The Lucy Cobb Institute was a girls' school on Milledge Avenue in Athens, Georgia, United States. It was founded by Thomas R.R. Cobb, and named in honor of his daughter, who had died of scarlet fever[2] at age 14,[3] shortly before construction was completed and doors opened;[4] it was incorporated in 1859.[5] The cornerstone for the Seney-Stovall Chapel was laid in May 1882,[6] and the octagonal building was dedicated in 1885.[7] The school closed in 1931.
In 1854, a piece called "The Education of Our Girls" ran in a local paper, the Athens Watchman.[8] The letter was written by Laura Cobb (Mrs. Williams) Rutherford,[9] who was "writing from a ladylike modesty" about the poor state of education for women in the South.[10] It was signed "Mother" and argued, "girls have the same intellectual constitution as men and have the same right as men to intellectual cultural development".[7] One of the letter's readers was Mrs. Rutherford's brother, Thomas R.R. Cobb, the father of several daughters.[7] Cobb, a lawyer,[10][11] was completely unaware of the author's identity[8] and after reading the editorial began raising funds for a girls' school.[7]
The trustees purchased eight acres of land on what is now known as Milledge Avenue.[11] When the school opened on January 10, 1859, its first principal was R. M. Wright.[8][11] (It was in April of this same year the Watkinsville Road acquired its present name of Milledge Avenue.)[12] The school was later headed by Madame Sosnowski (who organized the Home School after leaving the Lucy Cobb Institute).[8]
Mildred Lewis Rutherford, or "Miss Millie", a graduate herself of Lucy Cobb Institute,[13]
took over leadership of the school in 1880. The Georgia Writers' Project, in a 1940 publication on the state published in the American Guide Series, characterized her thusly:
'Miss Millie,' always a champion of southern traditions, was a woman of powerful personality, commanding presence, and fearlessly outspoken opinions; she was known widely for the speeches she delivered in hoop skirts.[10]
It was Miss Millie who decided the girls needed a chapel and had them write seeking funding for one. In 1881, Nellie Stovall wrote "a beautiful and girlish letter"[14]toGeorge I. Seney, who responded with the funding for the $10,000 structure, an octagonal red brick building called the Seney-Stovall Chapel.[4][6] It was designed by a local architect William Winstead Thomas.[15]
When Miss Millie stepped down from the role of principal in 1895, she was replaced at the school's helm by her sister, Mrs. M.A. Lipscomb.[8] Rutherford and Lipscomb were nieces of T.R.R. Cobb.[14]
Although the institute "became a well-known girls' preparatory school",[2] "praised throughout the South for its emphasis on gentle manners and old-fashioned accomplishments",[10] it "did not survive the depression",[2] and closed its doors in 1931.[6] At that point, the University of Georgia took over its campus, and used the main building as a women's dormitory and eventually storage.[2]
A restoration effort to save the complex was completed in 1997 with the renovation of Seney-Stovall Chapel.[16] The former Lucy Cobb Institute became the home of the Carl Vinson Institute of Government.[6][16]
^Hynds, Ernest (1974). Antebellum Athens and Clarke County Georgia. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. p. 48. ISBN0-8203-0341-0.
^Rutherford, Mildred Lewis (2000) [1923]. "Life Sketch of Miss Mildred Rutherford". In Unknown (ed.). History of Athens & Clarke County, Georgia. Athens, Georgia; Greenville, South Carolina: H.J. Rowe (original), Southern Historical Press, Inc. (reprint with new material). pp. 105–107. ISBN0-89308-412-3.
