Charlotte Hawkins Brown

Charlotte Hawkins Brown
Charlotte Hawkins Brown in wedding dress, 1912
Born	(1883-06-11)June 11, 1883 Henderson, North Carolina
Died	January 11, 1961(1961-01-11) (aged 77) Greensboro, North Carolina
Occupation	Founder of the Palmer Institute

Charlotte Hawkins Brown (June 11, 1883 – January 11, 1961) was an American educator, founder of the Palmer Memorial Institute in North Carolina.

Biography

Author and educator Charlotte Hawkins Brown was born in Henderson, North Carolina on June 11, 1883, but moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts at a very early age.^[1] She attended public schools in Cambridge, where she excelled as a student. When she was a high school senior, Brown had a chance meeting with the prominent educator Alice Freeman Palmer, who was impressed to find the young woman reading Virgil while pushing the stroller of a child she was babysitting. Palmer would play a profound role in Brown's life, first by paying for her college education at the State Normal School at Salem, Massachusetts, and then by encouraging Brown to return to her native North Carolina to help improve education for African Americans.^[2]

After a year of college, Brown was hired to work at the Bethany Institute, a small school in Sedalia, North Carolina run by the American Missionary Association.^[3] When the American Missionary Association decided to close the school a year later, Brown decided to create a school on her own, which would include elements of industrial training combined with a standard curriculum. She returned to Massachusetts where, through connections provided by Palmer, she met with prominent figures at Harvard and elsewhere from whom she sought to raise money for her effort. She successfully obtained enough money to keep the school running for another year.^[4]

The new school started small, in an old log cabin with just two teachers and few students. Brown continued to raising money, eventually securing enough to erect a new building, which was completed in 1905. The school was named the Palmer Memorial Institute in honor of Alice Freeman Palmer.^[5] While the school grew, it continued to attract attention and money from Boston-area philanthropists. A "Sedalia Club" was organized in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1914, and in the prominent financier and philanthropist Galen L. Stone learned of her work and became the Institute's most important benefactor. Stone and his wife would eventually give more than $100,000 to the Institute.^[6] In 1911, Charlotte Hawkins married Edward S. Brown.

By the 1920s, the Palmer Memorial Institute was an established and successful boarding school attracting students from around the country, many of whom went on to become educators. Brown attracted national attention for her efforts, lecturing frequently at colleges around the country and receiving several honorary degrees. In 1941 she published The Correct Thing To Do--To Say--To Wear, committing many of her educational philosophies and maxims in print.^[7] She continued to run the school until her retirement in 1952.^[8]

In addition to her work at the Palmer Institute, Brown was active in national efforts to improve opportunities for African Americans, including the Southern Commission for Interracial Cooperation and the Negro Business League. She was the first African American woman named to the national board of the YWCA.

References

External links

• Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum
• Charlotte Hawkins Brown Papers Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.