Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College During World War II
Nacogdoches, Nacogdoches County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Immediately following the United States' entry into World War II after the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College (SFA) President Alton Birdwell called together an assembly of students and staff to address the national emergency. Many students and faculty members responded to the call to arms by entering every branch of the armed services, and a county civil defense council, with many SFA leaders, worked on the homefront. Among the homefront efforts was a concerted program to maintain active correspondence with those serving in the military overseas. In addition to the male SFA military and homefront volunteers, many SFA women entered military service. Student enrollment fell by 60% during the war and the resulting scarcity of men, coupled with travel restrictions, forced the school's athletic council to suspend intercollegiate football. In February 1943 the U. S. Army selected SFA as the first college in the nation to host the women's Army Corps Training School. At the height of the war, a flag made by students was displayed on campus. It bore more than a thousand blue stars for SFA students and staff serving in the war, and 24 gold stars for those who lost their lives in service to their country. Ultimately, more than three dozen SFA students died in military service. Many students attended school on the G. I. Bill after the war, resulting in a surge in enrollment and construction of new campus buildings. The college's recreation facilities were renamed "Memorial Park" and "Memorial Stadium" in honor of those who served and died in the war. Students and faculty have continued to serve the U. S. military in times of peace and war. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When the United States entered World War II after Pearl Harbor, the president of Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College gathered students and faculty to meet the national emergency—and the campus emptied into the war. Enrollment fell by sixty percent, football was suspended, and a campus flag bore more than a thousand blue stars for those serving and twenty-four gold ones for those who died. In a notable distinction, the Army chose SFA in 1943 as the first college in the nation to host a Women's Army Corps training school. After the war, returning veterans on the G.I. Bill swelled the college and its recreation grounds were rededicated as Memorial Park and Memorial Stadium.
Why it matters
The story of one Texas teachers' college shows how totally World War II reshaped American campuses—draining them of students, drawing women into uniform, and then rebuilding them through the G.I. Bill.
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Related people
- · Alton Birdwell
Related events
- · World War II
- · Attack on Pearl Harbor
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Women's Army Corps School
Nacogdoches, TX
When World War II drained young men — and students — from campuses across the country, the U.S. Army turned college classrooms into training grounds for its newest recruits: women. With enrollment at Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College fallen below 500, the Army opened Administration School No. 1 here in 1943 to teach members of the Women's Army Corps the clerical and administrative trades of a modern military. Housed in the dormitories and drilled in six-week courses, roughly 3,000 women passed through before the school closed in 1944, each graduating class thanking the town with a variety show at the high school.
Birdwell Field, Aikman Gym and the Women's Recreation Center
Nacogdoches, TX
When Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College was funded in 1921, the legislature paid for only one building—the Austin Building, or "Old Main." President Alton W. Birdwell, convinced the young college needed more, arranged its first athletic field in 1923, even before the campus moved to North Street. Over the following decades the college added Aikman Gymnasium, a 3,500-seat multipurpose hall given by philanthropist Frank Aikman, and a Women's Recreation Center built in 1935 with Public Works Administration help, which doubled as a WAAC post exchange during World War II. Memorial Stadium later replaced Birdwell Field, honoring the college's WWII dead.
Paul Lewis Boynton
Nacogdoches, TX
Paul Lewis Boynton, a Texas-born psychologist trained at Peabody College, became president of Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College in 1942 just as World War II drained its male students away. To keep the school alive he persuaded the federal government to open a Women's Army Corps training school on campus in 1943 and secured surplus buildings and land that launched a forestry department in 1945, then guided a surge of postwar enrollment until his sudden death in 1958.
Karle Wilson Baker
Nacogdoches, TX
From the early 1900s, the East Texas town of Nacogdoches was home to Karle Wilson Baker, one of the state's most celebrated writers. Arkansas-born and college-trained, she first published a poem in Harper's in 1903 and went on to become the most frequently published poet in the Yale Review, with collections issued by Yale University Press. Dubbed "The Poet of Quiet Things," she wrote poems, essays and historical novels set in East Texas, saw her 1931 collection nominated for a Pulitzer, and taught for a decade at Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College, for which she wrote an early school song.