The following article was first published in the ISGS Quarterly, Volume 9, Number 1, p. 46, Spring 1977.
 
Black Women's Descendants Sought
 
Mr. Walter G. Robinson, Jr., Assistant Professor of Southern Illinois University’s Rehabilitation Institute, has discovered that eleven black women may be awarded bachelor of letters degrees posthumously to descendants for work at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, from 1856 to 1865. The first woman on the list would become the first black woman ever graduated from an American college. These eleven black women are:
 
Lucy Ann Stanton DAY, later Lucy Ann Stanton SESSION       Class of 1850
Ann Marie HAZLE       Class of 1855
Louisa Lydia ALEXANDER (later taught school in Quincy, IL)       Class of 1856
Emma J. Glousester       Class of 1856
Sarah J. Woodson       Class of 1856
Blanche V. Harris       Class of 1860
Susan Elizabeth ?       Class of 1860
Maria Louisa Waring-Williamson       Class of 1861
Mary McFarland       Class of 1864
Marion L. Lewis       Class of 1865
 
Oberlin College was the first college in the country to admit significant numbers of blacks before Appomattox. Mr. Robinson wishes to locate the families and do biographical sketches of these eleven black women.
 
Acknowledgement: A big thank you to ISGS members Howard Manthei and Thomas MacEntee for scanning and transcribing this ISGS Quarterly article.
 
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