Arch Turner Allen

Arch Turner Allen. Image Source: “Arch Turner Allen, January 10, 1875-October 20, 1934.” Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of North Carolina, for the Scholastic Years, 1932-1933 and 1933-1934, Part I: Summary and Recommendations. Publication No. 181. Raleigh, N.C.: State Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1935. Pp. 3-7.

In his capacity as state superintendent of public instruction, Arch Turner Allen served as chair of the ECTC board of trustees from 1923-1934. His tenure coincided, in the 1920s, with the explosive growth of the ECTC campus eastward with the construction of two new student dorms (1922-23 and 1925, now Fleming and Cotton); a faculty dormitory (1923, now Ragsdale); a library (1923, now Whichard); a Social and Religious Building (1925, now Wright); a Science Building (1929, now Graham); and a new Administration Building (1930, now Spilman). During the same years — which incidentally coincided with Robert H. Wright’s (1870-1934) final decade as president of the school — the number of faculty and the student body more than doubled, clearly establishing the academic success of the newly upgraded teachers college even as the economic hard times of the Great Depression soon challenged, in the early 1930s, many institutions of higher education.

A native of Hiddenite, Allen graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1897 with a degree in mathematics and then pursued graduate work at the University of Tennessee and Columbia University in New York City. After serving as a principal in Statesville, Washington, and Charlotte, Allen became superintendent of schools in Graham County and then in Salisbury, N.C. From 1917-1923, he worked in the state office of public instruction under Superintendents James Yadkin Joyner (1862-1954) and Eugene Clyde Brooks (1871-1947). In 1923, he was elected to the presidency of Cullowhee State Normal School (now, Western Carolina University), but then, that same year, when Superintendent Brooks resigned to become president of North Carolina State College (now, NC State University), Allen was appointed the new state superintendent of public instruction.

A philosophically-minded administrator, Allen stated “Civilization can be kept alive only by educating people and the tasks of schools are larger than ever before.” He also believed that schools should be built on “the philosophy of individual freedom and the concomitant individual responsibility.” Reportedly, he “envisioned a democratic school system based upon universal opportunity and dedicated to equality and to preservation of individual rights.” However, like a number of the high-minded educators who preceded him, Allen guided North Carolina’s schools in accordance with the pattern of racial segregation established decades before. Even so, he had admirers in the African American community. Following Allen’s passing in 1934, Charles Montgomery Eppes, superintendent of Greenville’s African American schools, remarked, “Every Negro who appreciates the depths from which we have come mourns the loss sustained in the death of Dr. Allen. In meekness and determination, he piloted well the ship.”

Allen presided over the continuing revolution in North Carolina public education in the first half of the twentieth century, encouraging state funding for a systematic move away from the early twentieth-century clapboard schoolhouses and to consolidated schools that brought together, on a more egalitarian basis, students of all backgrounds. He was also consistently concerned with inequalities in funding and curricula for rural schools and sought to ensure that they achieved levels of educational quality on par with urban schools. Allen also implemented new levels of teacher certification and educational requirements for public school students, including a longer eight-month school year.

When the tax burden of public education prompted some to criticize schools as a waste of money, Allen in turn criticized public support for schools as “very skimpy,” and demanded from the state even more substantial funding. Although a controversial figure due to his energetic push for educational progress, Allen was later included in the North Carolina Educational Hall of Fame. His contributions to state educational achievement went in tandem with his leadership as chairman of the ECTC board of trustees and many of the school’s initiatives in the 1920s and 1930s.

Sources:

• A. T. Allen. The State and Public Education: Biennial Report. Raleigh: State Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1924.
• A. T. Allen Papers, 1894-1935 (collection no. 03722). Southern Historical Collection. Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill, N.C. http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/a/Allen,A.T.html
• “Arch Turner Allen, January 10, 1875-October 20, 1934.” Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of North Carolina, for the Scholastic Years, 1932-1933 and 1933-1934, Part I: Summary and Recommendations. Publication No. 181. Raleigh, N.C.: State Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1935. Pp. 3-7.
• “A. T. Allen Is Appointed New Superintendent of Schools.” News and Observer. June 23, 1923. Pp. 1, 2.
• “Compares Length of School Terms.” News and Observer. February 6, 1929. P. 2.
• “Dr. A. T. Allen.” News and Observer. October 21, 1934. P. 28.
• “Funeral Rites Conducted for State School Leader.” News and Observer. October 23, 1934. P. 14.
• “Points Out Need 8-Month School.” News and Observer. January 8, 1927. P. 2.
• “Publishes List of Studies of Schools.” News and Observer. October 9, 1929. P. 13.
• “Smith is Best Friend of Schools, Says A. T. Allen.” News and Observer. October 26, 1928. P. 1.
• “Three R’s Form No Part of School Heads’ Parley.” News and Observer. March 21, 1920. Pp. 1, 2.
• “Will Ask Legislature to More Than Double Equalizing Fund.” News and Observer. November 8, 1924. Pp. 1, 2.
• Willard, George-Anne. “Allen, Arch Turner.” NCPedia. Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, edited by William S. Powell. University of North Carolina Press. Chapel Hill, N.C.
• “Would Broaden Scope State Aid.” News and Observer. December 3, 1924. P. 16.
• “Views and Observations.” News and Observer. October 23, 1934. P. 14.

Related Materials

Arch Turner Allen. Image Source: East Carolina Yearbooks, Tecoan, 1925. UA50-01. University Archives, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC

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