African-American Women and Hunter College: 1873-1945 Linda M
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This article discusses the history of African-American women at Hunter college from the first year of their admission in 7873, to the year the institution ceased to be an all-women's college in 7945. This history is particularly important in view of the enormous resistance and opposition that A frican-A merican women experienced in their attempts to attend predominantly white institutions of higher education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. African-American Women and Hunter College: 1873-1945 Linda M. Perkins AJrican-American women were N HER SEM IN AL STUD Y OF THE HISTORY OF Crandall was jailed, and the school was vandalized a visible presence in Hunt er women's higher education, In the Company of and burned. After she married in 1834, Crandall CollegeJrom its ea rlies t days. Educa ted Women , Barbara Miller Solomon was abandoned all attempts to establish a school for Class photographs, yearbook the first to observe that Hunter was unique in African-American girls. 2 pictures and student publica- _ its inclusive treatment of women from diverse In an important move for African-Americans, tion s attest to the diversity oj social , religious and racial backgrounds. She noted Oberlin College, established by abolitionists, the student body and the range that, after Oberlin College, in Ohio, and Kansas announced in 1833 that it would admit women and oj activities available to all State University, Hunter enrolled more African Blacks on the same basis as white men. Many students. Clockwise Jrom top : a American women prior to the 1950s than any other African-American families valued education so graduation picllm Jrom 1893, institution that was not a Black college. t highly that they relocated to Oberlin to enable Patricia Williams, Secretary oj Throughout the nineteenth century, opportuni their children, both male and female , to have access the 1940-1941 Student ties for African-American women to attend institu to the college. In 1850, for example, when Blanche Co uncil, the 1932 Yearbook tions of higher education were extremely limited. In V. Harris, was denied admission to a female semi photograph oj Dorothy the South, slavery and later the lack of adequate nary in Michigan, her entire family moved to Williams, treasurer oj the public primary and high school education kept Oberlin. Similarly, Mary Jane Patterson's parents Marion Wilson Starling ,'28 Hunter Chapter oj Sig ma Tau most African-Americans from attending college. As moved to Oberlin from North Carolina in the participated actively in the Delta nationa l writing a result, although institutions called 'colleges' were 1850s. Patterson became the first African-American lIfe oj the Co llege. Her year Jraternity and 011 the 5taJJs oj established fo r African-Americans during and after woman to earn a college degree (1862), and three b~ok entry indicated that she both the student newspaper, the Civil War, until the first two decades of the other Patterson women and one man followed her was elected to Phi Beta Kappa The Bulletin , and the yearbook, twentieth century most of these were actually ele lead. By 1910, more that 400 African-American and majored in latin . The Wistarion . Pictures oj mentary and high schools. In the North, while women had attended Oberlin College3 Her other activities ill eluded the students oj various ethnic back African-Americans did have access to primary edu While educational opportunities for African Varsity Costume Committee, grotmds appeared routinely ill cation, it was usually in segregated schools. Americans residing in the North were far greater Secretary and Treasurer oj college publications. Although white female seminaries emerged in than those in the South, they were still limited. Writers ' Club, Make-up Box, the North and in New England during the early and Public education was primarily s~parate and Classical Club, President oj mid-nineteenth century, few African-American unequal, except in small towns and rural areas, and Writers' Club, Vice-President women were allowed to attend. When Prudence attendance in high school was difficult and rare. In oj lournalism Club, Classi- Crandall, a Quaker abolitionist, admitted an Albany, New York, for example, African-American ca l Club, Editor oj Classica l African-American student to her Canterbury parents had sent their children to Wi lberforce Club Paper, and the English Fe male Boardi ng School in Connecticut in 1833, School (a Black public school) since before the CM. the parents of the white students threatened to Civil War. However, when the parents petitioned Withdraw their daughters from the school. Crandall for admission to the all-White Albany Free closed the school and later reopened it as a board Academy, a public school for advanced work and ing and teacher-trai ning school solely for African superior students, their children were refused American young women. Local opposition then admission until 1871 4 Induced the town to pass a law barring schools In his study on the education of African which admitted out-of-state African-Americans or Americans in New York State, Carlton Mabee notes 16 those who were not residents of Canterbury. that, of the more than 150 academies in the state 17 the Normal College. The Annual Reports listed the memoirs, Having Our Say, the sisters recalled the dif riences in white colleges. As early as 1900, DuBois names and examination scores of all entering stu ficulty African-Americans continued to have in had noted the difficulty that many African dents, as well as the public school each had attend becoming teachers in the city's public schools - American women experienced in attempting to gain ed. From 1873 until 1882, when the Colore particularly in a predominantly white school. In entrance into white women's colleges. In his study, Schools were finally abolished, the number of 'col 1930, Sadie became the first African-American to "The College-Bred Negro," DuBois asserted that it ored' students admitted appeared as a separate cate teach domestic science in a white high school in was easier for an African-American male to gain gory9 The socioeconomic background of these stu New York. When she had begun teaching in 1920, entrance into a White male college than for an dents was as varied as that of their white counter she had been assigned to a predominantly African African-American woman to gain entrance into a parts. Occupations of African-American parents list American school in Harlem. She remembered that White women's college, concluding that the ed in the registrar's records included: janitor, laun "this was a typical assignment of a colored teacher. women's colleges were "unyielding" in their preju dress, seamstress, waiter, clerk, teacher, cook, coach [The New York Board of Education] most certainly dices against African-American women. 16 man, caterer, steward, merchant, sexton, and rector. did not wa nt us in schools where the children were It was particularly difficult to gain entrance into Mary A. Lewis was admitted as an advanced stu white. The parents would object." I 3 When Delany the elite Seven Sister Colleges. I ? In 1913, after an dent in the first class of African-Americans to attend reached the top of the seniority list for the position unpleasant dispute over the question of housing an the College and was the first to graduate in 1874, available at a white high school, she applied for the African-American woman at Smith College, the with an 85 average. Laura Adair and Annie post but deliberately failed to appear for the per Seven Sister campuses were polled on their policies. Nomlal College students Lawrence Dias graduated in 1876. Two others who sonal interview, claiming that there had been "a Only Wellesley College affirmed a policy of welcomed President Benjamin entered in the first group left prior to graduation t mix-up in the appointment." Delany later boasted nondiscrimination in housing and admissions. Mt. Harrison to New York for accept teaching positions; another student neve that lithe plan worked! Once I was in, they couldn't Holyoke, Vassar and Bryn Mawr stated that they the celebration of the Centen 18 enrolled and one left to study music. 10 figure out how to get rid of me."14 did not admit African-Americans at all. These col ~Iial of the Uniled States In 1874, another eight African-American women Another reason for the dramatic decline in the leges were thought to represent finer womanhood Cons titution , 1889. were admitted, although only half enrolled. Of th number of African-American students admitted to and to be the epitome of culture and learning; such from lS4d ttJ 1860, 'probably only eight accepted four who attended, only one, Mary Lane, graduat Hunter in the 1880s and '90s may have been that Class photograph, 1884. Afriqn-Americans5 In 1870, frustrated by the lim ed, in 1880. The other three left the institution du the growth of schools for African-Americans in the African-Anlerican women were ited . opportunities for higher education, several to "continued absences.II Interestingly, as more an South during Reconstruction and the later decades admitted to 1/" Normal College prominent Africa n-Americans proposed establish more African-American women attended predomi of the nineteenth century attracted many northern Oft the same ba~is as all others, ing' a Bl~dk college named after the Haitian revolu nantly white public schools after the abolition 0 ers to that region. Teachers were desperately need but IIntil the mid-twentieth tionary ' leader, Toussaint L.:Ouverture. Others separate schools, the number of African-American ed in those schools and many were hired without centu'Y/ their ?lumbers were opposed the plan, fearing that such self-segregation admitted to Hunter declined.