Archivist Note: Transcription provided below link for each page of historical document.
Examining Our History: The History of the status of Minority Groups in the Bryn Mawr Student Body
1877
The text of Dr. Joseph Taylor’s will in which he dedicated his estate to the establishment of a college for the “Advanced education of females.” That was January 19, 1877. He directed that his money be used to erect buildings “for the comfort, advanced education and care of young women, or girls of the higher classes of society.” Presence [sic] in admission was to go to members of the Society of Friends, but in all cases those were to be preferred who were “of high moral and religious attainments and good examples and influence.”
Diversity in the student body was not one of his goals.
History of Black Students at Bryn Mawr
1903
Fear of the withdrawal of Southern students from the College apparently led President M. Carey Thomas to encourage Jessie Fauset, the first black graduate of Girls High School in Philadelphia, to attend Cornell rather than Bryn Mawr.
1906
A letter from M. Carey Thomas to a teacher in Washington, D.C. suggest4ed [sic] that black students would be uncomfortable among Bryn Mawr’s largely Middle Atlantic/Southern students.
“As I believe that a great part of the benefit of a college education is derived from intimate association with other students of the same age interested in the same intellectual pursuits, I should be inclined to advise such a student to seek admission to a college situated in one of the New England states where she would not be so apt to be deprived of this intellectual companionship because of the different composition of the student body. At Bryn Mawr College we have a large number of students coming here from the Middle and Southern states so that conditions here would be much more unfavourable.”
[Ed. Note: in 1909=1910, 51/337 (@15%) of BMC undergraduates were from Southern states.]
1916
- Carey Thomas’s address at the opening of the college included her thoughts on white intellectual supremacy and expressed pride in the ethnic homogeneity of Bryn Mawr students. While she was certainly not alone among academics of her time in her eugenic theories, they cannot be ignored. [Selected from President M. Carey Thomas’ address on the opening of the academic year. [From the papers of M. Carey Thomas. Bryn Mawr College Archives]
“If the present intellectual supremacy of the white races is maintained, as I hope that it will be for centuries to come, I believe that it will be because they are the only races that have seriously begun to educate their women…
It seems to be only in a strictly limited temperate one, only on a very small part of the earth’s surface that men can maintain continuous intellectual activity. Roughly speaking this zone includes Great Britain, Scandinavia, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Holland, probably the greater part of the United States and Canada, some parts of Russia and South America, and perhaps parts of certain other countries that have not yet been sufficiently investigated… One thing we know beyond doubt and that is that certain races have never yet in the history of the world manifested any continuous mental activity nor even any continuous power of organized government. Such are the pure Negroes of Africa, the Indians, the Exquimauz, the South Sea Islanders, the Turks, etc….
These facts must be faced by a country like the United States which is fast becoming, if it has not already become, the melting post [sic] of nations into which are cast at the rate of a million a year at the backward peoples of Europe like the Czechs, the Slavs, and the south Italians. If the laws of heredity mean anything whatsoever we are jeopardizing the intellectual heritage of the American people by this headlong intermixture of races…
…if we tarnish or [sic] inheritance of racial power at the source, our nation will never again be the same…
Our early American stock is still very influential but this cannot continue indefinitely. For example, each year I ask each freshman class to tell me what countries their parents originally came from and for how many generations back their families have been on American soil. It is clear to me that almost all of our student body are early time Americans, that their ancestors have been here for generations, and that they are overwhelmingly English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, and that of other admixtures, French, German, Dutch largely predominate. All other strains are negligible. Our Bryn Mawr College students therefore as a whole seem to belong by heredity to the dominant races. You, then, students of Bryn Mawr, have the best intellectual inheritance the world affords.”
1920’s
A Black student from New England entered Bryn Mawr and stayed only one week. At the time of the Reunion of Black Alumnae in 1975 it was reported that she had requested that her name not appear on lists of alumnae.
1927—The minutes of the Board of Directors meeting for April 27, 1927 record that: “It was voted to authorize the President to reply to inquiries that colored students will be admitted to the College only as non-residential students.”
[Ed. Note: 1921-1938, except for summer of 1934?, BM Summer School for Women Workers. Where [sic] any of them women of color? Yes]
1930’s
The first Black student who would graduate from Bryn Mawr, Enid Cook, A.B. 1931, entered and lived at the home of Dr. Cadbury her first year. After that she lived with Black families in the village of Bryn Mawr.
The second Black student who would graduate from Bryn Mawr entered, Lillian Russel, A.B. 1934. Boston area alumnae first tried to discourage her choice of Bryn Mawr because they felt it was not “the best place for a coloured girl…” not “the happiest place for her to be for her own sake.” When she still wanted to go, they gave her an Alumnae Regional Scholarship, but were unsuccessful in having the residency restriction waved [sic]. She spent her first weeks living with President Park, and after that
lived with Black families in Bryn Mawr. She majored in Chemistry and Philosophy and went on to earn a M.A. in Organic Chemistry at Howard University.
[Ed. Note: Later to become Sister Alfred M. Russell—UIC School of Pharmacy- a nun]
1931—In the January Alumnae Bulletin Helen Bell of the Class of 1931 wrote a column called the “Undergraduate Point of View.” She reported that “the College has put to the students the question of whether or not this is the time for the Negro students to become residents of the halls. At the College Council, all who spoke seemed to approve the change. However, the Council is not representative of the actual feeling of the college on this subject and it is a matter which needs more general discussion among students before any action may be taken.”
Two “open letters” were printed in the April Alumnae Bulletin, one from a 1922 alumna saying that she understands that “the question of taking colored students into the dormitories has arisen” and expressing her vigorous opposition. She writes that her stance is not based on “blind prejudice against the colored race” and that she feels that “we have shirked, so far, in dealing squarely with the negro problem in America. It is something that must be faced eventually—the sooner the better—and by the most competent and intelligent person possible. On the other hand, I do not feel that Bryn Mawr would be serving the best interests of the negro by admitting her to the college as a resident student, nor do I think it fair to the white students already there.”
President Park responded:
“…Personally, I agree with all the premises of your letter and arrive at the opposite conclusion as to Bryn Mawr’s responsibility, but officially I shall not bring up the matter of the residence of negro students this year. There is much difference of opinion, I think, in all groups connected with the college. I think perhaps no group alone should have the final decision in the matter, although it was the Directors who passed the resolution as it now stands; but I shall be unwilling to propose that a negro student should come into residence while there is strong undergraduate feeling against it, even although the feeling, as I believe it, is actually on the part of a minority. I have special deference for undergraduate opinion because, while the
undergraduates are no more interested in the college than the faculty or alumnae, they would have the practical problem to deal with in direct form.”
1936—Madeleine Sylvain, a Black woman from Haiti, came to Bryn Mawr as an AAUW (Association of American Undergraduate Women) Fellow to do graduate work in the Department of Social Economy. She lived in Radnor Hall, then used by all resident graduate students and a few undergraduates, from 1936-38, returned to Haiti to work, and came back to Bryn Mawr in 1940-41 to complete her Ph.D.
1940’s
1941—Adelaide Cromwell, a Black woman with an A.B. from Smith, came to Bryn Mawr to do graduate work and lived in Radnor Hall from 1941-42.
1942—Lily Ross Taylor, Professor of Latin, wrote to President McBride asking that Mary Huff Diggs, a Black woman entering the graduate school, be allowed to live in Radnor. She also asked that there be a definite policy so that special action would not be needed in each case.
On November 18, 1942, the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors recommended that the restriction “limiting the students eligible for admission as resident students be rescinded, and that hereafter all students be admitted according to the rules and regulations in force as adopted by the Faculty from time to time.”
1944—A letter written by Mrs. Broughton, who was the college’s second Director of Admissions, included this paragraph: “On the special question you raise about our action on the admission of negro and Jewish students there is not much to say. We have a good many applications from Jewish students and very few from negro students. In both the graduate and undergraduate schools we have admitted negro students if their admission was justified by the quality of the student in relation to that of the entering group…”
1948—The first residential Black undergraduate, Gloria M. White, received her A.B.
The same alumna who had written the open letter in 1931 opposing the admission of black students to residence wrote President McBride to ask whether the rumor were true that this had occurred. Miss McBride responded:
“The rumor you hear that we have colored students either as non-resident or as residents, is true. One or two were in residence in the Graduate School during the thirties, and there are one or two now. We also have now one negro student in the Undergraduate School. She apparently gets on very well indeed, despite the fact that there are at present no more.
Negro Students have never presented any problem as far as I know. I suppose the racial problem is more easily met if there are many races—Chinese and Indian as well as negro and others.”
1950’s
1954—The Undergraduate Association as well as President McBride put pressure on the El Greco Restaurant in Bryn Mawr which was serving blacks at the counter and in mixed groups at the booths, but not alone in booths. The matter had been brought to the owner’s attention two years earlier with no effect. He said that he would lose both his customers and his help if he changed the policy. When a Black student was again refused service, the presidents of the Self Government and the Undergraduate Associations spoke to the owner and Miss McBride asked the College Lawyer to give his opinion on whether the Pennsylvania law prohibiting discrimination in places of public gathering was applicable. The Undergraduate Council records report that, “the matter was discussed by the student body, and it was generally felt that the college, in accepting Negro and White students on an equal basis, had a responsibility for other welfare in the community, and that every effort should be made to end the discrimination.” When Miss McBride sent to college officials to report that the college lawyer felt that the restaurant was breaking the law, the owner decided that the climate of opinion had changed enough to make it Possible or [sic] them to change their policy.
By this time the College was also working closely with the National School Service and Fund for Negro Students, a non-profit college advisory and referral agency for Black students.
1960
1960- According to the College News—For the First time Bryn Mawr’s foreign scholarship program brought to the college a student from Keya [sic]. Wamere Mwangi, a member of the Kikuyu Tribe, the largest single tribe in Kenya, East Africa, has come as a transfer student to the sophomore class.
1969—The Alumnae Associations [sic] Spring Bulletin was titled “Black Alumnae and students speak.” There were 17 African American undergraduates at BMC, bread [sic] out among the four classes, at that time.
1970
Perry House- Since the early 1970’s (’72 or ’73), Perry House has been the Black Cultural Center for the Sisterhood. It has also served as a residence for a small group of students about that time too.
1975—Black Alum. Reunion. –Rediscovering Bryn Mawr—Feb. 7-8 1975
1980
Campus unrest over Perry House as a separate Black Cultural Center and residence.
1990
Your Stories to write
2000
- Black Alum. Reunion—Oct. 2009
- Posse; more aggressive recruiting, including women of color in Admissions Office
- Class 2013 60 increase African American applicants
-30 increase in Latina applicants