 as the executive branch of the Conference for Education in the South, which was founded after a series of meetings, 1898-1900, held at Capon Springs, W. Va. The Board worked primarily to promote education, especially rural education, in the South. It disbanded in 1914. Prominent Board members included Robert C. Ogden (1836-1913), pres.; Charles D. McIver (1860- 1908), sec.; George Foster Peabody (1852-1938), treas.; Edwin A. Alderman (1861-1931); William H. Baldwin (1863-1905); Wallace Buttrick (1853-1926); J.L.M. Curry (1825-1903); Charles W. Dabney (1855-1945); George Sherwood Dickerman (1843-1937); Hollis B. Frissell (1851-1917); H.H. Hanna; Walter Hines Page (1855-1918); and Albert Shaw (1857-1947). This collection consists of correspondence, reports, minutes, scrapbooks, and other papers of the Southern Education Board and related organizations concerning the promotion of public education and also of agriculture and rural community in the South in the early twentieth century. The early papers concern the annual meetings of the Conference for Education in the South and the work of the Southern Education Board in supporting the development of rural schools and communities. After 1914, the records also include material on the reorganization of the Conference and Southern Education Board and the activities of related organizations, including the Southern Conference for Education and Industry, the Southern Educational Association, and the Southern Education Society. There are reports on a wide variety of subjects, including rural conditions, education, African Americans, women, community, and other subjects. Also included are the papers of George Sherwood Dickerman, which relate particularly to African American education, 1900-1910.
