Higher Education of Negro Women

Bibliographic Data

ID4866520
AuthorsLucy D Slowe (corresponding author)
Year1933
Volume2
Issue3
Pages352
Publication date1933-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Negro Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-2984 • E-ISSN: 2167-6437
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2292205
OpenAlexW2314964998
LanguageEN
Citations received10

It appears that first Negro woman to complete a college course in America was Mary Jane Patterson, who was graduated in 1862 from Oberlin College with degree of Bachelor of Arts. This event, happening before issuing of Emancipation Proclamation, marks beginning of higher education for Negro women in United States. It is significant, in light of subsequent history of college education for Negro women, that first woman graduate received her training in a co-educational school, and that a vast majority of these women, since this event, have been graduated from same type of college. There are in United States today only three colleges maintained exclusively for education of Negro women-Bennett, Spelman, and Tillotson; consequently problem of their higher education is essentially problem of educating the weaker sex in colleges with the stronger sex. The history of education of Negro women, therefore, does not parallel exactly history of education of white women. While Oberlin College opened in 1833 for admission of all races and both sexes, there was a long period of struggle for admission of women to college, but, by time of founding of Vassar College in 1865, at least three Negro women had been awarded degree of Bachelor of Arts. By time any considerable number of Negro women were ready for college, question of right of women to a college education had been, to all intents and purposes, settled. After close of Civil War, co-educational colleges for Negroes sprang up in various places in South and real education of Negro women began. Howard University, founded in 1867; Fisk University, founded in 1865; Atlanta University, 1867; Shaw University, 1865; Straight College, 1869; Tougaloo, 1869, are among important institutions which admitted women and men on same basis. It is a fact that segregated college has never played a very important part in training of Negro college women, hence, even if it were purpose of this paper to compare advantages of co-educational college with those of segregated college, there would be scarcely enough data to make comparison worthwhile. There is no counterpart of Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, Mount Holyoke, Wells, Radcliffe, Bryn Mawr, Mills, Barnard, among Negro institutions. The problem of higher education of Negro woman is therefore found in co-educational institutions. The assumption that women were not endowed with capacity to pursue standard college courses had been disproved before influx of Negro women to college, for

Sociology · Gender Studies · Psychology · Race, History, and American Society

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