This finding aid includes a file-level inventory of the collection and is subject to change if more materials are added. See the attached file.
In 1885, President Samuel T. Mitchell sought state aid to alleviate Wilberforce University’s financial burden. In March 1887, the Ohio House of Representatives passed a bill establishing the Combined Normal and Industrial Department at Wilberforce. This department offered vocational training to students. Its existence, however, led to a constant power struggle between the state and the church, which would continue into the 1950s.
Wilberforce’s persistent financial woes ensured the necessity for a continuing relationship between the university and the state. To generate capital, then President Gilbert H. Jones entered an arrangement in which the state paid the university to educate state students in subjects for which the Normal Department offered no courses. Since its creation, however, the department had grown steadily, which correlated with the balance of power’s increasing shift towards the state.
Several bills were proposed, some of which were passed, to adjust the governance of the department. In 1923, a bill was passed to appoint a state-approved superintendent to the department. A 1939 bill increased the number of governor-appointed board members from five to six, also increasing their term limits from five years to six years. Wilberforce’s appointments remained at three, a number that included the president ex-officio. In May 1941, the state passed an amended bill that rebranded the Normal Department as the College of Education and Industrial Arts, establishing the foundation for the college’s eventual separation.
Charles H. Wesley served as the president of Wilberforce University from 1942 to 1947. He was dismissed from this position on 11 June 1947 by the board of trustees. The following day, he announced the opening of a summer school that would operate as part of Wilberforce. This started what turned into nearly 10 years of periodic litigation between Wilberforce University and Wesley and the College of Education and Industrial Arts. The litigations’ concerns ranged from Wesley’s right to operate a school in Wilberforce’s name to whether said school was the legal owner of a building on the property, O’Neill Hall. The state consistently found in favor of the defendants. That is, Wesley and the college. The official separation between Wilberforce and the College of Education and Industrial Arts occurred in 1951. It was renamed Central State College, and Charles Wesley served as its first president.
Unless otherwise stated, all information came from the collection.
Bibliography
“Our History and Traditions.” Central State University. n.d. https://www.centralstate.edu/about-csu/our-history-and-traditions.