Alice A. Casneau | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | December 1866 Virginia |
| Died | March 24, 1953 |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Dressmaker, Activist, Author |
| Known for | Clubwoman and leader |
| Spouse | Elmer E. Casneau |
| Children | Pearl E. Casneau |
Alice A. Tolliver Casneau (died 1953), known professionally as Mrs. A. A. Casneau, was an American dressmaker and clubwoman based in the Boston, Massachusetts area.
Casneau was a dressmaker in the Boston area with a recorded land purchase in Everett, Massachusetts. [1] She was also active in the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs when it held its first national conference in Boston in 1895. [2]
In the same year as the Boston conference she gave a paper on "Morals and Manners" at the meeting of the Woman's Era Club. [3] As a successful businessperson, she gave a presentation on "Dressmaking" at the first meeting of the National Negro Business League, held in Boston in 1900. "If there is no market for your wares in the community in which you live," she told the audience, "find a place that needs you, that needs just the talent that God has given you, and when you have found it, fill it." [4] She was an associate member of the Massachusetts Branch of the Niagara Movement in 1907. [5]
Casneau's "Guide for Artistic Dress Cutting and Making" (1895) [6] was a "remarkable" [7] 73-page booklet. [8] It was one of the ten titles by black women authors available in the reception room of the National Conference of Colored Women in 1895. Casneau also sat on an organising committee for the conference. [9]
Her work was also featured on the literature table at the New England Hospital for Women and Children. [10]
During World War I, she served on the executive committee of the Soldiers' Comfort Unit in Boston, a women's group that provided supports for black soldiers stationed in or near Boston. [11] In 1925, she was elected president of the League of Women for Community Service. [12]
Alice Tolliver married Elmer E. Casneau, a barber, in 1887. [13] They had a daughter, Pearl E. Casneau, born in 1892. [14] Alice A. Casneau died in 1953 in Massachusetts. [15]
The Niagara Movement (NM) was a civil rights organization founded in 1905 by a group of activists—many of whom were among the vanguard of African-American lawyers in the United States—led by W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter. The Niagara Movement was organized to oppose racial segregation and disenfranchisement. Its members felt "unmanly" the policy of accommodation and conciliation, without voting rights, promoted by Booker T. Washington. It was named for the "mighty current" of change the group wanted to effect and took Niagara Falls as its symbol. The group did not meet in Niagara Falls, New York, but planned its first conference for nearby Buffalo. The Niagara Movement was the immediate predecessor of the NAACP.
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The First National Conference of the Colored Women of America was a three-day conference in Boston organized by Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, a civil rights leader and suffragist. In August 1895, representatives from 42 African-American women's clubs from 14 states convened at Berkeley Hall for the purpose of creating a national organization. It was the first event of its kind in the United States.
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The Woman's Era Club was an African-American women's civic organization founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in between 1892 and 1894 by Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin. The club was the first black women's club in Boston. The organization was especially well known for the conflict caused when Ruffin attempted to desegregate the General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC) in 1900.
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