mortarboard

Wonderful portrait! There seem to be lots of notes devoted to the fame of her graduating, but I wonder what happened to her and what she was able to do with her life?

tragically, it wasn't that long: "Alberta Virginia Scott, a resident of Cambridgeport, was the first African American graduate of Radcliffe College. Alberta was born near Richmond, Virginia, the daughter of Smith and Fanny Bunch Scott. When she was six years old, her family moved to Cambridge, where they lived in several locations in the "lower Port," a traditionally black neighborhood near Kendall Square that has been replaced with office buildings. Her father, a boiler tender and stationary engineer, was a deacon at the Union Baptist Church on Main Street As a child, Scott devoted herself to intensive study. From the time she entered elementary school, it was said that she had a studious disposition. At Union Baptist, she taught Sunday school under the guidance of her friend Charlotte Hawkins. Scott graduated with distinction from the Cambridge Latin School in 1894 and entered Radcliffe College, where she studied science and the classics and belonged to the Idler and German clubs. Radcliffe had no dormitories at that time, so during her first two years there she lived with an African American family on Parker Street. In her senior year, she lived at home at 28 Union Street. When she finished college in 1898, she was only the fourth African American to graduate from a women’s college in Massachusetts. Scott decided that it was her duty to teach African American children in the South rather than stay in Massachusetts. At first she taught in an Indianapolis high school, but in 1900 Booker T. Washington recruited her to teach at the Tuskegee Institute. Scott’s promising future was tragically cut short. After a year in Alabama, she fell sick and returned to Cambridge, where she died at her parents’ home at 37 Hubbard Avenue on August 30, 1902. Charlotte Hawkins sang at her funeral. which was conducted by the Reverend Jesse Harrell of the Union Baptist Church." www2.cambridgema.gov/historic/aahmonth.html#WEEK_THREE:

A beautiful portrait and a remarkable woman. Thanks Cambridge Historical Commission.

Congrats on Explore! ⭐ March 24, 2021

Sehr schönes Foto.

William Caldwell Gorgas was Surgeon General & held rid Havana of yellow fever. www.encyclopedia.com/topic/William_Crawford_Gorgas.aspx#1...

Received honorary degree at Columbia on June 4, 1913, according to NYT the following day query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E01E0D81F3AE633A...

Can we usually see intelligence on people's face? Remember the movie Amadeus Mozart, the Antonio is in a party searching for a face looks like Morzat the most? Mozart do look different for his genius quality which is very rarely exist in human society. Mozart is an unusal special case. Most fine people can show the quality of their intensed training and intelligence by seeing their faces.

captainslack and swanq: Thanks for the info! This is indeed William Crawford Gorgas (1854-1920), honorary degree recipient at Columbia University's June 4, 1913 commencement. When we update the record, we will expand on the caption to include this information.

William C. Gorgas was a U. S. Army General, and a military surgeon who introduced mosquito eradication to eliminate Yellow Fever in Havana during the Spanish Amerian War, and later in the Panama Canal Zone, during construction of the canal. history.amedd.army.mil/surgeongenerals/W_Gorgas.html Bain's and LOC's captions to the above photo are incorrect: Gorgas was not a Professor; he wore the academic rig when he received an honorary degree from Columbia. A Bain/LOC photo of Gorgas with Mrs. Gorgas: Another photo was posed to Flickr on November 12, 2010:

Lovely portrait! If - like me - you don't know who she was, Wikipedia has a nice, if short, article.

a/k/a "Betty Crocker" (who knew!)

Isn't it great? We can claim fame for Betty Crocker and the maraschino cherry! To read more about Mercedes Bates, you can also check out our March 12, 2007 blog post.

Now on Wikimedia Commons

Fun find: Portraits of Betty Crocker