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Western University (Kansas) (1865–1943) was a historically black college (HBCU) established in 1865 as the Quindaro Freedman's School at Quindaro, Kansas after the Civil War. The earliest school for African Americans west of the Mississippi River, it was the only one to operate in the state of Kansas. In the first three decades of the 20th century, its music school was recognized nationally as one of the best. The Jackson Jubilee Singers toured from 1907-1940, and appeared on the Chautaqua circuit. Among the university's most notable alumni were several women who were influential music pioneers in the early 20th century, including Eva Jessye, who created her own choir and collaborated with major artists such as Virgil Thomson and George Gershwin in New York City. Nora Douglas Holt was a composer, music critic and performer who toured in Europe as well as the United States. Etta Moten Barnett became known for singing the lead in ''Porgy and Bess'' in revival and on tour. Expanded around the start of the 20th century with an industrial department modeled after Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute, the university served African Americans for several generations. It struggled financially during the Great Depression, as did many colleges, and finally closed in 1943. None of its buildings are still standing. ==History== The first classes of what became Western University were started by Eben Blachley in his home in 1862, who taught the children of freedmen. Most of the homesites of Quindaro were on the bluff; the port's commercial district was in the bottomland near the level of the Missouri River below the bluffs. The area of the Quindaro settlement was annexed by Kansas City in the early 20th century. The town had been started in 1856 by abolitionists, Wyandot, free blacks and settlers from the New England Emigrant Aid Company. The latter had come from Massachusetts and other northeast states to help Kansas become a free rather than slave state - a question to be settled by its voters. They started construction of buildings in January 1857 and a hundred were built in the first year. As a stop on the Underground Railroad, Quindaro absorbed escaped slaves before the Civil War and many contraband, especially from Missouri, during the war. After the war, a committee of white men in the community, former abolitionists, organized a school to educate freedmen who had resettled in Quindaro and the Kansas City area. In 1865 the committee registered their county charter for what they called Quindaro Freedman's School. In 1867 the state legislature approved funds for the school. In 1872 the state increased funding to establish a four-year normal school curriculum for the training of teachers. Charles Henry Langston, a prominent activist and politician (and the future grandfather of poet Langston Hughes), was named principal of the normal school.〔(Richard B. Sheridan, "Charles Henry Langston and the African American Struggle in Kansas" ), ''Kansas State History'', Winter 1999, p. 282, accessed 21 Dec 2008〕 Freedmen and blacks free before the war believed that education was key for advancement of their race. State financial difficulties caused it to reduce support following the Panic of 1873, and the school had to reduce its enrollment. Blachley continued to support it, bequeathing of land in the 1870s to help support the college that had developed from his first classes. In the 1880s, Exodusters and other migrants added significantly to the African-American population in Kansas. The college began to be active again. In the late 19th century, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Conference began to help provide financial support for the school. Quindaro added a theological course and constructed Ward Hall in 1891 to accommodate it; the hall was named after a bishop of the AME Church. In 1890 the expanded college's first African-American president was appointed. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Western University (Kansas)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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