{{Short description|American girls' school in Monteagle, Tennessee, US}} {{other uses|Wichita State University#History}} {{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}} {{Infobox university | name = Fairmount College | image = | former_name = Fairmount Female College and Fairmount School for Girls | motto = | established = {{start date and age|1872}}&nbsp; | closed = <br/>{{end date and age|1918}} | type = Private college | president = | address = Fairmont and College Streets | city = Monteagle | state = Tennessee | country = United States | students = <!--Note the total number of students before closure.--> | mascot = | colors = | website = }} '''Fairmount College''' (1872 – 1917/18), also known as '''Fairmount Female College''' and '''Fairmount School for Girls,''' was an American private college for females. It was located at Fairmont{{efn|This street spelling appears correct from current maps, even though it differs slightly from the name of the college.}} and College Streets in Monteagle, Tennessee.<ref name="Anchora">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jwoTAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA125 |title=Anchora of Delta Gamma |date=1914 |volume=31 |page=125 |language=en |access-date=30 January 2024}} {{Source-attribution}}</ref>

==History== The institution was established in 1872 with the aid of John Moffatt, a Scottish-born temperance preacher and landowner.<ref name="Manning2011">{{cite book |last1=Manning |first1=Russ |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WT0UCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT18 |title=40 Hikes in Tennessee's South Cumberland: The True Story of the Kidnap and Escape of Four Climbers in Central Asia |date=1 December 2011 |publisher=Mountaineers Books |isbn=978-1-59485-402-6 |language=en |access-date=29 January 2024}}</ref> It was Moffat and business partner [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59c69c542278e73c826f3226/t/5a05f46f71c10b34e7a63463/1510339695667/MabeeHouseofMonteagle.pdf Oliver Maybee] who convinced Fairmount's first headmistresses, Louise Yerger and Harriet B. Kells,<ref name="Bratton1936">{{cite book |last1=Bratton |first1=Theodore DuBose |title=An Apostle of Reality: The Life and Thought of the Reverend William Porcher DuBose, S. T. D., D. C. L. A Series of Lectures on the DuBose Foundation, Delivered at the University of the South |date=1936 |publisher=Longmans, Green and Company |page=85 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xEZCAAAAIAAJ |access-date=29 January 2024 |language=en}}</ref> to move their girls' school from Jackson, Mississippi to Tennessee.

Silas McBee, who later gained fame as an author and architect, became the principal of Fairmount College in the late 1800s. McBee turned the school into a church institution that might be "for girls what Sewanee was for young men".

The school ceased operations in 1917/18.<ref name="Sewanee">{{cite web |title=Collection: Fairmount School for Girls Collection - ArchivesSpace Public Interface |url=https://archivesguides.sewanee.edu/repositories/5/resources/190 |website=archivesguides.sewanee.edu |access-date=29 January 2024}}</ref> In 1921, Reverend William Stirling Claiborne and Dr. Mercer P. Logan founded the DuBose Memorial Church Training School (later, DuBose Conference Center) on the school's former site.

Fairmount College's papers are held in the University Archives and Special Collections of Sewanee: The University of the South.<ref name="Sewanee" />

==Student activities== The school hosted an early chapter of Delta Gamma, a general sorority, and a chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi, a now-dormant general sorority.{{efn|Not to be confused with the business fraternity of the same name.}}

==Notable alumni== Among its students, in 1910, the school hosted two of the Soong sisters, one of whom later became Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the other, Soong Ching-ling, who married Sun Yat-sen.<ref name="southeasttennessee">{{cite web|title=Southeast Tennessee Tourist Association|url=http://www.southeasttennessee.com/www/docs/665.2722/church-training-school-in-monteagle-tennessee.htm|publisher=Southeast Tourist Tourist Association|accessdate=9 July 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111003123646/http://www.southeasttennessee.com/www/docs/665.2722/church-training-school-in-monteagle-tennessee.htm|archive-date=3 October 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Chitty1978">Chitty, Arthur and Elizabeth, ''Sewanee Sampler'', 1978, p. 106, {{ISBN|0-9627687-7-4}}</ref>

==Notes== {{notelist}}

==References== {{reflist|30em}}

Category:1872 establishments in Tennessee Category:1910s disestablishments in Tennessee Category:Monteagle, Tennessee Category:Girls' schools in Tennessee Category:Defunct girls' schools in the United States