Martha Berry and the Berry Schools

Martha Berry: Founder of the Berry Schools

Martha Berry’s life work centered on educating Appalachian mountain children so that they could progress in life.

Martha McChesney Berry was born on Turkey Town Plantation in Etowah County, Alabama on October 7, 1865. She was the second oldest daughter of Thomas and Frances Rhea Berry. In 1900, Martha began her Sunday schools and day schools in the Rome area, including one at Possum Trot, a one-room chapel up in the mountains.

On January 13, 1902, Berry established the Boys Industrial School, the start of a forty-year long project that would expand and evolve into today’s Berry College. The School for Boys began as a boarding school where boys with significant financial need came to work and learn. In 1909, Berry added the Martha Berry School for Girls. All of the schools were focused on Martha Berry’s ideal of educating the “Head, Heart and Hands” (education, faith, and work).

Martha Berry put enormous time and energy into the creation and support of her schools, travelling across the United States for fundraising. Friends and supporters included Henry and Clara Ford, presidents of the United States, Amelia Earhart, and many others. Throughout her life, Martha Berry was committed to a number of causes and organizations, and was presented with numerous awards and achievements. Martha Berry died on February 27, 1942 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Martha Berry Digital Archive

The Martha Berry Digital Archive (MBDA) Project initiated in fall 2010 with the aim of digitizing and exposing for public and scholarly use the complete set of documents housed within the Martha Berry Collection. The collection is freely available, interactive, and searchable educational resource designed to enable teachers, researchers, students, and members of the larger community to study and learn from it.

Go to MBDA | Information about the project

The Martha Berry Collection in the Berry College Archives

The Martha Berry papers contain office correspondence, subject files, a copy of Martha Berry's last will and testament, newspaper clippings about Martha Berry and the Berry Schools, and several manuscripts and speeches. The oldest materials are letters dating back to the beginning of the schools in 1902. The bulk of the collection dates from 1922-1941. The largest volume of material is office correspondence.

More about the collection | Information about the Archives

• Benson Ford Research Center at the Henry Ford Museum
  Martha Berry and Clara Bryant Ford maintined a regular correspondance; the Fords and the Ford Motor Company were benefactors of the Berry Schools. The Berry Schools Collections is primarily composed of a detached album of black and white photographs of Martha Berry, Berry School students, classroom activities, and the college campus. Other collections of interest include the David Lanier Lewis papers, Engineering Laboratory Office records, the Engineering Library Vertical File, and the General Personal records series. 
• Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, Emory University Libraries
  Related collections include the papers of journalist Mildred Seydell (columnist for theAtlanta Georgian 1924-1939 and editor and publisher of her own bi-weekly newspaper,The Think Tank, 1941-1947); the Harvey Warren Cox Papers; the Joyce Knight Blackburn Papers; the Susan Myrick Papers; and the Emily Woodward Papers. See the John A. Sibley Papers and the Robert Winship Woodruff Papers for the Sibley and Woodruff connection to the Berry Board of Trustees.
• Special Collections Libraries, University of Georgia Libraries
  Related collections include the David Lewis Earnest Photographic Collection and the Emily Woodward Papers.  
• Archival Records @ WorldCat