Myrtilla miner

Myrtilla Miner (born March 4, 1815 in Brookfield , New York City , † December 17, 1864 in Washington, DC ) was an American educator and abolitionist . She was the founder of the Normal School for Colored Girls Washington, DC, now the University of the District of Columbia.

life and work

Miner was one of the twelve children of Seth Milner and Eleanor Smith Miner and dreamed of studying as a young girl. She was influenced by the educator and reformer Henry Barnard , who later served as editor of the American Journal of Education from 1855 to 1881 . She corresponded with New York Governor William H. Seward and called for support for the training of women. Despite her frail health, she worked in the hop fields to earn money for her education. She was educated at Clover Street Seminary in Rochester, New York , from 1840 to 1844 and taught at various schools, from 1844 to 1846 at public schools in Providence , Rhode Island, and then until 1847 at the Newton Female Institute in Whitesville, Mississippi, state. where she taught the daughters of wealthy local planters. There she was shocked by the condition of the African American slaves. She offered to open the school to young African-American female slaves who were among the planters whose daughters she taught. Their initiative was rejected because it was prohibited by Mississippi law. In 1848 she returned to New York and asked various people to help her fund a project to create a school for African American people in Washington. She wrote to Frederick Douglass , who was skeptical and warned her that her project could lead to her murder. She received support from Reverend Henry Ward Beecher and Ednah Thomas, a Quaker who donated $ 100 to help her build her school. In 1851, Miner opened the Normal School for Colored Girls in Washington, DC. Within two months, enrollment rose from 6 to 40 students, and as enrollments increased, she moved to a house a few steps from the White House . She had to move again to avoid hostility and various threats from the neighborhood. Thanks to various donors such as Gamaliel Bailey , Thomas Smith Williamson , Harriet Beecher Stowe (the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin donated $ 1,000), she was able to buy a house on the outskirts in 1854. In 1856 the school was supervised by a board of trustees, including Henry Ward Beecher, Johns Hopkins , Harriet Beecher Stowe, Samuel M. Janney, Thomas Williamson, Samuel Rhoads. Although the school offered elementary and home skills classes, the focus from the beginning was on training African American women to become teachers. During the Civil War the school was closed and eventually reopened. The school was affiliated with Howard University from 1871 to 1876 and became part of the District of Columbia public school system as Miner Normal School in 1879. In 1929 it became Miner Teachers College and in 1955 it merged with Wilson Teachers College to form the District of Columbia Teachers College, and in 1976 the college became the University of the District of Columbia .

In 1856, Miner's deteriorating health led her to move to a sanatorium in Elmira, New York, and withdraw from the school administration. In 1857 Emily Howland took over the management of the school and in 1861 she went to California for recreation . After a carriage accident in 1864, she died of tuberculosis shortly after her return to Washington, DC. The Miner's Elementary School in Washington, DC is named in her honor.

literature

• Roe, Denise: "A Natural Right to Knowledge" (PDF). New York Archives Journal (Spring): 23-25, 2013.
• Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S. Boyer: Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume 2, Radcliffe College, 1971.
• Ellen M. O'Connor: Myrtilla Miner; A Memoir, Arno Press, 1969
• Philip Sheldon Foner, Josephine F. Pacheco: Three who dared: Prudence Crandall, Margaret Douglass, Myrtilla Miner, Greenwood Press, 1984, ISBN 978-0-313-23584-9
• Lester Grosvenor Wells: Myrtilla Miner, New York History Vol. 24, No. 3, 1943.
• Druscilla J. Null: Myrtilla Miner's "School for Colored Girls: A Mirror on Antebellum Washington, Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, DC, Vol. 52, 1989.

Web links

• "A Natural Right to Knowledge" (PDF)
• "Myrtilla Miner: Celebrating a Legacy of Excellence in Education"
• Myrtilla Miner, American educator
• Who was Myrtilla Miner?