Pulling the Institution Forward: The 1893 Student Rebellion at Indiana State Normal School

ABSTRACT: In 1893 a student protest arose at Indiana State Normal School (the future Indiana State University) in Terre Haute, Indiana, over the dismissal of a popular professor. Daniel A. Clark examines the circumstances and background of this rare outburst and the demands of the protesters in order to illuminate the mounting pressure students placed on normal schools to expand their curricular offerings and move in a more collegiate direction. Such student demands reflected a growing sentiment among a new middle class of Americans, who viewed college education as a distinct rite of passage. The lower-middle-class clientele of Indiana State Normal School reflected this outlook through their protests. These protests, in turn, spurred the school’s administration to move emphatically in the direction of reform, introducing “majors” and organizing extracurricular sports and Greekletter societies. The 1893 student rebellion at Indiana State Normal School demonstrates the subtle but profound power of the movement to reform higher education in a rapidly changing nation.