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Mary Edmonia Lewis

Edmonia Lewis, Albumen print, c1870, cropped.jpg

The first professional African American sculptor, Edmonia Lewis attended Oberlin College from 1859 through 1862. While her time at Oberlin ended in scandal, she went on to have a successful career as an American expatriate artist living in Rome.

Tags: 1850-1869, 1870-1889, 1890-1909, African American History, Art, Oberlin College, People, Women

Antoinette Brown Blackwell

The first women in the United States to be ordained as a minister by a recognized religious denomination, Antoinette Brown Blackwell was a lifelong crusader for women's rights. A graduate of Oberlin College, she also advocated against slavery and for…

Tags: 1830-1849, 1850-1869, 1870-1889, 1890-1909, 1910-1929, Abolition, Christianity, Oberlin College, People, Temperance, Women, Women's Rights

Lucy Stone

In 1847, Lucy Stone graduated from Oberlin College, becoming the first women from Massachusetts to earn a bachelor's degree. Stone was a staunch advocate of both abolition and women's rights and she became one of the most important 19th century…

Tags: 1830-1849, 1850-1869, 1870-1889, 1890-1909, Abolition, Oberlin College, People, Women, Women's Rights

Intersections: Recovering the Genius of Shirley Graham Du Bois

American history is full of hidden histories, especially when it comes to the histories of women, specifically those of women of color. This book aims to unpack the “many lives” of Shirley Graham Du Bois, who was a woman of mixed race born in…

Tags: 1910-1929, 1930-1949, African American History, Music, Oberlin Conservatory, People, Student Projects, Women

Antoinette Brown Blackwell and the First Church of Oberlin Historic Marker

Antoinette Brown Blackwell Marker, front.jpg

Marker about the history of First Church and Antoinette Brown Blackwell, an 1847 graduate of Oberlin's Ladies Department and one of the first women ordained as a Christian minister. Erected in 2014 by 2014 by the First Church in Oberlin, United…

Tags: Christianity, City of Oberlin, Historic Marker, Oberlin College, Women

Oberlin's Women: A Legacy of Leadership and Activism

On ongoing digital project by the Oberlin College Library that focuses on the role Oberlin alumni, students, faculty, and staff played in the fight for women's suffrage and documents opportunities suffrage inspired toward women’s full participation…

Tags: Oberlin College, Reform, Women, Women's Rights

Mary Church Terrell: An Original Oberlin Activist

Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954), renowned internationally for her achievements as an educator, writer, lecturer, suffragist, and civil rights leader. This exhibition of materials from the Oberlin College Archives explores the life and work of Mary…

Tags: 1870-1889, 1890-1909, 1910-1929, African American History, Civil Rights, Oberlin College, People, Women, Women's Rights

The African American Women Intellectuals Project

The African American Women Intellectuals Project was created to develop an archive of scholarly biographies of African American women who attended, or were closely affiliated with, Oberlin College. The goal of this website is to create expanded…

Tags: African American History, Oberlin College, Women

Rhiannon Giddens: An Exhibit from the African American Women Intellectuals Project

Rhiannon Giddens graduated from Oberlin Conservatory with a degree in opera in x. While in college she became interested in banjo and she became a founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. The banjo is an instrument originally brought to…

Tags: 1970-1989, 1990-2009, African American History, Music, Oberlin Conservatory, People, Student Projects, Women

Dr. Caroline Still Anderson: An Exhibit from the African American Women Intellectuals Project

Dr. Caroline Still Anderson was a notable physician and advocate for black women’s health in the late nineteenth century. She graduated from Oberlin College in 1868 at the age of nineteen. She later attended the Women’s Medical College of…

Tags: African American History, Medicine, Oberlin College, People, Student Projects, Women

Dr. Johnetta B. Cole: An Exhibit of the African American Women History Intellectuals Project

Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole is a scholar who has done work in the fields of education, anthropology, museum studies, and Black, feminist studies. She graduated from Oberlin in 1957 with a degree in sociology and from Northwestern University in 1967…

Tags: African American History, Education, Oberlin College, People, Student Projects, Women

Shirley Graham DuBois: An Exhibit from the African American Women Intellectuals Project

Shirley Graham Du Bois was a musician, composer, and playwright in the mid 20th century. She began attending Oberlin Conservatory at age 35, supporting two chilldren while she earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees. She wrote and produced…

Tags: African American History, Music, Oberlin Conservatory, People, Student Projects, Women

Mary Burnett Talbott: An Exhibit from the African American Women Intellectuals Project

Mary Burnett Talbert was a radical civil rights activist and leader in the women’s club movement Talbert played an instrumental role in the WNAACP and NACW organizations and was a powerful black voice during the early movement for equality. Her…

Tags: African American History, Civil Rights, Oberlin College, Student Projects, Women

Betty Glenn Thomas: An Exhibit from the African American Women Intellectuals Project

Betty Glenn Thomas did not consider herself to be a political figure, despite serving as the first Black teacher in the Oberlin Public Schools in a town that has boasted racial progressiveness since its founding in 1833. The controversy surrounding…

Tags: African American History, People, Schools, Student Projects, Women

Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper: An Exhibit of the African American Women Intellectuals Project

Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper is an academeic with a long standing research interest in Langston Hughes. She graduated from Oberlin College in 1975. While she was a student Oberlin College, Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper was very involved in the Black…

Tags: 1970-1989, African American History, Oberlin College, People, Student Projects, Women

Edmonia Lewis: An Exhibit of the African American Women Intellectual History Exhibit

Mary Edmonia Lewis attended Oberlin College from 1859 to 1863. Her time in Oberlin was cut short due accusations that Edmonia Lewis poisoned two of her white classmates. Edmonia Lewis had a successful career as a sculptor, although critics have not…

Tags: 1850-1869, African American History, Art, People, Student Projects, Women

Fanny Jackson Coppin: An Exhibit from the African American Women History Intellectual Project

Born into slavery in 1837, Fanny Jackson Coppin would graduate from Oberlin College in 1865, the third black woman to do so, and would serve as an African American Advocate and Educator. This serves as an analysis of both the poetry Coppin wrote…

Tags: 1830-1849, 1850-1869, African American History, Civil War, Education, Oberlin Conservatory, People, Student Projects, Women

Sylvia Hill Williams: An Exhibit from the African American Women Intellectuals Project

Graduating from Oberlin in 1957, Sylvia Louise Hill Williams went on to have an illustrious career in Art History. Becoming Director of the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. in 1983, she helped move the…

Tags: African American History, Art, Oberlin College, People, Student Projects, Women

Frances-Walker Slocum: An Exhibit from the African American Women Intellectuals Project

Frances Walker-Slocum graduated from Oberlin Conservatory in 1945 with a degree in pianoforte. She went on to have a successful performance career. She returned to Oberlin Conservatory to teach in 1976 and gained tenure in 1979. She was the first…

Tags: African American History, Oberlin Conservatory, People, Student Projects, Women

Ruth Anna Fisher (1886-1975): An Exhibit from the African American Women Intellectuals Project

Ruth Anna Fisher graduated from Oberlin College in 1906 with a degree in English and Latin at the age of 19. She had a career as a historian working for the Carnegie Institution and, eventually, the National Archives. This student curated exhibit…

Tags: African American History, Education, Oberlin College, People, Student Projects, Women

Mary Church Terrell

Mary Church Terrell was an educator and lifelong activist on behalf of women's rights and racial equality. Terrell graduated from Oberlin College with a BA in Classics in 1884. She earned an MA in education from Oberlin in 1888, becoming of the first…

Tags: African American History, Oberlin College, People, Women

Consciousness-Raising at Oberlin College During the Second Wave: Gender and Sexuality Conferences and Workshops

This student projectexplores the different conferences and workshops focused on issues of gender and sexuality that were held at Oberlin during the 1970s and 80s. Drawn from the Dean of Students papers, the documents show changing priorities, methods…

Tags: 1970-1989, Oberlin College, Student Projects, Women, Women's Rights

Frances Walker-Slocum’s Brilliance and Advocacy: Bringing Black Classical Composers to the Forefront of Oberlin Conservatory

Frances Walker-Slocum earned a Bachelor of Music at Oberlin Conservatory in 1945 and had a successful career as a pianist whose performances always featured the work of Black composers. She became the first Black woman granted tenure at Oberlin…

Tags: 1970-1989, 1990-2009, African American History, Oberlin Conservatory, People, Student Projects, Women

Scrapbooks and Social Awareness: A Self-Curated History of the Oberlin YWCA

This student projectfocuses on the Oberlin College chapter of the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) during the World War II era. During the war, the Oberlin YWCA reprioritized its activities, shifting away from an emphasis on domestic skills…

Tags: 1930-1949, Christianity, Oberlin College, Organizations, Student Projects, Women, World War II

“We cannot change the world but we can change the people in it.” The Eleanor Bumstead Stevenson Papers

Eleanor "Bumpy" Stevenson was first lady of Oberlin College from 19461956. She and her husband, Bill Stevenson, had served I with the Red Cross in Europe and North Africa during World War II. While at Oberlin, Eleanor used her free time to become a…

Tags: 1910-1929, 1930-1949, 1950-1969, Civil Rights, Oberlin College, People, Student Projects, Women, Women's Rights, World War II

From Hiram House to Warsaw: Evelina Belden Paulson’s Internationalist Extension of Social Work

This student project explores letters by Evelina Belden Paulson, a 1909 Oberlin College graduate who pursued a career in social work. These letters were written while Paulson was working for the Red Cross in Poland, providing humanitarian relief in…

Tags: 1910-1929, People, Social Work, Student Projects, Women, World War I

Chipmunks and Children: The Photography and Life of Ruth Alexander Nichol

Ruth Alexander Nichols was a 1915 graduate of Oberlin who became a leading photographer of children in the first half of the twentieth century. This student project chronicles Nichols’ transformation from a young and enthusiastic amateur into an…

Tags: 1910-1929, 1930-1949, 1950-1969, Oberlin College, People, Student Projects, Women

The Oberlin Mutual Improvement Club

The Mutual Improvement Club was a social and political association formed by prominent Black women in the town of Oberlin, Ohio. This student projectexplores the Club’s yearbooks from 1913 and 1914 to illuminate the ideas and concerns of African…

Tags: 1910-1929, African American History, Organizations, Student Projects, Women

“You Can’t Keep Her Out”: Mary Church Terrell’s Fight for Equality in America

This student projectexplores Mary Church Terrell’s fraught relationship to Oberlin and larger commitment to justice for black women. Terrell, an 1884 graduate of Oberlin, was the founding president of the National Association of Colored Women and…

Tags: 1910-1929, 1930-1949, African American History, Oberlin College, People, Student Projects, Women

Evelina Belden Paulson: A Journal of Life at the Hiram House, A Cleveland Settlement, 1910

This student project focuses on 1909 OC graduate Evelina Belden Paulson's work at Hiram House, a settlement house in Cleveland that served Cleveland's immigrant population.

Tags: 1890-1909, 1910-1929, Oberlin College, People, Reform, Social Work, Student Projects, Women

"I Must Do What I Can": Susan Rowena Bird and the Oberlin Band of Missionaries in Shanxi, China

This student curatedfocuses on Susan Rowena Bird, an 1890 graduate of Oberlin who became a part of a group of missionaries in Shanxi known as the Oberlin Band. Bird was killed in the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. The project includes letters Bird wrote to…

Tags: 1890-1909, Boxer Rebellion, China, Christianity, Missionaries, Oberlin College, Student Projects, Women

For Every Land: The Internationalism of the Women of the Oberlin W.C.T.U

This student project focuses on the Oberlin Christian Women's Temperance Union and their vision of an international temperance crusade at the end of the 19th century.

Tags: 1890-1909, Organizations, Reform, Student Projects, Temperance, Women

Women “Rule The World”: The Lives and Impacts of Female Missionaries

This student project explores the ideas of female missionaries and includes correspondence by Luella Minor, an 1884 graduate of Oberlin who went on to serve as a missionary in China, and her Chinese student Lan Hua Liu Yui, who came to study at…

Tags: 1870-1889, 1890-1909, 1910-1929, China, Christianity, Missionaries, Oberlin College, Student Projects, Women

One Step More: Lucy Stone And The Fight for Woman Suffrage

Lucy Stone (1818-1893) was a leading abolitionist and women's rights advocate. An outspoken, passionate 1847 graduate of Oberlin College, Stone later became a prominent figure in the fight for woman suffrage, leading groups such as the American Equal…

Tags: 1870-1889, 1890-1909, Student Projects, Women

Browse Items (42 total)