37 Facts About Thornwell Jacobs

Thornwell Jacobs was a professor, historian, author, fundraiser, university founder, and Presbyterian minister.

Thornwell Jacobs earned degrees from Presbyterian College in South Carolina and the Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey.

Thornwell Jacobs wrote The Law of White Circle, a novel about mulattos set during the Atlanta race massacre of 1906.

Thornwell Jacobs conceived the Crypt of Civilization time capsule idea for a historic time collection of 1930s cultural objects sealed in a specially designed place on campus for people of the 82nd century to find to see how the people on Earth lived in the 20th century.

Thornwell Jacobs was later honored by his alma mater with the Doctor of Letters degree.

Thornwell Jacobs served as a Presbyterian pastor in Morganton, North Carolina, from 1900 to 1903.

In 1905, Thornwell Jacobs became involved in religious publications in Nashville, Tennessee.

Thornwell Jacobs visited Atlanta after the Atlanta Massacre race riots of September 1906 and then in Nashville wrote a novel based on it about the mulatto as a third race, The Law of White Circle.

In 1909, Thornwell Jacobs returned to Atlanta for a fundraising project to benefit the growth of Agnes Scott College.

Thornwell Jacobs planned to reestablish the old Oglethorpe University near Atlanta, where his grandfather, Ferdinand, had been a faculty member.

Thornwell Jacobs's grandfather had told him stories about the university's graduates; some were governors, some were poets, some were ministers, some were farmers, and some were merchants.

Thornwell Jacobs started the religious publication Westminster Magazine in 1911 which promoted the reestablishing of Oglethorpe University as a college again.

Thornwell Jacobs reopened the school of higher education and reestablished it from 1913 to 1916.

Thornwell Jacobs restored and rebuilt the old college from a fund he raised of $500,000.

Thornwell Jacobs became its president on January 21,1915, and continued in that position for nearly 30 years until 1944.

Thornwell Jacobs was able to get newspaper czar William Randolph Hearst to give a quarter of a million dollars cash and other donations to the university.

In 1939, Thornwell Jacobs set up an Exceptional Educational Experiment training for an 11-man "brain team" at Oglethorpe University.

Thornwell Jacobs selected young men from the top 10 percent of recent high school graduates for his intense university program.

Thornwell Jacobs predicted that they would learn at least four times as much as other students.

Thornwell Jacobs theorized that his students would go through the sum of available human knowledge much sooner, finding the task no harder than ordinary studies to ordinary students.

Thornwell Jacobs raised funds to finance the students through the six years involved.

Thornwell Jacobs explained that he entered a statewide contest for the scholarship in the summer following his high school graduation, and he earned high scores on a comprehensive set of exams.

Thornwell Jacobs was guaranteed room, board, and regular school fees if he would follow the experiment's rules.

Thornwell Jacobs remained in his room every evening, except Saturday, to prepare for the next day's lessons.

Thornwell Jacobs was told that the education he received would include every subject taught in the university and would take six years of study at 11 months a year.

Thornwell Jacobs was told that he would take twice the load of the average student and be expected to make grades of at least 90.

Thornwell Jacobs had received a four-year Bachelor of Arts degree.

In 1922, in the churchyard of the Cranham rectory in England, Thornwell Jacobs located the burial place of British General James Edward Oglethorpe, namesake of the old university.

Thornwell Jacobs made an effort to have his remains and those of the general's wife's moved to Atlanta where they were to be reburied in a tomb on the Oglethorpe campus, but there was opposition from Georgia organizations and English authorities that caused this to not come to fruition.

Thornwell Jacobs expressed a hope that the remains of Lord and Lady Oglethorpe could be moved to America in the future.

Thornwell Jacobs originated and conceived the Crypt of Civilization millennial idea for a historic time treasure trove of 1930s cultural objects sealed in a specially designed room at Oglethorpe University in 1935.

Thornwell Jacobs planned and designed the permanent storage space to preserve information of the early 20th century in the 1930s.

Thornwell Jacobs discussed this proposal in an article in Scientific American in November 1936, because he was astounded by the shortage of information on people that lived in communities and settlements that were established as a basis for nations and empires that came about later.

Thornwell Jacobs devised a plan to present a story of customs of humans on Earth and put it down in a detailed written design.

Thornwell Jacobs wanted to show the acquired knowledge of people, especially of the United States, up to the present time.

Thornwell Jacobs put Dr Thomas Kimmwood Peters in charge of the project in 1937 because of his experience as a scientist, photographer, and inventor.

Thornwell Jacobs is buried at the First Presbyterian Church cemetery in Clinton, South Carolina.