Sophie Wentz Sosnowski (April 23, 1809 – July 17, 1899) was an American educator who founded schools in the 19th century for the education of young women. "The Home School" that she established in Athens, Georgia, became particularly well known in the South. Her fortitude during the Union occupation of Columbia, South Carolina, saved the buildings of the Barhamville Institute from the widespread fires. "Added to unusual natural artistic and musical gifts... her lofty character, pure ideals, abhorrence of the insincere and the false, made her a person whose impress upon young people was above the price of rubies."
Early life
Sophie Wentz Sosnowski was born (as Sophia Marie Wentz) on April 23, 1810 in Karlsruhe within the Grand Duchy of Baden. Sosnowski's father Christian Wentz served as Court Physician to the Grand Duke and her mother Augusta Oehlenheinz was a lady-in-waiting to the Grand Duke's spouse. While growing up in that favored environment, Sosnowski received a good education, especially in foreign languages and music.
In 1833 Sophie married a wounded Polish officer named Josef Stanislaus Sosnowski at Strasbourg Cathedral. He was one of a group of 6,000 officers exiled after the failed Polish Revolt of 1831 against the Russian empire. Josef was the grandson of Józef Sylwester Sosnowski, the Grand Hetman of Sosnowica.
The couple emigrated to Erie, Pennsylvania, where Josef speculated unsuccessfully in real estate and lost the family assets in the Panic of 1837. Josef died in 1845, leaving Sophie with three surviving children: Sophie (a.k.a. Sophia) Augusta, Caroline (a.k.a. Callie or Kallie) and Julius Christian.
Educator through the Civil War
To sustain her family after her husband's death, Sosnowski trained and taught at the Troy Female Seminary, founded by Emma Willard, who was an early female education activist. Sosnowski taught music, French and German. Music education was particularly important in young women's education at that time.
Finding the upstate New York climate unsuitable to her health, Sosnowski moved to South Carolina around 1845. Sosnowski briefly taught at Mm. Dupree's school in Charleston and at the Barhamville Institute in Columbia. Bishop Stephen Elliott recruited Sosnowski to teach at Montpelier Female Institute in Georgia, where she stayed until she moved back to Columbia in 1850. Willard and Elliott both maintained lifelong friendships with the Sosnowski family.
Generally "...the stock image of the typical German immigrant, before and during the Civil War, is that of a principled, upright, freedom-loving supporter of the Union." However, Sosnowski was among those German Americans who became supporters of the South and the Confederacy. After the Civil War, she wrote that "While slavery was in general a blessing to the Negro, still the institution in the abstract was antagonistic to the spirit of our age; hence it had to fall."
In 1856–57, Sosnowski again took a position at the Barhamville Institute, a prestigious school that aspired to teach young women at the collegiate level. She taught German, instrumental and vocal music, and painting. In 1860, Sosnowski opened a school of her own in central Columbia. It became "Madame Sosnowski's Female Institute" in 1862. Sosnowski took over as headmistress of the Barhamville Institute in 1864, since the "venerable" owner, Elias Marks, had retired. She brought the students from her school to join those at the Barhamville Institute, which was over two miles from the central grid of Columbia.
During this period Sosnowski's musically talented daughter, Sophie Augusta Sosnowski, romantically inspired the poet Henry Timrod. They may have met through Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, a nearby college president who was friends with Sosnowski.
A German-American military officer named Frank Schaller joined Sosnowski's circle and married Sophie Augusta in 1863. Schaller had an excellent military education in Europe but was sickly. His service as a Colonel in the 22nd Mississippi Infantry and other Confederate units was not a success. Sosnowski used her acquaintance with another German-American Confederate officer, Gaspar Tochman, to advance her son-in-law's military career.
During the American Civil War (1861-1865), Sosnowski and sometimes her family and students tended to the Confederate wounded, who had been brought to Richmond and Columbia.