Sophia B. Packard (January 3, 1824 –June 21, 1891) was an American educator, cofounder in Atlanta, Georgia, of a school for African American women that would eventually become Spelman College.
Sophia B. Packard (January 3, 1824 –June 21, 1891) was an American educator, cofounder in Atlanta, Georgia, of a school for African American women that would eventually become Spelman College.
Sophia B. Packard was born in New Salem, Massachusetts, on January 3, 1824. [1] She attended local district school and from the age of 14 alternated periods of study with periods of teaching in rural schools. In 1850 she graduated from the Charlestown Female Seminary, and after teaching for several years she became preceptor and a teacher at the New Salem Academy in 1855. After a short-lived attempt to operate her own school in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, in partnership with her longtime companion, Harriet E. Giles, Packard taught at the Connecticut Literary Institution in Suffield (1859–64). From 1864 to 1867 she was co-principal of the Oread Collegiate Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts. She then moved to Boston, where she secured in 1870 the unusual position of pastor's assistant under the Reverend George C. Lorimer of the Shawmut Avenue Baptist Church and later of the Tremont Temple. In 1877 she presided over the organizing meeting of the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society, of which she was chosen treasurer that year and corresponding secretary the next.
In 1880 Packard toured the South and decided to open a school for African American women and girls in Georgia. With a gift of $100 from First Baptist Church of Medford, Massachusetts, and a promise of administrative and financial support from the Boston-based Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society (WABHMS) that sent them, the two women opened a school in the basement of Friendship Baptist Church, an African-American church in southwest Atlanta. [2]
Enrollment at the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary increased rapidly. In addition to teaching in the school, the two women also held prayer meetings, conducted Sunday schools, and taught sewing classes. The American Baptist Home Mission Society (parent of the women's society) made a down payment on a permanent site for the school in 1882, and early in 1883 the school moved to its new home. The balance due was paid in 1884 by John D. Rockefeller, who had been impressed by Packard's vision, and the school was named Spelman Seminary in honour of Rockefeller's wife and her parents. Rockefeller Hall, with offices, a chapel, and dormitory rooms, was built in 1886, and Packard Hall was erected in 1888. With the granting of a state charter in the latter year, Packard became treasurer of the board of trustees. She continued in that post and as president of the school until her death, at which time Spelman Seminary had 464 students and a faculty of 34. Spelman Seminary became Spelman College in 1924, and in 1929 it became affiliated, along with Morehouse College, with Atlanta University.
Sophia B. Packard died in Washington, D.C., on June 21, 1891. [1] [3] She and Giles are buried together at Silver Lake Cemetery, Athol, Massachusetts. [4] [5]
The American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA) is a Baptist Christian denomination established in 1907 originally as the Northern Baptist Convention, and from 1950 to 1972 as the American Baptist Convention. It traces its history to the First Baptist Church in America (1638) and the Baptist congregational associations which organized the Triennial Convention in 1814. Headquartered in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, ABCUSA is usually considered mainline, although varying theological and mission emphases may be found among its congregations, including modernist, charismatic and evangelical orientations.
Spelman College is a private, historically black, women's liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia. It is part of the Atlanta University Center academic consortium in Atlanta. Founded in 1881 as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, Spelman received its collegiate charter in 1924, making it America's second oldest private historically black liberal arts college for women.
The Oread Institute was a women's college founded in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1849 by Eli Thayer. Before its closing in 1934, it was one of the oldest institutions of higher education for women in the United States. According to the Worcester Women's History Project:
Howard Washington Thurman was an American author, philosopher, theologian, mystic, educator, and civil rights leader. As a prominent religious figure, he played a leading role in many social justice movements and organizations of the twentieth century. Thurman's theology of radical nonviolence influenced and shaped a generation of civil rights activists, and he was a key mentor to leaders within the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King Jr.
The following is a timeline of women's colleges in the United States. These are institutions of higher education in the United States whose student population comprises exclusively, or almost exclusively, women. They are often liberal arts colleges. There are approximately 35 active women's colleges in the U.S. as of 2021.
Laura Celestia "Cettie" Spelman Rockefeller was an American abolitionist, philanthropist, school teacher, and prominent member of the Rockefeller family. Her husband was Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial were named for her.
The American Baptist Home Mission Society is a Christian missionary society. Its main predecessor the Home Mission Society was established in New York City in 1832 to operate in the American frontier, with the stated mission "to preach the Gospel, establish churches and give support and ministry to the unchurched and destitute." In the 19th century, the Society was related to the Triennial Convention of Baptists. Today it is part of that Convention's successor, the American Baptist Churches, USA, and is the successor by merger of several 19th century Baptist organizations related to missions and education, including publications (1824), women (1877), and education (1888).
Women's colleges in the Southern United States refers to undergraduate, bachelor's degree–granting institutions, often liberal arts colleges, whose student populations consist exclusively or almost exclusively of women, located in the Southern United States. Many started first as girls' seminaries or academies. Salem College is the oldest female educational institution in the South and Wesleyan College is the first that was established specifically as a college for women, closely followed by Judson College in 1838. Some schools, such as Salem College, offer coeducational courses at the graduate level.
Andover Newton Theological School (ANTS) was a graduate school and seminary in Newton, Massachusetts. Affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA and the United Church of Christ. It was the product of a merger between Andover Theological Seminary and Newton Theological Institution. In recent years, it was an official open and affirming seminary, meaning that it was open to students of same-sex attraction or transgender orientation and generally advocated for tolerance of it in church and society.
Charlestown Female Seminary was a Christian school in Charlestown, Massachusetts. Opened in 1830, the female seminary was the second school in Charlestown for young women.
Georgia Rooks Dwelle (1884–1977) was a physician in Atlanta, Georgia who specialized in obstetrics and pediatrics. When Dwelle was licensed as a physician in 1904, she was one of only three African American women physicians in the state of Georgia. Dwelle began to practice medicine at a time when Jim Crow laws and social customs in Georgia required racial segregation in medical schools, health care facilities, and medical societies. To counter the lack of medical care for African-Americans in Atlanta, Dwelle opened the Dwelle Infirmary which was the first successful private general hospital for African Americans in Atlanta, and the first obstetrical hospital for African American women in Atlanta.
Nora A. Gordon was an African American missionary and teacher.
Harriet Elizabeth “Hattie” Giles was an American educator, cofounder in Atlanta, Georgia, of a school for African American women that would eventually become Spelman College.
Hannah Perkins Dodge was an American educator.
Clara Ann Howard was an American educator and, from 1890 to 1895, a Baptist missionary in Africa.
Emma Beard Delaney was a Baptist missionary and teacher, one of the earliest African-American missionaries from USA who worked in Africa, specifically Liberia and the British Central Africa Protectorate.
Mary Washington Bacheler was an American physician and Baptist medical missionary in India.
Alice Blanchard Coleman was an American missionary society leader. She served as president of the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society and of the Council of Women for Home Missions (1908-16). Coleman was a trustee of Hartshorn Memorial College, Richmond, Virginia; Spelman Seminary, Atlanta, Georgia; and the New England Baptist Hospital, Boston. Writing as "Mrs. George W. Coleman", she made at least two contributions to periodical literature, "The Women's Congress of Missions", 1915, and "Recent developments in Mormonism", 1918. All of Coleman's life was spent in the old South End of Boston.
The Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society was an American Christian women's missionary organization. Harriet E. Giles and Sophia B. Packard co-founded, in 1877, the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society, supporting missionary women bringing education to the African-American and Native American communities.
The Clifton Conference was a gathering of religious leaders held by William N. Hartshorn at his summer home in Clifton, Massachusetts. Five conferences are known to have been held, between 1901 and 1908.
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