Identity area
Type of entity
Corporate body
Authorized form of name
Fort Valley Normal and Industrial School
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1895-1939
History/biography
Founded in 1895 by white and black community leaders, Fort Valley High and Industrial School was transferred to the control of The Episcopal Church in 1918 and was later renamed Fort Valley Normal and Industrial School (Fort Valley, Georgia), which operated as a two-year junior college. In 1939 Fort Valley Normal and Industrial School and the State Teachers and Agricultural College were combined by the State of Georgia to become part of the state’s university system.
Fort Valley was no longer expressly administered by the American Church Institute (ACI) after 1939 but the vast majority of its institutional appropriations continued to derive from ACI through at least 1959 and perhaps until the dissolution of ACI in 1967. The Dioceses of Atlanta and Georgia also contributed support to the college. In 1949 the school was designated as Georgia’s land-grant institution for African Americans. In 1966 a four-year liberal arts public college continued as Fort Valley State University.