14 Facts About Martha Berry

Martha McChesney Berry was an American educator and the founder of Berry College in Rome, Georgia.

Martha Berry was born on October 7,1865, in Martha Berry Cove in Jackson County, Alabama, but her family relocated to Rome, Georgia, when she was an infant.

Miss Martha Berry grew up in this home along with her five sisters, two brothers, and three orphaned cousins.

Martha Berry attended the Edgeworth School, a finishing school in Baltimore, Maryland; it was the only formal education she received.

Martha Berry lived at Oak Hill for the remainder of her life.

The founding of the Martha Berry Schools was inspired by Martha Berry's desire to help the children of poor landowners and tenant farmers in Georgia who did not have access to quality education.

Martha Berry taught in an abandoned Possum Trot Church, which still stands on the Berry College campus.

The Sunday school classes eventually turned into day school activities, and Martha Berry opened a boarding facility for boys called Boys' Industrial School on January 13,1902.

Martha Berry's teachings focused on the "head, heart, and hands" of her students: The ability to learn, work and the will to do both well.

Martha Berry died in 1942 and the schools were faced with several years of transition.

Martha Berry College offers scholarships of various types to help its students pay for their education.

Martha Berry had many supporters during her lifetime, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew Carnegie, Ellen Louise Axson Wilson, and Henry Ford.

Educators have written that Martha Berry was responsible for the creation of work-study programs grounded in Christian faith that are found throughout the South.

Martha Berry certainly put her unique touch upon her school, centering on the maxim that "prayer changes things".