‘Like a Family’: Global Models, Familial Bonds, and the Making of an American School for Zulu Girls

Inanda Seminary, near Durban in present-day KwaZulu-Natal, would become the most prestigious African girls’ high school in the segregationist Union of South Africa, and it would be the only institution of the elite nineteenth-century Protestant mission schools to continue under apartheid. It is now recognized by the African National Congress as an ‘‘historic school’’ and a national heritage site, and its success has attracted some scholarly attention. In its early years, however, Inanda was the site of grand evangelical ambitions and their frequent disappointment. This article reveals that struggles over intimate, familial connections lay at the core of Inanda’s globally rooted educational project.