Curry, Jabez

Curry, Jabez (Lamar Monroe)

(1825–1903) U.S. representative, educator; born in Lincoln County, Ga. He studied law at Harvard and was deeply inspired by two men: John C. Calhoun and Horace Mann. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives (States Rights Democrat, Ala.; 1857–61) and then in the Confederate Congress (1861–63). As president of Howard College (1865–68), agent of the Peabody Fund (1881–1903), and director of the Southern Education Board (1901–03), he pursued his life goal of assuring universal education in the South, for blacks and whites. He was ambassador to Spain (1885–88). Alabama placed his statue in the U.S. Capitol.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.