The University of Mississippi: A Sesquicentennial History

The University of Mississippi was established in the town of Oxford in 1848 so that the citizenry would have an alternative to sending Mississippi's young male gentry to the North or to England for collegiate education.

The university's history has been linked to key events in the growth of the American nation and the national conscience.

In the late 1850s, under the leadership of Chancellor Frederick A. P. Barnard, the university assembled perhaps the finest collection of scientific equipmen...