"Fortress of righteousness" on the Kansas Prairie: Miltonvale Wesleyan College, 1909-1972.

Abstract

This thesis studies the history of Miltonvale Wesleyan College, Miltonvale, Kansas, through its first year of operation, 1909-1910, to its closing and merger with Bartlesville Wesleyan College, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, in the fall of 1972. This study explores and analyzes the way Miltonvale Wesleyan College conducted itself as a "city on a hill" and "a fortress of righteousness," in so far as it was perpetuated in the "pure" rural environs of Miltonvale. Students at MWC received their education in preparation for service and life out in the "world" in a safe environment away from the "world,". This investigation discusses the religious and social context out of which the Wesleyan Methodist Connection developed with a particular emphasis on how this denomination's educational enterprises evolved within the contextual and ideological framework of Wesleyan Methodism. The founding and development of Miltonvale Wesleyan College is reviewed in light of Wesleyan Methodist educational ideology and Miltonvale Wesleyan's particular educational mission. The financial and enrollment difficulties this school faced over the years will be analyzed along with the strategies the college's leaders and constituents used to cope with these impediments. The eventual closing of MWC is examined in light of the historic challenges the school faced (because of its isolated geographic setting and other hindrances), the means by which the Miltonvale/Bartlesville Board of Trustees came to its decision to close the Miltonvale campus, and the way those closest to the school responded, both in the short and long range, to the closing.