| This dissertation explores the immediate and long-term effects of the Civil War on higher education in the United States. Drawing chiefly on evidence from seven colleges in all regions of the country, it identifies the role of the Civil War in the transformation of higher education during the late nineteenth century. It argues that the political and physical consequences of the war helped shape colleges' curricular offerings, admissions practices, and public roles.;The war's effects took two forms. First, it led the federal government to play a larger role in higher education. During and after the war, Congress passed a series of laws providing financial, human, and material resources for colleges offering certain types of curricula. It also, as part of a general expansion of the federal government, established the Bureau of Education to collect and disseminate information on education. Legislators hereby addressed perceived educational needs that had grown out of the war. For example, they encouraged the expansion of military education after witnessing the Union's unreadiness to fight a major war. Colleges modified their curricula and provided institutional data in response to these new federal policies.;The Civil War affected Southern colleges in additional ways. Some Southern colleges suffered physical damage, destruction, or takeover by the Union or Confederate army. Rampant inflation of the Confederate currency challenged both colleges and their students. After the war, the emancipation of four million African-American slaves and the politics of Reconstruction and Redemption forced colleges to redefine their constituencies. Therefore, much more changed at Southern colleges because of the war than at Northern ones. As they rebuilt themselves after the war, Southern colleges developed a new institutional form, the comprehensive university. These universities offered undergraduate professional and vocational courses in addition to the traditional classical curriculum. Colleges also, in response to economic and political conditions, began admitting students from lower wealth levels and, sometimes, African Americans. Especially in the South, the Civil War motivated college leaders and government officials to develop some of the major educational forms and practices of the twentieth century. |
