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.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fion%C3%A1n_Lynch www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS0192.pdf#p... wdc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/easter/id/62/

At home in Kerry aged 12 in the 1901 census At Teacher training college in 1911

hope they read the small print.

Born in Cahersiveen Co Kerry and far better known as Fionán Lynch. He was elected an MP and later a TD. He was a Minister in two departments of the Cumann na nGaedhael Government. He then practiced as a Barrister and remained in very friendly terms with both sides of the political divide. There is a large article on him in Wikipedia - which can always be relied on with passage of time after death.

This is dated 1916-1920, and the postcard itself obviously is after 1916, but the photo is of Lynch qualifying as a National Teacher in 1911 aged 22.

!!! -

Grace was nominated for a position at the Hospital for Sick Children. Despite excellent references, her application was rejected: the objection was 'not against [Dr Robinson] as an individual but against the female doctor in the abstract'.

- adb.anu.edu.au/biography/boelke-grace-fairley-9533

pellethepoet Thank goodness we've matured somewhat since then! -AG

Ironing wasn't a priority? Pretty woman though.

Coincidently, the house her father had built in 1893 (the same year Grace graduated) at Guildford, N.S.W., is now the site of Holroyd Private Hospital. Grace and her mother inherited the house and property in 1894, following her father's death and retained ownership until 1905.

Congrats on Explore! ⭐ January 15, 2024