Berea College

[caption id="attachment_553" align="alignleft" width="300"]<img id="longdesc-return-553" class="size-medium wp-image-553" src="https://www.berea.edu/president/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2019/12/howard-hall-cupola-300x200.jpg" alt="Howard Hall Cupola" width="300" height="200" longdesc="https://www.berea.edu/president?longdesc=553&amp;referrer=552"> The Howard Hall cupola stands at the south end of Fee Glade.[/caption]

The Howard Hall cupola has been a fixture on Berea’s campus since that hall was taken down in 1971 after having served Berea students for more than 100 years.  As the first college dormitory in the South to house black and white men together, Howard Hall has a special place in history. It was named to honor General Oliver Otis Howard, a Civil War Union commander who later became the first Commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau and founder of Howard University in Washington, D.C.

After meeting Berea College founders John G. Fee and J.A.R. Rogers through the American Missionary Society, Howard led fundraising efforts to raise money to build the interracial dorm, a period picture of which is provided below. The U.S. Congress chartered Howard University the same year Howard Hall was built in Berea. Like Berea College, Howard University would be nonsectarian, interracial, and coeducational.

When Howard headed up the Freedmen’s Bureau, The Bureau provided scholarships for emancipated black men to attend Berea College. Howard Hall housed 89 men each academic term. What remains is the cupola, which until recently was placed on a brick plaza at the south end of Fee Glade where one also finds the memorial wall listing the name of every person who named Berea in their estate. The cupola serves as a symbol of the mission that has inspired people for generations.

Wanting to highlight this important symbol more, we are restoring it and moving it to a more prominent location.  We will also add signage to inform visitors of the place of Howard Hall and Gen. Howard in our history.   Though Howard Hall has been gone for a long time, the cupola reminds us of why we are all here.

For more on Howard Hall’s history, read about it in the <a href="https://magazine.berea.edu/article/building-for-a-vision">Berea College magazine</a>.

The following picture shows the hall with some residents standing around it.

&nbsp;

<img id="longdesc-return-554" class="alignnone  wp-image-554" src="https://www.berea.edu/president/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2019/12/Howard-Hall-Standing_1-300x231.jpg" alt="Howard Hall 1924" width="757" height="583" longdesc="https://www.berea.edu/president?longdesc=554&amp;referrer=552">

core/freeform

[caption id="attachment_553" align="alignleft" width="300"]<img id="longdesc-return-553" class="size-medium wp-image-553" src="https://www.berea.edu/president/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2019/12/howard-hall-cupola-300x200.jpg" alt="Howard Hall Cupola" width="300" height="200" longdesc="https://www.berea.edu/president?longdesc=553&amp;referrer=552" /> The Howard Hall cupola stands at the south end of Fee Glade.[/caption]

The Howard Hall cupola has been a fixture on Berea’s campus since that hall was taken down in 1971 after having served Berea students for more than 100 years.  As the first college dormitory in the South to house black and white men together, Howard Hall has a special place in history. It was named to honor General Oliver Otis Howard, a Civil War Union commander who later became the first Commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau and founder of Howard University in Washington, D.C.

After meeting Berea College founders John G. Fee and J.A.R. Rogers through the American Missionary Society, Howard led fundraising efforts to raise money to build the interracial dorm, a period picture of which is provided below. The U.S. Congress chartered Howard University the same year Howard Hall was built in Berea. Like Berea College, Howard University would be nonsectarian, interracial, and coeducational.

When Howard headed up the Freedmen’s Bureau, The Bureau provided scholarships for emancipated black men to attend Berea College. Howard Hall housed 89 men each academic term. What remains is the cupola, which until recently was placed on a brick plaza at the south end of Fee Glade where one also finds the memorial wall listing the name of every person who named Berea in their estate. The cupola serves as a symbol of the mission that has inspired people for generations.

Wanting to highlight this important symbol more, we are restoring it and moving it to a more prominent location.  We will also add signage to inform visitors of the place of Howard Hall and Gen. Howard in our history.   Though Howard Hall has been gone for a long time, the cupola reminds us of why we are all here.

For more on Howard Hall’s history, read about it in the <a href="https://magazine.berea.edu/article/building-for-a-vision">Berea College magazine</a>.

The following picture shows the hall with some residents standing around it.

&nbsp;

<img id="longdesc-return-554" class="alignnone  wp-image-554" src="https://www.berea.edu/president/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2019/12/Howard-Hall-Standing_1-300x231.jpg" alt="Howard Hall 1924" width="757" height="583" longdesc="https://www.berea.edu/president?longdesc=554&amp;referrer=552" />

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