Helen Clarissa Morgan

Helen Clarissa Morgan (February 25, 1845 – May 23, 1914) was an American educator from the U.S. state of New York. She was the first woman to be appointed professor of Latin in a US coeducational college.

Helen Clarissa Morgan in the classroom

Early years and education

Helen Clarissa Morgan was born in Masonville, New York in 1845. The family moved to Oberlin, Ohio when Morgan was 12 years old.[1] She graduated from Oberlin College in 1866, receiving the degree of bachelor of arts, and in 1911 that college conferred upon her the honorary degree of master of arts.[2]

Career

Upon graduation she taught for three years in Michigan, and in 1869 was called to Nashville, Tennessee to teach Classical Studies in Fisk University, which was then located in the Federal Hospital Buildings.[3] W. E. B. Du Bois was a student in her Latin classes.[4] Although she received a call to teach at Vassar College, she chose to devote her life to work among African Americans, and remained at Fisk University for 38 years. Morgan was an advocate for greater teacher training, publishing an article on the subject, in relation to her experiences at Fisk, in 1911.[5] She was the first woman to be appointed professor of Latin in a US coeducational college. On account of her long and faithful service the Carnegie Foundation, on June 7, 1907, voted to Professor Morgan a retiring allowance. She died on May 23, 1914.[2]

References
  1. Washington & Harlan 1972, p. 520.
  2. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching 1913, p. 132.
  3. Tenney 1914, p. 5.
  4. Wyles & Hall 2016, p. 203.
  5. Morgan 1911, pp. 14-16.

Attribution
  • This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching's Annual Report (1913)

Bibliography
  • Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1913). Annual Report (Public domain ed.). The Foundation.
  • Morgan, Helen Clarissa (October 1911). "Fisk University Before the Jubilee Singers Went Forth". Fisk University News 2.
  • Tenney, H.M. (27 May 1914). "Tribute to Miss Morgan". The Oberlin News.
  • Washington, Booker T; Harlan, Louis R. (1 October 1972). Booker T. Washington Papers Volume 2: 1860-89. Assistant Editors, Pete Daniel, Stuart B. Kaufman, Raymond W. Smock, and William M. Welty. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-00243-4.
  • Wyles, Rosie; Hall, Edith (27 October 2016). Women Classical Scholars: Unsealing the Fountain from the Renaissance to Jacqueline de Romilly. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-872520-6.
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