Biography of Martha Berry

Martha Berry was born on October 7, 1866. Her parents moved to Rome in 1866, and her father started a store in downtown Rome. He was also a cotton factor, a person who buys cotton from a farmer and sends it off to be made into clothing. Her mother, Francis Berry, helped the children learn skills such as art, singing, and sewing. Her parents, Thomas and Francis, bought a house where Oak Hill now stands in 1871. There Martha Berry and her seven brothers and sisters and three adopted cousins lived.

Martha Berry started her school around 1900 when three boys from the nearby hills (foothills of the Appalachian mountains) visited her in her log cabin study. While talking with them, she realized they had no Sunday school to attend, so Martha started offering Sunday school classes in the log cabin. Students kept bringing more and more guests, so Martha Berry had to move her Sunday school to a community closer to her students. She moved her Sunday school to a place called Possum Trot. There she also started a day school where students would come and learn just as students go to schools today.

In 1902, Martha Berry decided to start a boarding school for the near-by farm boys. Her goal was to give them a basic education and teach them how to be better farmers. She hoped that after the boys finished school that they would go back to their farms and make them run more smoothly. Boys took classes in reading, writing, and math, but they also took classes that taught them how to be better farmers and use new equipment. In 1909, Martha Berry allowed girls to come to her school as well. The girls took some of the same classes as the boys, such as reading and writing, but they also took classes in sewing, weaving, and folk games. A folk game is a game that is distinctive to a particular area, such as a game that only you and your brothers and sisters play. By 1930, Martha Berry had started Berry College. Her goal was to give the mountain students a college education as well.

Martha Berry met many famous people who helped her fund her school. She received help from President Theodore Roosevelt, Henry and Clara Ford, and others. Martha was very grateful for the money she received. The money helped her school grow into a college.

Martha Berry also received several awards and honors for her work in education. She received eight honorary doctorates from University of Georgia (1920), University of North Carolina(1930), Bates College(1933), Berry College (1933), Ogelthorpe University (1935), Oberlin College (1936), and University of Wisconsin(1937). Berry also received numerous humanitarian awards, was presented to King George V and Queen Mary in England in 1934, was named one of the “America’s Twelve Greatest Women” by Good Housekeeping magazine in 1931, and had two World War II cargo ships posthumously named in her memory.

Martha Berry remained the director of the Berry Schools until her death in 1942. Today, Berry College remains as an example of her hard work and determination. About 2,000 students attend Berry College every year; and Berry’s campus is the largest in the world at 26,000 acres. For more information regarding the history of Berry College, click on the timeline icon.

Bibliography:

These are books that can be checked out in a library or purchased at the Oak Hill Gift Shop.

Berry Trails : An Historic and Contemporary Guide to Berry College . Mount Berry, GA: Berry College, 2001.

Dickey, Ouida and Doyle Mathis, ed. Martha Berry: Sketches of her Schools and College. Atlanta, GA: Wings Publishers, 2001.

Pendley, Evelyn Hoge. A Lady I Loved. Mount Berry, GA: Berry College, 1966.

Other items pertaining to Berry History can be found in the Berry College archives, located in Memorial Library. Please check out their website at for more information.