From Every Stormy Wind That Blows: The Idea of Howard College and the Origins of Samford University S. Jonathan Bass. LSU Press, 2024.
Well-written history is about as close to time travel as most of us will experience. S. Jonathan Bass serves as a professor of history and is the historian for Samford University in Birmingham.
In his new book, From Every Stormy Wind That Blows, he gives the reader a journey into the past as he unfolds the story of the founding of Howard College.
Beginning in the 1820s, he paints the rich tapestry of the antebellum South with all the complexities of a rough and rural life, the painful reality of slavery and the budding of an educated elite seeking to bring understanding and Christian influence into the lives of young people.
Young men were the focus of a new college endeavor based in Marion, Alabama.
James Harvey DeVotie, a revivalist Baptist pastor originally from New York, was serving Siloam Baptist Church in Marion and saw the need for a men’s college that would emulate such successful women’s colleges as Marion Female Seminary and Judson Female Institute (p. 4). He, along with the new board of trustees and support from the Alabama Baptist State Convention, chose the name Howard College in honor of John Howard, a deceased British philanthropist.
Samuel Sterling Sherman, also originally from New England, was brought in to oversee the development of a distinctively Christian liberal arts curriculum. With the support of some local wealthy families, the new college got off to a modest start in 1842 (p. 33).
Sterling would become the first president of the college. Bass traces the ups and downs of Howard College through the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Bass describes the influential role of Col. James Murfee in rebuilding the school following the war. He explains its move to Birmingham in 1887 as the “Old South” of Marion gave way to the “New South” (p. 162). He recounts how in the 1890s, the first woman was admitted to the college (p. 265).
‘Fascinating detail of a bygone culture’
In 1957, the college moved from its old East Lake location to its current location. In 1965, it was renamed Samford University in honor of Frank P. Samford, a longtime trustee (p. 283).
S. Jonathan Bass has provided a volume of fascinating detail about a bygone culture that has left a legacy for our century.
It is more than the story of an institution; it is the unfolding narrative of Christian faithfulness through many generations.
Whether one is a graduate of Samford or simply interested in the history of Alabama and Alabama Baptists, this is a book that gives inspiration and appreciation for a heritage not to be forgotten.
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