Abandoned Rosenwald school in Alabama

Emory School - Tunstall School, Cedarville Alabama

Date added: July 27, 2023 Categories: Alabama School

Southwest corner looking northeast (1997)

Originally known as the Tunstall School, the Emory school building was constructed circa 1915 with funds provided by the Julius Rosenwald School Building Fund program. Members of the Tunstall family, a prominent wealthy white family in Hale County, donated land for the erection of the school. Research has not revealed why or when the school became known as the Emory School. According to records in the Rosenwald School Building Fund papers in Fisk University, the Emory School building cost $1,060.00 with the Julius Rosenwald Fund providing $300 to the total construction cost. African-Americans raised $550, the State of Alabama contributed $200, and the local white community contributed $10. The Emory School continued in use until 1960 when the students were consolidated with the Sawyerville school. Since the time the building was abandoned, it has been used as an agricultural storage facility.

The Emory School was constructed under the Julius Rosenwald School Building Fund program. From 1913 to 1937, the Julius Rosenwald School Building Fund helped finance over 5,358 school buildings, teacher's homes, and industrial buildings for African American education in fifteen Southern states. The Rosenwald School Building Fund represents a benchmark in the history of black education, representing the most important philanthropic force that came to aid of African Americans during the first half of the twentieth century. As a result of the Rosenwald Fund's initiatives, more black children went to school longer and with better-trained teachers in better-constructed and equipped schools. The school-building effort awakened the public school authorities and the general public to the need for more adequate educational provisions for African Americans. Remaining Rosenwald Schools, such as the Emory School, are the last remaining vestiges of one of the most important school building projects ever undertaken in the United States. They also reflect African Americans' pursuit of education and their struggle for educational opportunities in the segregated South.

As a Rosenwald-funded school, the Emory School was constructed according to designs and specifications supplied by W. A. Hazel and the Department of Architecture, Tuskegee Institute. Built according to Design #11 - A One Teacher School as found in Booker T. Washington's The Rural Negro School Fund and It's Relation to the Community, the Emory School building reflects the architectural plans and specifications provided by Tuskegee Institute to ensure the construction of a quality facility. The Julius Rosenwald School Building Fund was one of the most important and ambitious school building projects ever undertaken. Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald were determined to provide up-to-date educational facilities for African Americans. As such, these school buildings incorporated industrial rooms, libraries, cloakrooms, heating stoves, and folding doors between rooms so that facilities could be used as community centers. Plans dictated east/west orientation for maximization of natural light, window shades, sanitary privies, and interior paint schemes. So revolutionary were these mass-produced, standardized designs, that education officials soon began building white schools according to these plans as well. By 1928, one in five rural schools for blacks was a Rosenwald School. By the 1930s, these modern buildings had replaced thousands of old shanty schoolhouses. These school buildings set the standard not only in regard to schoolhouse architecture but they influenced the construction, architecture, and maintenance of other structures in rural and nearby areas.

Building Description

The Emory School, c. 1915, is a "one teacher" Rosenwald school building constructed according to Design No. 11-A One Teacher School as found in The Rural Negro School Building and It's Relation to the Community, published by Tuskegee Institute in 1913. W. A. Hazel drafted Design No. 11-A while teaching in the architecture department at Tuskegee Institute.

The one-story frame building rests on a foundation of brick piers. The exterior wall material is simple weatherboarding. The hipped roof is covered in standing seam metal and features two interior brick chimneys. As one would expect from a Rosenwald school, the building has an east-west orientation with the facade facing west.

The five-bay facade has a centrally placed, double-leaf entrance resting beneath a shed roof overhang supported by decorative brackets. Paired six over six double-hung sash windows are located in the first and fifth bay positions while small six-light windows are located on either side of the main entrance just beneath the roofline. The two-bay east elevation contains a single 6 over 6 double hung sash window and a band of six 9 over 9 double hung sash windows. The south elevation contains a band of four 9 over 9 double-hung sash windows while the north elevation contains two 9 over 9 double-hung sash windows. While many of the windows (including mullions and panes) are missing, enough remain to convey the historic fenestration.

The interior room arrangement adheres to the plan provided in Design No. 11, consisting of a large 32' x 23' classroom and 15'6" x 23' work or industrial room. The two rooms were originally divided by folding doors which have been removed. Five small rooms are located along the western wall of the school. The vestibule is centrally placed and is 10' x 5'. Cloakrooms, 5' x 8', flank the vestibule with one opening into the classroom and the other into the industrial room. A library, 10' x 8', is located in the northwest corner and opens into the classroom. A kitchen, 10' x 8', is located in the southeast corner of the building. Folding doors separate the kitchen from the industrial room. The interior walls and ceiling are covered with beaded board. The school does not retain any of its original furnishings, desks, blackboards, or window shades.