<p> 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. Despite being built and maintained by African American families the college did not integrate its student body for sixty years after it opened. <em>Invisible Founders</em> 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.</p>