| Jane Eleanor Datcher was the first African-American woman to receive an advanced degree from Cornell University, in 1890. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Datcher's parents were freeborn and her maternal grandfather was a pastor and founder of the Fifteenth St. Presbyterian Church in that city. She and her cousin, Charles Chauveau Cook, enrolled at Cornell together in 1887, it being the only school they could both attend. Cook became a professor and head of the English Department at Howard University. Datcher's B.S. thesis in Plant Biology was a handwritten work entitled A biological sketch of Hepatica triloba Choix. and Hepatica acutiloba DC. Her excellent scholarship earned Datcher the honor of sitting in the front row in the Class of 1890 graduation photo. Datcher briefly attended Howard Medical School before she began her long career as a beloved teacher of chemistry at Dunbar High School, a prominent school for black students in D.C. She was a founder of the Collegiate Alumnae Club, an organization for educated black women who were prohibited from joining the Association of College Alumnae. Discussions at the club's first meeting, attended by notable women such as journalist Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, abolitionist Charlotte Grimke and activist Helen Appo Cook, focused on improving the conditions of black children, women, and the poor. |
Wikipedia bio