Though the university was found in 1884, there were still many administrative questions and gender and cultural differences that needed to be settled. For a while after the founding of the Industrial Institute and College, there was no clear system for educating the young women. Students and faculty were both "uncertain about what defined a full liberal education as well as what should be the ultimate goals of a liberally educated woman."1 Scholar Sheldon Kohn points out that even proponents for a female education could not define the reasons for it. Additionally, men and women were still unsure and suspicious about educating the female populous. One obstacle that presented itself was that "southern college women worried about the selfishness involved in pursing their own interests.’ There was often family conflict when parents ‘expected that their daughters’ lives would continue as before, even though they were going to college."2 As a result of this

doubt and uncertainty, as Kohn states, "advocates often couched their arguments in traditional terms: the goal was preparing women 'to become more effective wives, mothers, and teachers, enabling them to better fulfill the nineteenth-century ideal of true womanhood."3

 

This is true, especially for Annie Peyton. She was not a suffragist or a supporter of equal rights for women. Yet she was seen as a radical to some. In 1875, Dr. Edward H. Clarke of Harvard College wrote a study on the effects of education on the female body. In his study, he claimed bodies "mismanaged" due to the time devoted to learning would "retaliate upon their possessor with weakness and disease, as well of the mind as of the body," thus causing deformed or handicapped babies as well as a mentally unstable mother.4 It is much to assume that Peyton's stance on female rights were modest at best. This is shown in numerous personal letters and speeches she gave from the 1870s until 1891. In fact, in a letter Peyton wrote to Lela J. Cummings, a friend's daughter, on December 3rd, 1879, Peyton tried to convey her sentiments on the issue for a speech she was going to give at the Gentlemen of the Mississippi Conference. In the letter, Peyton scorns famous radical feminists and suffragists of the nineteenth century, citing them as "unwomanly":

 

"I want to say that we do not come before them as bold, masculine, unwomanly women—not as Susan B. Anthony or Victoria C. Woodhull clamoring for universal suffrage, or for social customs that would sap the virtue of society [viz. Free love doctrine] but as earnest, thoughtful, practical women, having an eye solely to the education of our sex, and the consequent advancement and elevation of the human race."5

 

Additionally, in a speech given to the Peyton Literary Society on October 16, 1891, Peyton maintains her stance on female inferiority:

 

"If I could speak with the tongues of men, or of angels, or even if I could talk as well as Ms. Edwards, I should be glad to make you an address, though as I am only an ordinary woman however, and like a majority of my sex, not given to much talking I shall have very little to say."6

 

Confusion and misdirection abounded in this early period and as a result the objective of female education did not truly come into fruition until the 1890's after a conflict during President Cocke's administration in which students advocated for the time of education they desired. Cocke, elected by trustees in 1888, was deemed unable to "command the admiration and respect of the pupils nor inspire them to higher standards of scholarship." In a petition written only by the students of I.I.&C.,  the women advocated for a "high standard State college, and [were] not willing to stand by and see their school degenerate into a mere sham."7 The students had officially stood up for their beliefs, and in conjunction with a failing education plan, Peyton pushed for a reformation of the school's policy.

 

Though this improvement upon the school was more readily cited as a result of the failing grades, the girls' petition for a better mode of scholarship was directly in line with Peyton's speeches of a state-funded, all female school from the 1870's. Additionally, this display of female power, at least in the educational realm, helped inspire many other female faction groups. On March 6, 1892, a request by Mrs. JM Stone, a member of the board of Lady Managers of Mississippi, requested Peyton's service to request appropriation by the Legislature to make an "exhibit of the women of Mississippi at the World's Fair."8 Peyton's push for a state female school not only sparked a more dominant voice in female students, but it had also provoked many other women into action for their causes. As Judge Edward Mayes said after Peyton's death, "How silently are laid the foundations of great events! How secretly are folded away the germs of great growths!"9

 

This enthusiasm toward female education did not mean that women were receiving a new level of respect amongst men, though. During the height of female involvement on the campus of I.I.&C, the students were being mocked by congressmen in the House of Representatives. A speech given by the Honorable John M. Allen on March 2, 1895, details the representatives' amusement at female education. After referring to I.I.&C as a "splendid industrial female college for the education of girls," the congressmen erupt in "great laughter" though no joke has been made.10 Still, eleven years after the founding of the school, female education was nothing more than a joke to numerous leading men in the Legislature.

 

 

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1 Sheldon Scott Kohn, The Literary and Intellectual Impact of Mississippi’s Industrial Institute and College, 1884-1920. PhD diss., Georgia State University, 2007. Accessed September 15, 2013. http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=english_diss, 16.

2 Kohn, 57.

3 Ibid., 19.

4 Edward H. Clarke. Sex in Education; Or, A Fair Chance For Girls. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1875. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18504/18504-h/18504-h.htm.

5 Letter from Annie Coleman Peyton to Lela J. Cummings, December 3, 1879. 15th folder, lot 441. The Peyton Collection. Mississippi University for Women Archives.

6 Speech to Peyton Literary Society, October 16, 1891. 30th folder, lot 441. The Peyton Collection. Mississippi University for Women Archives.

7 Sarah D. Neilson, The History of Mississippi State College for Women, 23-26.

8 Letter from Mrs. JM Stone to Annie Coleman Peyton, March 6, 1892. 31st folder, lot 441. The Peyton Collection. Mississippi University for Women Archives.

9 Biography of Annie Coleman Peyton by Judge Edward Mayes, no date. 38th folder, lot 441. The Peyton Collection. Mississippi University for Women Archives.

10 Speech by the Honorable John M. Allen, March 2, 1895. 33rd folder, lot 441. The Peyton Collection. Mississippi University for Women Archives.