White female reformers, like Martha Berry and Julia Flisch, often linked their own desire for independence with the dissemination of educational opportunities to poor, white children in rural areas. Recognizing that public resources were often reserved for males and wealthier white communities, both Berry and Flisch advocated for a democratic distribution of state services with fairer systems of education that extended to females and white, working-class communities. From 1902 to 1926, Martha Berry deeded her own land and secured wealthy patrons to build a school system for the children of poor landowners and tenant farmers in the vicinity of Rome, Georgia; these efforts resulted in the creation of a Boys’ Industrial School, the Martha Berry School for Girls, and the Berry Junior College (now Berry College). As a journalist for the Augusta Chronicle, Julia Flisch used her public platform to critique Georgia’s educational system and advocate for white women’s pursuit of vocational and educational opportunities. Flisch became a driving force behind the state’s first female industrial college, the Georgia Normal and Industrial College (now Georgia College and State University), which opened in Milledgeville in 1891. Berry Schools and the Georgia Normal and Industrial College endeavored to prepare women and rural children for the demands of a new industrial age, training a modern workforce that would provide the foundation for Georgia’s future economic prosperity.

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