COLUMBUS, Miss.—Outside Callaway Hall on Mississippi University for Women’s campus sits a new historic land marker honoring the institution’s three founding women: Sallie Reneau, Olivia Hastings and Annie Coleman Peyton.
The university honored the women with a dedication and unveiled the historic marker on March 28 to celebrate Women’s History Month and 140 years of MUW.
Reneau was from Panola County, Miss., Peyton was from Hazlehurst, Miss., and Hastings was from Port Gibson, Miss. Before the Civil War ended in 1865, the women urged lawmakers to create a college for white women. But it took until 1884 for the Mississippi Legislature to pass the Martin Bill and create the Mississippi Industrial Institute and College for the Education of White Girls.
“During the 19th century, Sallie Reneau, Olivia Hastings, Annie Coleman Peyton challenged our community, state and nation to live up to one of our most basic truths: That women and men are created equally and deserve equal opportunities,” Mississippi School for Math and Science African American history teacher Chuck Yarborough said on March 28 at the unveiling ceremony.
The university would not accept Black women until 1966 and only began accepting men in 1982.
‘Mississippi Needed More Women to be Breadwinners’
In August 2021, Chuck Yarborough noted that the historic land marker about MUW itself on campus did not name any women. In fact, Lowndes County only had four markers that named women and six that named Black people. He then started a program with his students called MoreStory Monuments to tell the stories of women and Black people in Lowndes County by dedicating new historic land markers.
As part of the program, MUW dedicated the historic land marker to Sallie Reneau, Olivia Hastings and Annie Coleman Peyton. MUW history professor Erin Kempker guided her students as they researched the founding women and passed the research to MUW gallery director Beverly Joyce’s museum studies class to curate the “Trailblazing Women: Our Legacy” exhibition. It is the first installment in a series of galleries that will honor the women of MUW.
“The exhibition not only traces the efforts of each founder but also contextualizes their actions within the sociopolitical environment of 19th century Mississippi,” Joyce said at the March 28 unveiling.
MUW English and women’s studies professor Bridget Pieschel has worked to uncover and preserve the history of MUW’s founding. She said Hastings wanted the college to offer free job training for women, and Peyton and Reneau wanted a four-year collegiate curriculum that rivaled men’s colleges and universities in the Northeast U.S.
Pieschel said Hastings, Peyton and Reneau all attended private institutions for their education, but they fought for free public education for poor white women who needed to get good jobs and be financially independent. The Mississippi Industrial Institute and College for the Education of White Girls, the first taxpayer-funded women’s college in the U.S., opened in 1884. Each Mississippi county had an allotted number of “educable white girls” they could send to MUW each fall based on the number of white women in the county, she said.
“Mississippi needed more women to be breadwinners,” Pieschel said on March 28.
Upon graduation, the college would give the women an industrial certificate that showed they could do work “outside of the home,” she said. Some of the certificates the school offered included typing, stenography, furniture and wallpaper design, bookkeeping, printing, telegraphy and photography. Students also studied English, math, history, science, philosophy and foreign languages.
“Fewer than half of the early graduates would marry; they had other options,” Pieschel said.
New Beginnings and Endings
In 1920, the Mississippi Industrial Institute and College for the Education of White Girls became the Mississippi State College for Women, then in 1974, became the Mississippi University for Women as the school moved to a name that included women of color. A 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case also forced the university to allow men to attend.
This year, MUW has attempted two failed name changes as alumni and the public axed the idea of calling the school Brightwell University or Wynbridge State University of Mississippi. MUW President Nora Miller said in a March letter that the university is taking a “strategic pause” from the name-change discussion.
In March, a bill that would have merged MUW with Mississippi State University to create “The W at the Mississippi State University” failed in the Senate.
Bridget Pieschel said that MUW students and alumni are strong representatives of the university and have pushed for change throughout its 140-year history.
“We must be vigilant in making sure that our Legislature remembers our value as a university,” she said. “This is one of the reasons our alumni are such enthusiastic lobbyists for the W when our institutional independence is threatened.”
