Month: December 2017

University of South Carolina

This post is part of the APUSH Gameday series.

University of South Carolina “Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros”   (Learning humanizes character and does not permit it to be cruel)

The University was founded as South Carolina College on December 19, 1801, by an act of the South Carolina General Assembly initiated by Governor John Drayton in an effort to promote harmony between the Lowcountry and the Backcountry. On January 10, 1805, having an initial enrollment of nine students, the college commenced classes with a traditional classical curriculum. The first president was the Baptist minister and theologian Reverend Jonathan Maxcy. He was an alumnus of Brown University, with an honorary degree from Harvard University. Before coming to the college, Maxcy had served as the second president of Brown and the third president of Union College. Maxcy’s tenure lasted from 1804 through 1820.

The namesake town, Sumter, South Carolina, erected a memorial to Thomas Sumter (August 14, 1734 – June 1, 1832) a soldier in the Colony of Virginia militia; a brigadier general in the South Carolina militia during the American War of Independence, a planter, and a politician. After the United States gained independence, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives and to the United States Senate, where he served from 1801 to 1810, when he retired. Sumter was nicknamed the “Carolina Gamecock,” for his fierce fighting style against British soldiers after they burned down his house during the Revolution.

The town is dubbed “The Gamecock City” after his nickname. (“Gamecock” is one of the several traditional nicknames for a native of South Carolina.) The University of South Carolina’s official nickname is the “Fighting Gamecocks.” Since 1903 the college’s teams have been simply known as the “Gamecocks.”

Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, a fort planned after the War of 1812, was named for him. The fort is best known as the site upon which the shots initiating the American Civil War were fired, at the Battle of Fort Sumter.

Curriculum Connections: Mascot (Gamecocks) Sectional Issues, Thomas Sumter,  James Hammond (Alumni)

 

 

University of Kansas

This post is part of the APUSH Gameday series.

 

Image result for jayhawks

 

University of Kansas  “I shall see this great sight, why the bush does not burn”. (Exodus 3:3)

Founded March 21, 1865, the university was opened in 1866, under a charter granted by the Kansas State Legislature in 1864[ following enabling legislation passed in 1863 under the Kansas State Constitution, adopted two years after the 1861 admission of the former Kansas Territory as the 34th state into the Union following an internal civil war known as “Bleeding Kansas” during the 1850s.

The University of Kansas is home of the Jayhawk, a mythical bird with a fascinating history. Its origin is rooted in the historic struggles of Kansas settlers. The term “Jayhawk” was probably coined about 1848. Accounts of its use appeared from Illinois to Texas. The name combines two birds–the blue jay, a noisy, quarrelsome thing known to rob other nests, and the sparrow hawk, a stealthy hunter. The message here: Don’t turn your back on this bird.

During the 1850s, the Kansas Territory was filled with such Jayhawks. The area was a battleground between those wanting a state where slavery would be legal and those committed to a Free State. The factions looted, sacked, rustled cattle, stole horses, and otherwise attacked each other’s settlements. For a time, ruffians on both sides were called Jayhawkers. But the name stuck to the free staters. Lawrence, where KU would be founded, was a Free State stronghold.

During the Civil War, the Jayhawk’s ruffian image gave way to patriotic symbol. Kansas Governor Charles Robinson raised a regiment called the Independent Mounted Kansas Jayhawks. By war’s end, Jayhawks were synonymous with the impassioned people who made Kansas a Free State. In 1886, the bird appeared in a cheer–the famous Rock Chalk chant. When KU football players first took the field in 1890, it seemed only natural to call them Jayhawkers. How do you draw a Jayhawk? For years, that question stumped fans. Henry Maloy, a cartoonist for the student newspaper, drew a memorable version of the ‘hawk in 1912. He gave it shoes. Why? For kicking opponents, of course.

Stephen F. Austin State University

This post is part of the APUSH Gameday series.

Stephen F. Austin State University (SFA) Striving For Personal Excellence In Everything That We Do

 Stephen F. Austin is a public university located in east Texas.  Founded as a teachers’ college in 1923, the university was named after one of Texas’s founding fathers, Stephen F. Austin. Its campus resides on part of the homestead of Thomas Jefferson Rusk. Stephen F. Austin is one of four independent public universities in Texas (i.e., those not affiliated with one of Texas’s six university systems).

Curriculum Connections: Founder named after Texas founding father Stephen F. Austin; Migration to Texas 1820’s

 

M.A.P out Manifest Destiny

Manifest Destiny – An Expression of Our National Spirit [1848 to 1852]
Manifest Destiny, one of the most influential ideologies in American history, serves as the
justification for the nation’s territorial expansion in the antebellum era.

Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze - Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way (1)

In the 19th century, manifest destiny was a widely held belief in the United States that its settlers were destined to expand across North America to redeem and remake the west in the image of agrarian America

Mobility –  both physical and socio-economic

Availability –   of federal land grants

Possibility –  of starting a new life