Heritage Green

Good morning everyone! Today on your tour we’re going to learn about this area we now call Heritage Green, that was once the Greenville Women’s College! On this lawn, I oversaw women begin, celebrate, and close their educational journey for decades!

Imagine lush green grass, huge trees, bordered by fragrant bushes and flowers, and dotted with ivy-covered school buildings. It's really not hard to imagine, because the lawn is so similar!

While many colleges recognize convocation and graduation ceremonies, the May Day celebration was unique at GWC. In preparation for the celebration, students would cover the university with wreaths and flowers the day before. Dressed in white with pink or blue accents, my students would march in a procession with a forty-foot chain of daisies to the main ceremony grounds on this lawn. I, along with other important leaders of the school, would give speeches. Studnets would recite poetry.

The outfits for some occasions were so colorful that locals and Furman students started calling the GWC "The Zoo," an affectionate name for such a lovely display. Many graduates of the GWC referred to their former college as "The Zoo" the rest of their lives!

As a feminist and public speaking teacher, I have to add one thing. The lawn was also a sight for the public presentation of the women of GWC and their academic accomplishments, particularly speeches. This was important during a time when women's education was not as celebrated or encouraged as that of a man’s. A particular valedictorian speech was written by a female student of GWC but read by a man, as was the custom back then. The speech was read for her by a man at the graduation ceremony. The newspaper that year, in 1876, reported the speech so good that the woman should have been reading it herself. Although it’s unknown if this specific article sparked the change, women began reading their own speeches thereafter! Progress like that was revolutionary in its time, even as we of course now have no problem with women standing and speaking in public.

Sources Consulted:

Judith Townsend Bainbridge, Academy and College: The History of the Woman's College of Furman University. Mercer Univ. Press, 2001.

Furman University Special Collections.

Student Author: Olivia Quick