In this period most of the correspondence deals with the formation of the Conference for Education in the South and the Southern Education Board, the planning of the annual meetings, and field research to determine priorities for improving southern schools. Much of the correspondence is either to or from H. B. Frissell, principal of Hampton Institute, Hampton, Va. He organized conferences, engaged speakers, and was very much involved in educational matters in his home state. Also present is the lettercopy book, 1902-1904, of Edgar Gardner Murphy (1869-1913), an Episcopal clergyman, who was at the time executive secretary of the Board. There is also scattered correspondence of Robert Ogden of New York City, the founder of the Ogden Movement and the Conference for Education in the South, concerning meetings and his annual trips accompanied by northern men and women of influence to view southern educational institutions. These were referred to as "Ogden Party Excursions".

The first official meeting of the Southern Education Board was held in Winston-Salem, N.C., in 1901. In 1902, the Southern Education Board formed a Bureau of Investigation, headed by Charles W. Dabney, then president of the University of Tennessee and later of the University of Cincinnati. The Bureau published a few issues of Southern Education (none are present in the papers) to document the problems of southern education. Also mentioned in 1902 is the founding of Peabody Teachers' College. Beginning in 1903, there are occasional letters about the importance of rural schools. There is more comment on racial issues in this section than in any other part of the correspondence, except George S. Dickerman's correspondence (see Series 9). Other significant events during this period include the arrival of Wickliffe Rose in 1905, after the resignation of H. B. Frissell, and George S. Dickerman's joining the Board in 1907 with the main responsibility for the organizing of the annual meetings. Other correspondents represented in the papers include George Foster Peabody and Edgar Gardner Murphy. Other subjects represented include the issue of women's education. State reports appearing in the form of letters include: Georgia (1905); Kentucky (1905); Tennessee (1906); and Texas (1908).

The volume of material jumps substantially beginning in 1910. The major part of the correspondence during this time deals with rural school development. Letters and reports from individual schools also begin to appear at this time. These include reports from women involved with School Improvement Associations, including Mrs. L. R. Dashiell and Virginia Moore, and from state supervisors of rural schools. (See also: Series 2.1. Schools, for reports from the supervisors; and Series 2.4. Other reports, for additional information on the School Improvement Associations.) Many of the letters were addressed to Wickliffe Rose, who was first an agent for the Peabody Educational Fund, 1907-1914, and then the executive secretary of the Southern Education Board, 1907-1913. The correspondence primarily discusses educational efforts and progress in the states.

During this time, rumors developed that the Peabody Education Fund would be dissolved, threatening a major loss of funding for the Southern Education Board. There are many letters concerning the Board's search for a new funding source, especially to pay women employees. The Fund's eventual dissolution was the first in a series of financial blows to the organization. The officers responded with a number of letters and reports detailing the success of the organization thus far.

Another topic that received much attention was the preparation for the yearly conferences. In particular, in 1913, there is much material regarding the coordination of the Richmond Conference, which was a mass meeting of farmers, businessmen, educators, clergymen, and others to discuss rural development and schools. Wickliffe Rose quit the organization in 1913, and A. P. Bourland took over most of the correspondence for the organization.

Toward the end of this period, discussions about the "country community" begin. The phrase "country community" was used to refer to the whole complex of community organizations in the rural South: church, school, family, and farm. Members of the Board and others feared the country community was deteriorating as people moved out of rural areas, and sought ways to bolster it. (See also: Series 2.2. Reports on Community Development.) Another topic of discussion was the possible merger of the Conference for Education in the South and the Southern Education Association. These topics dominate the correspondence over the next few years.

Other topics of significance reflected in the papers are: the first conference to include a session on the education of southern women, 1910; the beginning of an ongoing correspondence concerning the state of public education in Australia, 1911; the work of James Yadkin Joyner in North Carolina, 1911; and the movement to establish school libraries, 1912. State reports appear for: Alabama (1910); Arkansas (1912); Florida (1912); Georgia (1912); Kentucky (1912); Louisiana (1910, 1912); North Carolina (1910, 1912); Virginia (1912); and West Virginia (1909, 1912).

Robert Ogden, the leading force behind the Southern Education Board, died in the early fall of 1913. January 1914 saw the demise of the Peabody Fund. As a result of these and other crises, the Southern Education Board was formally dissolved in May 29, 1914. The remnants of its membership joined the General Education Board. During these years, the focus of the papers continues to be organizing the country community in the belief that education could not improve without community support. The correspondence indicates that the work of the Conference for Education in the South continued, with A. P. Bourland coordinating many committees to study various aspects of country life.

The Conference's annual meetings grew both in the number of attendees and in the scope of discussion. Meeting sites discussed during this period included: Louisville, Ky. (1914); Chattanooga, Tenn. (1915); and New Orleans, La. (1916). The focus of the Louisville meeting was on women's education. There is also material on the proposed merger between the Conference for Education in the South and the Southern Education Association, and on the idea of the Conference holding joint meetings with the Southern Sociological Congress. The correspondence indicates that the merger took place in 1915, with the two organizations forming the Southern Conference for Education and Industry. The new organization expended considerable effort trying to get back the $9,000.00 that the Southern Education Board had given to the General Education Board to pay for the supervision of rural schools.

After World War I, the correspondence chiefly concerns A. P. Bourland's struggle to keep the Conference and its work alive. Because of the distraction of the war and other factors, donations to the Conference dropped, and the organization continued to be in financial trouble. The members came up with the idea of associating with the Chautauqua in New York, an organization that sponsored educational and musical programs in the summer. The Chautauqua of the South, like the one in New York, combined educational programs and summer sessions with musical entertainment. Much correspondence concerns hiring of performers, selling tickets, and publicizing the program. After a few years, the New York group decided the program was not worth the expense and pulled out. Bourland fought to keep the Chautauqua of the South going as a music festival. The papers include exchanges between Bourland and others in which he sought to justify the Chautauqua's continuance.

By this point, many people in the Southern Conference for Education and Industry decided that mass meetings were no longer effective and wanted to trim the Conference down to a select group of men. Correspondence documents the formation of the Southern Educational Council and its transformation into the Southern Educational Society. Shortly thereafter, the Southern Educational Society affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Much of the correspondence for these years shows Bourland trying to recruit people to be members of the these combined groups and soliciting dues payments, organizing fund-raising projects, such as liquidating the Southern Education Board's stock of old publications, and pushing for the Southern Conference for Education and Industry to start a periodical. Throughout the period, Bourland tried to see the bright side of things, and considered every setback an opportunity for rebirth. Even Bourland gave up in 1921, however, and started looking for a new job. Included in the correspondence are letters of recommendation for him. Substantive correspondence ends in 1922, when Bourland got a job in the Extension Department at Winthrop College; 1924 and 1925 materials consist of two letters to Bourland thanking him for material on his work in South Carolina.

The material on schools is organized into three categories: information by state, reports of state supervisors, and files on specific types of schools or related educational issues. Included in the state files are completed report forms from state supervisors, essays about particular schools or state initiatives, statistics, and occasional maps. It should be noted that this material is in the form of reports to the Southern Education Board, General Education Board, and A. P. Bourland from state representatives. Of special note is a file on the Rock Hill School in South Carolina, an experimental farm school that the Southern Education Board considered a model in rural educational development. The states included are those considered to be part of the South. There are also materials on other areas, and a folder on unidentifiable locations.

The reports of state supervisors for rural schools are typed, formal statements to the Southern Education Board. Each state is covered in a few pages, the supervisor describing his activities and the progress in his state for that quarter. These reports are followed by some miscellaneous material related to the supervision of rural schools. See also Series 1.2-1.3 for reports written in the form of letters to Bourland or the Board.

In the third category in this series are materials on specific types of schools or education-related issues. In addition to some slight material on elementary and vocational schools, the collection includes information on high schools and higher education. There is also material on how the schools were financed, mostly information on taxes and levies in various states. This section is followed by miscellaneous materials.

This subseries includes a wide variety of materials with the theme of "community development." They have been organized as "reports," although this is a loose designation. The material includes programs for conferences; outlines of plans for organizing country communities; essays about various aspects of country life, including the church, recreation, women's roles; questionnaires, both blank forms and completed; and descriptions of community organization efforts in various places. (See also: Series 1.3. for notes on the "Oemulgee" communities and related topics.)

This subseries consists chiefly of information about the organizations themselves, and occasionally about specific projects. Included are descriptions of meetings, announcements and programs of conferences, outlines of projects, and statements of purpose. The reports of the Southern Education Board are summaries of their own work, most often prepared for presentation to the Russell Sage Foundation and other organizations.

This subseries includes reports, information, articles, statistics, and other items about various topics in which the Southern Education Board was interested. The material on agriculture includes the status of agricultural production in the various states, articles on how to produce various crops, and information on the rural credit movement. There is also material on African Americans, including reports on the state of African American education. Another subject of interest was a cooperative enterprise in Minnesota that the Board considered to be a good model. The focus on cooperatives coincides with the interest, reflected in the correspondence in Series 1, in strengthening the country community. Lastly, there is material containing compilations of various educational and agricultural statistics for the South. See also Series 6. Scrapbooks, for clippings about race issues; and Series 9. George S. Dickerman Papers, which deals at length with education for African Americans.

Miscellaneous volumes dealing with education and agriculture in the south.

Volumes contain clippings, programs, articles, and other material related to the annual meetings of the Conference for Education in the South, including the first meeting at Capon Springs and later mass meetings of farmers, women, businessmen, and others. There is also material about Robert Ogden's trips to the South.

Scrapbooks of clippings about African American education and related issues, including a paper by Booker T. Washington. See also: Series 2.4. Reports, Other, for additional information on African Americans, and Series 9, G. S. Dickerman's Papers, for correspondence regarding African American education.

Scrapbooks on miscellaneous social issues including eugenics, community organizing, economics, tenancy, and the visit of Prince Henry of Prussia.

George S. Dickerman (1843-1937) was field agent for the Southern Education Board, 1900-1906, and later for the John F. Slater Fund. His correspondence is largely concerned with routine Southern Education Board business, including planning and attending the yearly conferences, visits to various schools, and, after 1906, his duties as associate secretary. Much of the correspondence is with Robert C. Ogden, S. F. Venable, Charles D. McIver, George Foster Peabody, Edgar Gardner Murphy, and other prominent members of the Board.

Of particular interest are letters, beginning in 1901, from John R. Rogers, superintendent of schools for Washington County, Ga., discussing local conditions and his efforts to improve the lot of his African American teachers; letters concerning Winthrop Normal and Industrial College of Rock Hill, S.C., an experimental girls' school that taught dairying, horticulture, and floriculture; a letter, 21 March 1904, from S. W. Bennett of Charleston, S.C., describing the extent of property ownership among African American citizens; an extensive ongoing correspondence with A. W. Nicholson of Bettis Academy, Warwick, S.C., an independent African American school; a letter, 25 April 1907, from J. W. Beeson of Meridian Female College, Meridian, Miss., with a detailed description of the institution's educational philosophy and especially of its use of military drill for both sexes; and, in 1909, the beginning of a correspondence with James J. H. Gregory of Marblehead, Mass., which resulted in the formation of the Marblehead Libraries, a series of traveling libraries that were loaned to African American institutions. Throughout 1909 and 1910, there is correspondence with librarians and educators concerning books appropriate for inclusion in these traveling collections. Another of Dickerman's interests reflected in the correspondence was his encouragement of industrial and vocational educational programs.

The correspondence reveals that Dickerman resigned from his position with the John F. Slater Fund after it combined with the Jeanes Negro Rural School Fund in 1910. Afterwards, he apparently increased his writing activities, engaged in a correspondence with W. E. B. DuBois in the latter's capacity as editor of The Crisis, and became involved with a movement to distribute used library books in southern communities.

Lettercopy books of George S. Dickerman as a field agent for the Southern Education Board, beginning in 1900, and later for the John F. Slater Fund. Most of the volumes are handwritten, fragile, faded, and difficult to read. A major concern of Dickerman's was African American education, and a good deal of the correspondence deals with this and related issues. In 1904-1905 in particular, he was interested in medical education for African Americans and thereafter kept up an active exchange with various African American medical and nursing schools. Off and on there is material on the annual meetings of the Conference for Education in the South, particularly for 1901, 1906, and 1907, when Dickerman had an active role in the planning. In addition, Dickerman often wrote of publication, both of his own works and of the annual proceedings of the Conference. Scattered among the correspondence in the volumes are some of his writings, including "The Negro in Africa and America," "Industrial Progress in the South," a paper on wages and wage earners, and "Old Time Negro Education in the South". Finally, Dickerman kept in touch with schools across the South about their activities and progress. In his letters, he gave advice and encouragement, especially about fund raising. After 1907, as an agent for the Slater Fund, he corresponded with schools seeking grants. The correspondence includes vouchers for Slater funds and other material related to his job as the Fund's agent.