Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry
Map it!
Print
J. L. M. CurryJ. L. M. Curry (1825-1903) was an Alabama political leader who prior to the Civil War was a strong supporter of states' rights and secession. After 1865 he became a zealous advocate of national unity and universal education. As an agent for various
philanthropic education organizations, Curry worked to promote public school systems and industrial and vocation training
for both blacks and whites. Thanks in part to his efforts, normal schools and grade schools sprang up throughout the South.
The son of planter William Curry, Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry was born on June 5, 1825, on his father's plantation in Lincoln County, Georgia. The family moved to Kelley Springs, in Talladega County, Alabama, in 1837. Curry attended primarily coeducational private academies and then Franklin College (now the University of Georgia), graduating in 1843 as one of the most distinguished students in his class. From September 1843 to February 1845, Curry attended the Dane Law School of Harvard University and graduated with an LL.B. degree. He then attempted to serve as a sergeant in the Mexican War (1846-48), but his regiment was not accepted. He continued to read law, and was admitted to the bar. Curry practiced until 1850 when he lost interest in that career choice.
J. L. M. Curry 1860In 1847 he married Ann Bowie, whose family had moved to Alabama from Abbeville, South Carolina. The same year, he ran successfully
for the Alabama legislature and served there for a decade. Curry chaired the Committee on Internal Improvements, where he
championed funding of the state's roads and railroads and supported a bill to establish a public school system. In the early
1850s Curry bought his brother's plantation near Talledega and resumed his law practice. In 1857, Curry was elected to the
U.S. House of Representatives, where he served until 1861 and sought to limit federal powers to those specifically named in
the Constitution. He also worked to reduce the appropriations for many federal offices, opposed high tariffs, and defended
slavery and the right of secession.
Curry traveled to Maryland in December 1860 in an attempt to persuade state leaders to secede. He sat on the platform at the
Alabama Secession Convention in January 1861 and after secession was elected to the Confederate Congress, where he championed
tax restrictions and state autonomy and opposed the use of paper money. His largely anti-secession district defeated him for
reelection, and his term expired February 18, 1864. A member of the Home Guards, he joined General Joseph E. Johnston's Army
of Northern Virginia as 
Joseph E. Johnstonit retreated from Richmond toward Atlanta, and in October 1864, he served as Judge Advocate in the military courts in Atlanta
after which he was appointed a lieutenant colonel and given command of the Fifth Alabama Regiment. His forces engaged in numerous
skirmishes in Alabama until he left the army on April 17, 1865, after learning his wife had died. In October, he traveled
to Washington, D.C., and was pardoned by the federal government for his participation in the Confederacy, although he was
not allowed to run for political office until passage of a federal law in 1877.
Curry's religious zeal had grown during the war, and he often addressed religious gatherings. In November 1865, he presided
over the Alabama Baptist Convention and became president of Howard College (now Samford University) in Marion. He was ordained a Baptist minister in January 1866, and although he declined a number of pastorates, he gave more than 100
sermons during the year. In June 1867, he married Mary W. Thomas, daughter of a prominent Richmond businessman. Despairing
of raising funds for Howard College and disheartened by the pro-Unionist control of Alabama government, he accepted a professorship 
Howard College 1858at Richmond College in 1868. During the 1870s and 1880s Curry rebuffed numerous offers of positions from other prominent colleges
and churches. In his capacity as a professor, Curry met and befriended many educational leaders of the recently established
Peabody Education Fund, which was founded by philanthropist George Peabody to promote education among both blacks and whites
in the former Confederacy. When its General Agent, Dr. Barnas Sears, died in 1881, Curry was chosen to succeed him.
As the Peabody Fund's agent, Curry worked tirelessly to establish public school systems, develop teacher education programs,
and include African-Americans in the educational system. He addressed numerous legislatures and other concerned bodies, traveling
17,000 miles in 1884 alone. In the fall of 1885, he was named as the U.S. representative to Spain as a political honor for
his work and strove to promote free trade. In 1888 he resigned and reassumed his role as agent for the Peabody Fund. In 1890
Curry also became the head of the Slater Fund, which was devoted to promoting industrial education for African Americans and
poor whites in the South. Former president Rutherford B. Hayes, a Harvard classmate, accompanied him on 
Rutherford B. Hayesvisits to southern schools in 1891. Curry realized public backing was essential for his work and strongly supported the Conferences
for Education in the South, which began in 1898. They played a role in the emergence in 1901 of the Southern Education Board,
which worked effectively to promote universal public education in the South. The same year, Curry became its first supervising
director. In 1902 Curry attended the meeting at which the General Education Board was created with an initial gift of one million dollars from northern industrialist
John D. Rockefeller.
In 1902 Curry served as a special envoy to Spain to celebrate the king's coming of age ceremony, although his ill health required that he be accompanied by a nurse. He died February 12, 1903, in Asheville, N.C., at his brother-in-law's home, and was buried in Richmond. Predeceased in death by three children, he was survived by his wife and a son, Major Manly Bowie Curry. Curry received much posthumous acclaim. He was chosen by Alabama as one of two people to be represented in the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall until November 2009, when the statue was relocated to Samford University, and in 1905 the University of Virginia established the Curry Memorial School of Education after the Peabody Fund donated $100,000 in his honor.
Additional Resources
Alderman, Edwin Anderson, and Armistead Churchill Gordon. J. L. M. Curry, A Biography. 1911. Reprint, Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger Publishing, 2006.
Chodes, John. Destroying the Republic: Jabez Curry and the Re-education of the Old South. New York: Algora, 2005.
Rice, Jessie Pearl. J. L. M. Curry: Southerner, Statesman, Educator. New York: King's Crown Press, 1949.
Hugh C. Bailey
Valdosta State University
Published May 1, 2007
Last updated April 2, 2010
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |