Literal and metaphorical excavations at Sweet Briar College reveal how
African American labor enabled the transformation of Sweet Briar
Plantation into a private women's college in 1906. This volume tells the
story of the invisible founders of a college founded by and for white
women. Despite being built and maintained by African American families,
the college did not integrate its student body for sixty years after it
opened. In the process, Invisible Founders challenges our ideas of
what a college "founder" is, restoring African American narratives to
their deserved and central place in the story of a single institution --
one that serves as a microcosm of the American South.