In this exhibit you can learn about the new system of higher education created by the Morrill Act of 1862, which used proceeds from Native lands in the West to fund agricultural and mechanical colleges throughout the United States. By Kenny Barnes.
EXPANSION OF THE LAND-GRANT SYSTEM
On October 1, 1872, Addison Caldwell became the first student to enroll at the newly founded Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College. By the end of the month, the student body reached 43, and by the end of the first school year it was 132, a group far too large for the single Olin and Preston building to support. William Henry Ruffner, who now served as the state's first Superintendent of the public school system and on VAMC’s first governing board, wrote to the VA legislature, “What a pity it would be to see this promising... school checked in its usefulness for the want of necessary buildings!” In 1874, the Virginia legislature appropriated $45,000 for new buildings at the school. Two years later, in 1876, the first new academic building at Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical building opened its doors. In 1877, the legislature appropriated more funds to the school for the construction of housing for faculty and the president. When VAMC first opened it had just three professors. Charles Martin taught English, literature, and ancient languages. Gray Carroll instructed students in mathematics and modern languages and James H. Lane was responsible for chemistry, natural philosophy, and the school's military instruction.
At just 16 years of age, Addison Caldwell became the first student to enroll at VAMC on October 1, 1872. He and his brother walked 28 miles from their home in Craig County, VA to enroll at the newly founded Blacksburg school.
Photograph of the Preston and Olin Building, taken from Main Street, Blacksburg, sometime between 1900-1909.
Picture of the first academic building on VAMC's campus. Construction began in 1874 and was completed in 1876.
VAMC Faculty, 1878.
Cadets gather outside Barracks No. 1, now Lane Hall, in the early 1900s.
From VAMC’s beginnings, the school was committed to offering more than just an agricultural and mechanical education. The first governing board understood that in order to truly promote the well-being of the industrial class, it must offer instruction in liberal arts as well. At a meeting to decide VAMC’s curriculum, committee members agreed, “the spirit and tendency of the institution should be, not to educate its students away from their vocations...but to send them back with a fresh zest for their work, and a higher sense of dignity and its capabilities...Hence some liberal studies are needed for their training and liberalizing effect, as well as for the light they directly cast upon the path of the student.” The board did not agree on all curriculum, however. The 1870s and 1880s saw heated debates over the extent to which the school would organize around military instruction. Professor James H. Lane was the major proponent of military instruction, whereas the president, Charles Minor believed military instruction should be a secondary and optional facet of the curriculum. In March 1878, Minor and Lane’s disagreement climaxed in a fistfight at a faculty meeting. Lane earned the favor of the Board of Visitors, and Minor was removed from his position as President the following year. He was replaced by John Lee Buchanan, who with the Board of Visitors, reorganized the school along military lines. All students faced military discipline, lived in barracks on campus, and engaged in regular drill. To house all the students in barracks, enrollment dropped to just 50 students. This 1879 reorganization stayed in effect for much of VAMC’s early history. It wasn’t until 1924 that juniors and seniors had the option to attend school as civilians, 1964 for freshman and sophomores.
Federal funds proved vital to the success and growth of VAMC and other land grant institutions. An expansion of the Morrill Act, the 1887 Hatch Act granted an additional $15,000 annually directly to each land-grant college to fund research. Unlike the 1862 Act which required funds be used for instruction, the Hatch Act expanded the mission of land-grants by adding a research component. The Act required schools to establish Agricultural Experimentation Stations, which were tasked with engaging in applied research that would enhance the practical knowledge of farmers. Topics recommended by Congress included plant physiology and disease, soil analysis, and livestock breeding. Early research at VAMC’s station was led by Professor William Alwood, who had received professional training in Europe prior to coming to Blacksburg. Experiments were conducted on wheat, tomatoes, and fruit in VAMC’s newly established orchards, which included 119 varieties of apples and 56 types of strawberries.
William B. Alwood served on Virginia Tech's faculty from 1888-1904.
Virginia's Agricultural and Experiment Stations now number 11. Their locations are marked on the map above.
1862 vs 1890 Land Grant Schools
The next expansion of the 1862 act came three years later with the passage of the Morrill Act of 1890. This granted an additional $15,000 in annuity to states, which increased by $1,000 a year until it reached $25,000 in 1900. This additional funding was, “for the more complete endowment and support of colleges for the benefit of agriculture and mechanic arts,” and came with only one requirement: the funds must be equitably distributed to both white and Black students. The original Morrill Act of 1862 did not require that both Black and white citizens benefit from the funds, and as a result many Southern states still did not have an institute of higher education for African Americans. Rather than integrate their existing white institutions, many Southern states opted to establish a separate school for African Americans. These schools became known as the “Colleges of 1890”, and make up almost one fifth of all Historically Black Colleges (HBCUs) in the US today. Although many regard the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case as the landmark decision allowing legal segregation, the separate but equal doctrine had already been established with the Morrill Act of 1890. Virginia had already designated the African American Hampton Institute with land-grant status in 1872, and the additional 1890 funds were divided between Hampton and VAMC just like the 1862 funds: two-thirds went to VAMC and a third to Hampton Institute.
L.L. Davis, left, works in his food processing lab at Virginia Cooperative Extension. (1949)
These federal funds helped VAMC expand its curriculum and begin to more fully realize its Board’s initial goal of “promot[ing] the liberal as well as the practical education of the industrial class.” In reflection of this expansion of curriculum, VAMC’s name was changed to Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute (commonly VPI) by the VA legislature in 1896. In the following decades, Congress continued to increase the amount of federal support to land-grant colleges through additional acts. The Adams Act of 1906 granted each state’s Agricultural Experiment Station an additional $3,000 in annuity, which increased periodically until maxing out at $15,000, matching the original Hatch Act’s funding. The following year, the Nelson Amendment to the Agricultural Appropriations Act of 1907 brought even more federal funds to land-grant schools. With these new acts in effect, Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College and Polytechnic Institute was now receiving five pieces of annual federal funding.
By the 1910s, the mission of VPI and other land-grants included both instruction and research, but additional federal acts in the decade would expand their mission even further. In 1914, in seeking to link the land-grant college system with the US Department of Agriculture, Congress passed the Smith-Lever Act, which appropriated $10,000 annually to states which agreed to establish an extension program at their land-grant schools. The purpose of these extension divisions was to reach citizens who did not attend college and provide them with, “useful and practical information on subjects relating to agriculture and home economics.” Extension agents traveled to counties across the state sharing new agricultural information with local farmers. The US saw an early return on investment in this program, as the nation’s farmers' high level of production helped feed Americans and their allies in World War I. Land-grant colleges were now making an impact at an international level. By the 1940s, extension funding surpassed research funding. At mid-century, annual federal funding to higher education reached almost $50 million: $32 million to extension divisions, $12 for research, and $5 for instruction. In just a few decades, the mission of land-grant colleges had changed from exclusively teaching students, to reaching all of America’s farmers.
For VPI, the 20th century saw continued expansion and growth. In 1921, the first women were admitted and in 1953, the first African American. Although the school remained primarily focused on military instruction partnered with agricultural and mechanical curriculum, by the 1960s the school began offering degrees in English, History, and Political Science. By the end of the decade, the school was operating as a full fledged university, and in 1970, the Virginia General Assembly bestowed University status on VPI, giving it it’s formal name today, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
