Happy birthday, Vanderbilt

For discussion regarding the Vanderbilt Commodores' football program.

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BrentVU
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Happy birthday, Vanderbilt

Post by BrentVU »

It's been 150 years today since the Yankee robber baron got all magnanimous with a couple of Southern belles and provided the money to start a school. (HistoryBill, want to weigh in?)


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Re: Happy birthday, Vanderbilt

Post by FayetteDore »

Can't scamper or slither...but I used to swim.
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Re: Happy birthday, Vanderbilt

Post by historybill »

The important date was the night Holland McTyeire spent with him in New York, which probably would have been a couple of months before that official date.

As I learned when my book came out, and have learned many many times since, Vanderbilt University wants the story of their history to be told officially, and they really don't like it when anyone else tells it. Believe me.
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Re: Happy birthday, Vanderbilt

Post by BrentVU »

historybill wrote: Fri Mar 17, 2023 5:50 pm The important date was the night Holland McTyeire spent with him in New York, which probably would have been a couple of months before that official date.

As I learned when my book came out, and have learned many many times since, Vanderbilt University wants the story of their history to be told officially, and they really don't like it when anyone else tells it. Believe me.
It really is quite ironic when you think about how the school got started, and what it has developed into 150 years later... that's all I'll say.

But for those who never have read historybill's book titled "Chancellors, Commodores and Coeds: A History of Vanderbilt University", I recommend it highly.
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Re: Happy birthday, Vanderbilt

Post by BrentVU »

Vanderbilt has a new web page up devoted to its 150-year history...

https://www.vanderbilt.edu/150/

These pages on football and the stadium may be of particular interest to football fans...

https://www.vanderbilt.edu/150/150-stor ... -together/

https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2022/04/20/ ... -together/
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Re: Happy birthday, Vanderbilt

Post by historybill »

There are reasons the university wasn't comfortable with some of the revelations in my book. At the top of the list was what I wrote about Holland McTyeire -- who, to be honest, is really the founder of the university.

Before he was a bishop in the southern Methodist church, McTeire was the editor of the Christian Daily Advocate, which was the newspaper of the denomination. Believe it or not, at that time the Advocate was the most widely circulated newspaper printed in Tennessee.

When the Civil War broke out, McTyeire wrote an editorial which, shall we say, "hasn't aged well." Among other things he said that every southern man needed to arm himself to defeat the evil abolitionist Yankee; that God was on the side of the Confederacy, that a true southern could whip a dozen Yankees, and that Yankees were cowards.

After the war, McTyeire got elected bishop and met Vanderbilt, who he was related to through a family marriage by that time.

I think it is likely that old man Vanderbilt never knew about this editorial, because Vanderbilt was a union man through and through, and I don't think he would have liked being called a coward or whatever.

The Vanderbilt English professor Mims wrote a book about the early history of the university at some point and made no mention of McTyeire's Confederate rabble rousing. We will never know whether Mims knew about it or not.

In any case, McTyeire's story sort of distracts from the official "progressive" image that the school wanted 20 years ago, and it really distracts from the "social justice" image it wants now.
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Re: Happy birthday, Vanderbilt

Post by OldDude »

Thanks, Bill.
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Re: Happy birthday, Vanderbilt

Post by geeznotagain »

BrentVU wrote: Fri Mar 17, 2023 8:41 pm
historybill wrote: Fri Mar 17, 2023 5:50 pm The important date was the night Holland McTyeire spent with him in New York, which probably would have been a couple of months before that official date.

As I learned when my book came out, and have learned many many times since, Vanderbilt University wants the story of their history to be told officially, and they really don't like it when anyone else tells it. Believe me.
It really is quite ironic when you think about how the school got started, and what it has developed into 150 years later... that's all I'll say.

But for those who never have read historybill's book titled "Chancellors, Commodores and Coeds: A History of Vanderbilt University", I recommend it highly.
Ordered a copy 10 minutes ago. If nothing else, perhaps it will become a valuable heirloom after they change the name of the university.
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Re: Happy birthday, Vanderbilt

Post by historybill »

Since the book has been out of print for 18 years, I'm curious... how much did you pay for it?

They will never change the name of the university. But I have wondered for some time about the building named for McTyeire, since he said that God was on the side of the Confederacy and that abolitionists were spewing venom when they said that slavery was wrong.

However... let me be clear... I have no proof that ANYONE who is in a position of authority at the school has ever seen the book.

To give you some idea of how little people know these days... I once told Malcom Turner that it was a bad idea that our football team wear gray uniforms when we played against Kentucky's blue uniforms. I told him that Vanderbilt was the only SEC school that plays its home games on what had been a Civil War battlefield, and I thought someone might make the connection and make light of it. He told me that he had never thought of that, and that he didn't even know that there had been a Civil War battle in Nashville -- something every public school 8th grader in Tennessee learns.

He turned out to be right. We wore gray and Kentucky won blue and there wasn't a sportswriter who made the connection, and I sure as heck didn't tell them.
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Re: Happy birthday, Vanderbilt

Post by geeznotagain »

I got the book at Amazon. They were selling a new one for $41, with a note that it was the last one in stock. Cheapskate that I am, I ordered a used one from Amazon for just under $10. It's supposed to arrive early next week. I look forward to reading it. I graduated in 1969.
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Re: Happy birthday, Vanderbilt

Post by AuricGoldfinger »

I own that book. Need an autograph, historybill.
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