Julius Daniel Dreher (28 October 1846–9 October 1937), president of Roanoke College, was born in Lexington County, South Carolina, and was the son of John Jacob Dreher, a planter and mill owner, and Martha Elizabeth Counts Dreher. He attended local schools. Dreher enlisted as a private in Confederate service and in April 1864 was elected a second lieutenant of the 6th Battalion South Carolina Reserves. He served until the end of the Civil War. During the next four years he taught school, supplemented his income by working for his father, and saved money toward pursuing his education.
In the autumn of 1869 Dreher entered Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia, as a junior. He received an A.B. in 1871 and an A.M. in 1874. Recruited by the faculty as a tutor soon after matriculating, he became principal of the preparatory department. Dreher won promotion to assistant professor of ancient languages in 1871 and to professor of English language and literature in 1875. His initiation into administrative duties began with his appointment as secretary of the faculty, in which position he managed the school's correspondence and recruitment efforts. By 1875 Dreher was serving as the financial secretary as well, overseeing business transactions and fund-raising. He emerged as the leading candidate in 1878 to fill the vacant office of president. The trustees elected him the college's third chief executive later that year, and he was inaugurated on 17 October 1879.
Roanoke College President
Dreher remained at the helm of Roanoke College until 1903. During his stewardship he started a tradition of successful fund-raising, particularly in the North. As enrollment increased, many of the students attracted to the college came from that region. Dreher established an endowment, created the first chaired professorships, modernized the course of study, and generally improved the quality of the faculty and the state of instruction. His principal addition to the campus, Bittle Memorial Hall, which housed the college library, was dedicated in 1879.
Dreher promoted educational opportunities for women and students of all races and increased opportunities in international study and exchange. He traveled to the Indian Territory in the 1870s to promote ties with the Choctaw. As a result, dozens of young Choctaw men attended the college during the next three decades. Vigilant in his opposition to the injustices directed against African Americans, Dreher called for practical and industrial education that would better prepare black citizens to compete with whites in the workplace and would enable them to achieve property ownership and economic independence. He strongly believed such preparation would help advance not only the lives of African Americans but the rest of society as well.
Dreher also fought for co-education of women at Roanoke College and won a concession in 1889 by which women who were in some way connected with the school could be admitted as special students, although they were not eligible to receive diplomas. An advocate of global citizenship, Dreher was proud of his travels to every state and territory in the Union and across Europe and encouraged faculty and students to study abroad. He welcomed students from Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Benefiting from his diplomatic ties in Washington, D.C., Roanoke became one of the first colleges in the nation to graduate a Korean national.
Throughout his presidency, Dreher, an active scholar, published numerous papers and addresses. He helped establish educational programs and organizations across the South and especially supported efforts to create public libraries for schools and towns in the region. In recognition of his service and dedication, Williams College awarded Dreher an honorary Ph.D. in 1881. He also received an honorary LL.D. from Roanoke College in 1905. In 1903, on the occasion of the college's semicentennial celebration, he announced his resignation and retirement. He returned to his family home in South Carolina.
Diplomatic Service
Dreher's retirement was short-lived. In August 1906 he accepted an appointment as United States consul to Tahiti, in the Society Islands. On 5 September of that year he married Emeline Kirtland Richmond, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the couple left for his post in the South Pacific. They did not have children. While in Tahiti, Dreher supervised the construction of an American consulate. He also displayed his passion for discovery and learning with his typewriter and camera through preparing a host of ethnographic reports on life among the indigenous peoples of the islands.
In 1910 Dreher accepted a transfer to Jamaica, British West Indies, and in 1913 was posted to Toronto, Canada. Complaining about the cold weather, he sought a warmer station and arrived in Panama in November 1915. He served in Colón, the capital of Colón Province, until 1924, during which time he completed numerous reports analyzing economic and social conditions on the isthmus.
Later Years
Dreher retired to Clearwater, Florida, where he continued writing articles and letters in defense of African American rights and speaking out against lynching. He returned to Roanoke College in the spring of 1928 as a special guest at ceremonies commemorating the college's seventy-fifth anniversary, which also marked fifty years since his election as its president. His wife died in January 1937. On 9 October of that year Julius Daniel Dreher died at his Florida home. His cremated remains were interred in East Hill Cemetery, in Salem, and the Roanoke College trustees erected a memorial stone there in his honor.
Sources Consulted:
Biographies in William McCauley, ed., History of Roanoke County, Salem, Roanoke City, Virginia, and Representatives Citizens (1902), 392–394 (with self-reported birth date), J. C. Hemphill, ed., Men of Mark in South Carolina… (1907), 1:92–96, National Cyclopędia of American Biography (1891–1984), 10:58–59 (portrait), and William Edward Eisenberg, The First Hundred Years: Roanoke College, 1842–1942 (1942), 372–378 (portrait facing 151); Mark F. Miller, "Dear Old Roanoke": A Sesquicentennial Portrait, 1842–1992 (1992); Washington Post, 6 Sept. 1906; Julius D. Dreher Papers, minutes of the Board of Trustees, minutes of the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees, minutes of the faculty, all Roanoke College Archives, Salem, Va.; publications include Dreher, The Benevolent Spirit and the Higher Education: An Address before the Educational Association of Virginia… (1882), Colleges North and Colleges South: An Address before the…National Educational Association… (1887), Addresses at the Inauguration of Julius D. Dreher… (1879), 23–62, Endowments: How Shall Capital be Attracted in Larger Amounts? (1880), Education in the South: Some Difficulties and Encouragements… (1895), The Education of the Negro in the South… (1901), and Education and the Suffrage (1901); obituaries in Roanoke Times, 10 Oct. 1937, and, with editorial tribute, Roanoke World-News, 11 Oct. 1937.
Image courtesy of the Library of Virginia.
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Mark F. Miller.
How to cite this page:
Mark F. Miller,"Julius Daniel Dreher (1846–1937)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2016, rev. 2021 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Dreher_Julius_Daniel, accessed [today's date]).
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