Mary Jane Patterson (1840-1894)

Mary Jane Patterson was the first African-American (A-A) to receive a B.A. degree in 1862.

Mary was the oldest child of Henry and Emime Patterson’ s children.
Henry worked as a brick layer and plasterer who gained his freedom after Mary was born in 1852. He then moved the family to Oberlin, Ohio.

In 1856 Oberlin had a a large community of black families - some free, some fugitive slaves. It had and integrated co-ed college. Father now worked as a master mason. For many years the family boarded large numbers of black students in their home.

In 1857 she completed a year of preparatory course work. She enrolled in Oberlin College’s ‘gentlemen’s course’ - a 4 year program of classical studies which included Latin, Greek and Mathematics, this led to a B.A. degree with high honors. (Not the 2 year ladies course which did not earn a degree).

After graduating from Oberlin College in 1862 she began teaching in Chillicothe, Ohio.

On 21st of September 1864 she applied for a position in Norfolk, Virginia, at a school for black children.
In 1865 she became assistant to Fanny Jackson Coppin at the Philadelphia Institute for Colored Youth (now Cheyney University).

In 1869 she began to teach at the preparatory High School for Colored Youth ((later known as the M Street School, now known, after 1919, as the Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, Washington D.C.).

From 1871 -2 she became the school 's first black principal. In 1872 she was demoted to assistant principle when Richard Theodore Greener - the first black Harvard University graduate, arrived. On his departure in 1873 she was reappointed principal (1873-84). Over the next 11 years the school grew from 50 to 172 students. Under her leadership the school gained strong intellectual standards.- high school commencements were initiated.

She continued to teach at the school after her tenure as principal had finished.

Outside of teaching she was interested in women’s rights and helped to found the Colored Women’s League of Washington D.C. The group focused on kindergarten teaching training , rescue work and classes fro industrial schools and homemaking.

While in Washington she lived with her sisters, Emma and Chanie, and her brother John. In the late 1880’s their parents came to live with them due to the parents financial difficulties.

Mary died on 24th September, 1894, aged only 54.

Mary is remembered as as a pioneer in black education by paving the way for other black female educators. She was the first black African-American woman to receive a college degree -the year 1862

Sources
Dunbar High school
Past
Wikipedia

See also my notes on Dunbar High School (Washington D,C,)
and Dunbar Firsts -information, on 6 black African-American
firsts from the school