It can be helpful to have an overall understanding of key moments in Berry's history. A visit to Oak Hill can be an exciting way to learn about our rich history.
You can use these books to find background information and identify primary sources.
Berry College
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Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005.
The most detailed and comprehensive history to date of Berry College. Ranging from Berry's modest beginnings in 1902 as a trade school for rural Appalachian youth to its present-day standing among the Southeast's best liberal arts colleges, the book tells how Martha Berry's founding vision-to educate the head, the heart, and the hands-evolved to meet the challenges of each new generation. The photographs, many of them rarely seen before, capture happenings at Berry over its first century: preparations for the world wars, visits by renowned benefactors, student protests, expansions of campus facilities, and diverse aspects of daily life in and out of the classroom. Ouida Dickey and Doyle Mathis separate myth from fact as they address Berry's traditions, controversies, and triumphs and relate important developments at Berry to wider events in Georgia and Appalachia. As Berry graduates and career-long members of its faculty and staff, Dickey and Mathis themselves are part of the Berry tradition. Their meticulous research draws on a rich trove of documents to reveal a story that surpasses many of the familiar and beloved tales connected to the school. Berry's enviable standing-as a model for work-study colleges nationwide, as a place intimately tied to the cultural life of its region, as a choice recipient of philanthropy-makes this new book important to historians, scholars of higher education, and thousands of Berry students, faculty, and alumni.
Great for general Berry Schools history. Use the footnotes to find the primary source. You can find copies of this book on Course Reserve and in the Berry Collection.
Martha Berry Sketches of her Schools and College
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Atlanta: Wings Publishers, 2001.
You can find this book on Course Reserves and in the Berry Collection.
A History of the Berry Schools on the Mountain Campus
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At the dawn of the twentieth century, Martha Berry had a vision that a residential school for young men and women with limited educational opportunities would help break the cycle of poverty that pervaded the rural South. She began an educational experiment in northwest Georgia that unfolded during her lifetime and continues into the twenty-first century. This book tells the story of a part of that school--the high school that existed on the Mountain Campus at Berry for more than six decades. For the students who were educated there, the school was transformative. As one alumnus explained, the school had about it an intangible magic." Join author and Berry Academy alumna Jennifer Dickey as she captures the spirit of that school that today lives on in the "head, heart and hands" of its graduates."
You can find copies of this book on Course Reserve and in the Archives.
The Viking Tradition
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In 1902, Martha Berry founded the Industrial School for Boys to educate the children of the Southern Appalachian Mountains, and in 1909 the school admitted women. The institution grew from a mountain industrial school to a two-year college in its first twenty-four years, became a four-year college in 1930, and has since become one of the leading liberal arts colleges in the South. This volume portrays, in word and image, the role of sports at Berry College throughout its 100-year history. Situating athletics within the social and cultural life of the college, the book includes both intramural and intercollegiate sport, and traces the evolution of the Viking tradition as it both parallels and reflects the development of sport in the United States. The story begins with the recreational and leisure activities of the early years of the school and traces the continuation of the sporting spirit from the days of the "Silver and the Blue" through the post-war "Blue Jacket" tradition, and ends with the Viking years of the last four decades. Of notable interest in the book is the development of the women's sports program, which has brought four national titles to the college; the importance of soccer to the college; the well-rounded intercollegiate program, which currently fields teams in seven sports; and an excellent intramural program.
Helpful for athletic history. You can find copies in the Berry Collection and the Archives.
Berry College
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The history of Berry College is rooted in its musical culture and reflects an important part of Martha Berry's life and mission for her school. Located 60 miles north of Atlanta, Berry College began in 1902 as a small rural school, driven by Martha's desire to educate impoverished children and young adults in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Through tireless fund-raising and dedication, Berry School grew from its humble beginning into an exemplary four-year liberal arts college. As Martha Berry gained widespread notoriety for her work in education, the music program performed for such guests as Henry Ford, Emily Vanderbilt, Theodore Roosevelt, and other notable leaders in business and politics. By 1948, the school's unofficial motto was "Everybody Sings at Berry." With continued success over the last 60 years, Berry's musical groups continue to gain recognition as they perform locally, nationally, and internationally.
Helpful for music history. You can find copies in the Berry Collection and the Archives.
Great resource for architecture, building history, and identifying people for whom buildings are named. You can find a copy in the Berry Collection and the Archives.