Dr. Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, Delta Sigma Theta, #NotableSororityWoman, #WHM2021

Posted on March 28, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Dr. Sadie Tanner Mossell (Alexander), the first National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. was a woman of many firsts. She served her sorority as National President from 1919 until 1923.

Born on January 2, 1898, she graduated from the M Street School (now Dunbar High School) in Washington, D.C. in 1915. She enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania and earned a degree in education. While at Penn she was in contact with the Alpha Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta at Howard University. Five women were needed to charter a chapter and that was not possible at Penn until 1918. Mossell was the President of the Gamma Chapter after it was chartered in 1918. A year later there were four chapters of the sorority and a meeting was called for December of 1919. It was to take place in the women’s dormitory at Howard but Mossell’s uncle, Lewis Baxter Moore, a dean at the institution, let the women use his office for the meeting. At this first convention, the Grand Chapter was established and Mossell served as its first president.

Pittsburgh Courier, April 28, 1928

All the while she was serving her sorority, she was also pursing her education. Her Bachelor’s was followed by a Master’s in economics, also from Penn. She was able to pursue a Ph.D. on the Francis Sergeant Pepper fellowship. When she was awarded her doctoral degree she became the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in economics in the U.S. and the second African American woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D.

During her tenure as the National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. a scholarship fund was started, chapters were established all over the country and she started the organization’s first national program, May Week. She spoke at several May Week events.

In 1923, she married Raymond Pace Alexander, a lawyer. Dr. Alexander decided to become a lawyer, too, and she was the first African American woman to be admitted to the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In 1927, she became the first African American woman to graduate from the school. And she was also the first African American woman admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar.

She joined her husband’s practice and worked as a lawyer from 1927 until 1982. The Alexander’s specialty was estate and family law but they also took on civil rights cases. Daughters Marie Elizabeth and Rae Pace were born in 1934 and 1937, respectively.

In 1970, she was admitted to Phi Beta Kappa, an opportunity she was denied while an undergraduate at Penn. She was given eight honorary degrees including one from her Alma Mater. In 1980, she received the University of Pennsylvania Distinguished Service Award and a Professorship is named in honor for the Alexanders. And there is a West Philadelphia elementary school named for her, the Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander University of Pennsylvania Partnership School, Penn Alexander for short.

Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander died on November 1, 1989 at the age of 91. She had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and succumbed to a bout of pneumonia.

Posted in Delta Sigma Theta, Fran Favorite, University of Pennsylvania | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Dr. Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, Delta Sigma Theta, #NotableSororityWoman, #WHM2021

Irene Osgood Andrews, Alpha Phi, #NotableSororityWoman, #WHM2021

Posted on March 27, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

The July 1905 Alpha Phi Quarterly included this letter from Irene Osgood (Andrews) an initiate of the Iota Chapter at the University of Wisconsin:

With the release from college work come the plans for summer changes. The seaside or mountains is the usual end of our desires, but last summer I decided upon a less common atmosphere – that of the East Side, New York City. Life in the Ghetto was even more fascinating than I had imagined. Jacob Riis did not exaggerate. It is quite impossible to describe the crowded condition. Our Fourth with all our country friends in town is not half so exciting or so confusing.

No distinction is made between streets and sidewalks – both are filled. Let a traveling organ appear and the street is immediately blocked with an interested crowd. The children do not stand and stare as do our American children, but immediately break into the dance – not a waltz or two-step, but some graceful foreign movement. It is indeed a happy sight – and happiness is quite characteristic of the East Side, which is both fortunate and unfortunate – fortunate that they not constantly grieve over their lot; unfortunate that they are blind to a different life. But the settlements are rapidly opening their lives and helping them to the fulfillment of higher ideals.

She lived in the College Settlement house, which was started by a group of Smith College alumnae in 1889. The “charming residents would alone compensate for the loss of sea air and mountain lakes.” Women from Vassar, Barnard, Smith and others arrived in a steady stream to work. She reflected on her summer experiences:

In a two months’ visit one gets but a glimpse into social problems – but contact with actual conditions is a strong factor in a liberal education. Also from the subjective point of view, the experiences throws a vitality into one’s philosophy of life that may lead to broader and clearer thinking.

 

Before earning her degree at Wisconsin, she trained at the New York School of Philanthropy and this may have contributed to her career in working to improve the lives of women in the workforce. The College Settlement House had “for many years carried on a series of sociological studies; largely into aspects of women’s and children’s life and labor,” according to a Russell Sage College publication. Perhaps this summer experience laid the seed of the future work that Irene Osgood Andrews would undertake.

As an undergraduate, she was a member of the Committee on National Conference of Corrections and Charities. In that capacity, she attended the convention of Associated Charities in Portland Oregon. At Wisconsin, she was a charter member of the Wislinks, an interfraternity society of about 15 junior and senior women.

According to the chapter report in The Quarterly,she graduated in February 1906. The San Francisco earthquake took place on April 18 and she traveled west to do “relief work among the San Francisco sufferers during the summer. ” She won a University of Wisconsin scholarship in Economics. It allowed her to spend a year in research while working in the University Settlement in Milwaukee. In 1907, she became head resident at the Northwestern University Settlement located on Augusta and Noble Streets in Chicago.

Irene Osgood married Dr. John Andrews in New York City at a 5 o’clock ceremony the day before they were to sail to Europe. The Alpha Phi Quarterly included this info about the marriage:

Irene Osgood, ’06, and John B. Andrews, both of Madison, were married in Brooklyn, NY on August 8, and immediately left for Europe, where Mr. Andrews will act as delegate to four international conferences on labor legislation, at Brussels, Paris, Berlin and London. The bride until recently was an assistant in the work of Prof. John R. Commons of the university. The groom is secretary of the International Association for Labor Legislation, which had its headquarters at Madison, but will henceforth be at New York.

A son, John Osgood Andrews, was born August 6, 1915, but his birth did not seem to slow his mother down. She continued to work for improved conditions for women in the labor force.

In 1918, Economic Effects of the War upon Women and Children in Great Britain debuted. She authored it along with Margaret A. Hobbs. Andrews’ other publications are Minimum Wage Legislation, Working Women in Tanneries, and Irregular Employment and the Living Wage for Women.

The 1919 Alpha Phi Quarterly noted that Andrews had “gone abroad to study labor conditions in the Allied countries. She is assistant secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Labor Legislation, of which her husband is the head. Dr. Andrews will follow.” A report of the New York City alumnae organization noted that Andrews and Imogene Ireland, Mu Chapter, were members of the “YWCA Industrial Commission in France, England, Italy and Switzerland. They are present at the International Congress of Women which met in Berne Switzerland, May 5.”

A writer and activist, she was concerned about women and the effects of factory work. For more than 30 years she served with the American Association for Labor Legislation as its executive secretary.

As a New York City resident, she helped found the Women’s City Club. Andrews volunteered with the Maternity Center Association and the NYC branch of the League of Women Voters. A widow for 20 years, she died on February 5, 1963 at the age of 86.

 

Posted in Alpha Phi, Fran Favorite, University of Wisconsin | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Irene Osgood Andrews, Alpha Phi, #NotableSororityWoman, #WHM2021

Dorothy Mayo Morris, Alpha Omicron Pi, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHW2021

Posted on March 26, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Dorothy Mayo (Morris) was born on August 11, 1908, in Orono, Maine. After she entered the University of Maine she became a member of the Gamma Chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi. She majored in romance languages and graduated in 1930.

Dorothy Mayo is third from right in the second row from the bottom in the Alpha Omicron Pi photo.

After graduation she was involved with an Alpha Omicron Pi alumnae chapter. Employed by the University of Maine library, she was working at the circulation desk when a newly hired public speaking instructor asked for a tour. She showed him around the library and after he left she realized he’d forgotten his hat. Charmed by his personality, she hid the hat so that when he returned for it, she would be the one to give it to him. A few months later on December 18, 1930, Dorothy Mayo married Delyte Morris, the young instructor from Illinois who was teaching and working on his Master’s degree at the university.

Maine Campus, January 15, 1931 (I suspect motoring to and from Orono to Belleville, Illinois, in the 1930s took a week each way.)

After Delyte Morris finished his degree at Maine, he started on a doctorate at the University of Iowa. There were academic teaching stops at the Junior College of Kansas City in Missouri, Indiana State Teacher’s College in Terre Haute, and The Ohio State University. Dr. Morris, his wife and sons Peter and Michael were in Maine with the Mayo family when the call came with the offer to come to Southern Illinois.

When the family arrived in Carbondale in 1948, it was a small teacher’s college with about 3,000 students. At President Morris’ retirement in 1971, SIUC was a Carnegie R2 university with 30,000+ students. The growth that had taken place under Delyte Morris was phenomenal.

“First Lady” Dorothy Morris played a large role in the success of SIUC. She was a charming hostess who entertained students, faculty and visiting dignitaries with the same grace and charm. Each fall as students arrived, the Morrises would host a watermelon feast on their lawn. She spoke to countless organizations throughout Southern Illinois and shared insights about her husband’s vision for the SIUC with her audiences. The University and those who contributed to the institution – students, faculty, staff, supporters – were family to her. Her genuine warmth and concern was evident in her day-to-day activities.

She helped grow and nurture the SIUC Women’s Club for faculty wives and female employees. As Honorary President of the organization, club events would often take place in the Morris home at 1006 S. Thompson Street, where Faner Hall is now.

She was a member of the Carbondale Women’s Club, AAUW, a garden club, and P.E.O. She was a founding member of the Carbondale City Panhellenic when it began in 1955.

Southern Illinoisan, April 9, 1958

Later in her life, Dorothy Morris was an honorary member of the SIU Foundation Board of Directors. There are  scholarships and fellowships at SIU in honor of Delyte and Dorothy Morris. Each year, the SIU Women’s Club offers a Dorothy Morris Scholarship.

She received the SIU Distinguished Service Award in 1981, a year before her husband died of Alzheimer’s disease. She was awarded an honorary degree from Southern Illinois University Carbondale and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 1998, the first honorary degree conferred jointly by both institutions.

In 2001, anonymous patrons donated funds for the creation of the Dorothy Morris Kumakura Garden and a statue.  Sculpted by Erin Palmer, the statue is by Faner Hall near the site of the former lawn of the President’s House. The garden is at the back of Faner near the small parking lot for Morris Library. 

At her 100th birthday celebration, the SIUC Foundation awarded her its Medallion of Distinction. She died on June 15, 2010, at the age of 101.

 

Posted in Alpha Omicron Pi, Fran Favorite, Southern Illinois University Carbondale | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Dorothy Mayo Morris, Alpha Omicron Pi, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHW2021

Regine Freund Cohane, Sigma Delta Tau, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2021

Posted on March 25, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.
On March 25, 1917, seven female Cornell University students who were Jewish founded Sigma Delta Tau. Its founders are Dora Bloom (Turteltaub), Inez Dane Ross, Amy Apfel (Tishman), Regene Freund (Cohane), Marian Gerber (Greenberg), Lenore Blanche Rubinow, and Grace Srenco (Grossman).

A male was involved in the beginnings of Sigma Delta Tau. Bloom asked Nathan Caleb House  to write the ritual. “Brother Nat”  is the only man to honored with the organization’s gold membership pin. As the story is told on the Sigma Delta Tau web-site:

After leaving Cornell University, Brother Nat was ‘lost.’ In a chance look through the New York City phone book, Nat was ‘found’ and brought as a surprise to the 1958 National Convention. From that time until his death, Brother Nat attended almost every Biennial Convention and maintained correspondence and visits with many alumnae and collegiate chapters.

Sigma Delta Tau Founders and Ritualist, Regene Freund is on the bottom row, second from left.

Regene Freund Cohane

Regene Freund (Cohane), a Sigma Delta Tau founder, as an undergraduate, was one of three women majoring in law. She was also the organization’s first National President. Her term began in 1918. Two years later, she graduated and moved to Detroit. As a female lawyer, she had a difficult time landing a job because of her gender, but  she persisted. After serving as National President until 1922, she spent the next 35 years as the sorority’s National Counselor.

In December 1924, she married another lawyer, Louis Starfield Cohane, whom she met at a funeral. They formed their own law firm. In the first year of their marriage, the Cohanes became the first married couple to try a case before the United States Supreme Court. Louis Cohane died in 1958, but his wife continued to practice law for 72 years almost until the end of her life.

The Cohane’s marriage information

Cohane was active in Detroit’s Jewish community and served as President of the National Council of Jewish Women in 1933. She was named  one of Detroit’s “Women of Achievement.” In 1991, Sigma Delta Tau honored her with the establishment of the Regene Freund Cohane Outstanding President Award. She died in 1992 at the age of 92.

Posted in Cornell University, Fran Favorite, Sigma Delta Tau | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Regine Freund Cohane, Sigma Delta Tau, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2021

Annie Turnbo Malone, Zeta Phi Beta, #NotableSororityWoman, #WHM2021

Posted on March 24, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Annie Turnbo (Malone) was born in 1877 on a farm near Metropolis, Illinois, a city on the Ohio River just north of Paducah, Kentucky. Her parents were former slaves. During her childhood she accompanied her aunt, an “herb doctor,” as she gathered ingredients. This knowledge came in handy as Malone developed her hair care products. She is credited as the first Black woman to become a millionaire.

Turnbo went to elementary school in Metropolis, but after her parents died, she moved to Peoria to live with her sister Amy. In the early 1900s, she developed products that African American could use that wouldn’t damage their hair. “Wonderful Hair Grower” was her first product and she sold it door-to-door and through the mail. After some success she and a few of her siblings moved to the St. Louis area and her products took off in the African American community. In 1902 she opened a shop on Market Street in St. Louis. One of her saleswomen was Sarah Breedlove Davis who was known later as Madam C. J. Walker. Davis later left the company and began a rival company.

In 1914, Annie Turnbo married Aaron Eugene Malone. Her husband joined her in the business. “Poro” became the brand name Malone used to copyright her products.

Broad Ax (Salt Lake City, UT), December 4, 1920

She built Poro College in 1918. It was a cosmetology school and community center. But it was also a manufacturing facility, retail store, dormitory, gymnasium, chapel, bakery, and office space. There was a rooftop garden and a 500-seat auditorium. In 1920, it had a millinery store, ice cream parlor, confectionery shop, barber shop and tailor shop. At its height there were about 200 employees keeping it running. Moreover, it was a social and cultural center for St. Louis’ African American community.

Annie Malone was a philanthropist and supported many organizations including the Black Y.M.C.A. in St. Louis and Howard University’s College of Medicine. She served as President of the Board of Directors of the St. Louis Colored Orphans Home from 1919-43. In 1922, she helped the organization purchase a facility at 2612 Goode Avenue. The street was renamed Annie Malone Drive in 1986 and the Orphans Home she helped build is the Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center’s administration building. 

In 1946, the home became the Annie Turnbo Malone Home

Malone was an Honorary Member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. The newspaper article below recapped the talk that Malone made to the sixth annual Boule (convention) in 1926. Howard University, the sorority’s founding institution, conferred an Honorary Degree upon Malone.

California Eagle (Los Angeles, CA), January 29, 1926

In 1927, Malone’s husband filed for divorce and demanded half the business. Poro College went into receivership. Although Malone was able to negotiate a settlement, it still left her in a precarious financial state. And the publicity hurt Poro’s wholesome image. She moved the business to Chicago into a former branch headquarters. During the Depression, additional tax problems and lawsuits chipped away at her fortune.

Malone died on May 10, 1957 at the age of 79. 

Posted in Fran Favorite, Zeta Phi Beta | Tagged , | Comments Off on Annie Turnbo Malone, Zeta Phi Beta, #NotableSororityWoman, #WHM2021

May Allinson, Ph.D., Alpha Chi Omega #NotableSororityWomen #WHM2021

Posted on March 23, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

In 1880, May Allinson was born in Macon, Illinois. She graduated from Decatur High School and went on to the University of Illinois. There she earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. She was a member of the Iota Chapter of Alpha Chi Omega. Allinson was awarded the Fellowship in History for 1907 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She also secured one of four scholarships given to women by Columbia University.

 

At Columbia University she was a Curtis Scholar and a Fellow in the Research Department. Later she taught methods in industrial research at Columbia University.

She had a fellowship from the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union in Boston. As Associate Director of the Union’s Research Department, she conducted investigations and presented her research. The results of the condition of women working in Massachusetts was published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor and the U.S. Bureau of Education. 

While in Boston, she was a charter member of Alpha Chi’s Zeta Zeta Alumnae Chapter. After she moved to New York, she became a member of Gamma Gamma Alumnae Chapter. And for a short time she was in Washington State where she was a member of Iota Iota Alumnae Chapter.

In 1912 and 1913 she was in Italy, Germany and England studying conditions in which women, young and old, worked.

The November 1916 Lyre told of her receiving her doctoral degree in History at Columbia. She was off to Seattle, Washington, where her sister was studying, the Gamma Gamma correspondent noted.

Allinson was appointed as Assistant Secretary of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education in 1917, but was granted a leave of absence to serve in the war effort. She served as Executive Secretary of the Council of National Defense, Women in Industry Service.

A loyal Alpha Chi Omega, she found time in her busy life to be of service. She was chairman of its Advisory Committee on Vocations. Her goal she said was “to connect the girl and the job.” She hoped to create a book about the:

Vocational Opportunities of College Women as seen in the experience of our alumnae. Also I think we ought to be able to make surveys of the vocational opportunities in our several districts through the alumnae clubs and chapters. All of these things will aid the committee members in assisting the girls to get established in a particular district or line of work.

A tribute written by Florence A. Armstrong, Lyre Editor in the April 1919 edition, mentioned that there was talk of Allinson perhaps serving as Alpha Chi’s National President someday:

Alpha Chi Omega, too, has watched th fine progress of Miss Allinson’s public service in the last years, and has been very grateful for her contribution to the cause of women in industry. Because of the wide experience which had come to her, and her understanding of educational problems, as well as on account of her beautiful personality, the National Council of Alpha Chi Omega and many others wished extremely that Miss Allinson might serve as successor to our beloved National President, Mrs. Loud.

Allinson did not get to see those plans to fruition. She died just before Christmas 1918 in Indianapolis, Indiana. She kept researching and writing until the end. Exhaustion is listed as a secondary cause of her death. 

Evening Star (Washington, DC), December 28, 1918

Decatur Review (Illinois), December 26, 1918

 

Dr. May Allinson was recognized as one of the most distinguished researchers in the field of women in industry and the plight of female workers.

Posted in Fran Favorite, University of Illinois | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on May Allinson, Ph.D., Alpha Chi Omega #NotableSororityWomen #WHM2021

Mary Conway Kohler, Kappa Kappa Gamma, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2021

Posted on March 22, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Mary Conway Kohler was one of the first women to graduate from Stanford School of Law. She began her career as a lawyer and then a judge. Her passion was as a child welfare advocate.

She became an initiated member of the Stanford chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma on October 25, 1925. The May 1925 Key of Kappa Kappa Gamma includes a snippet that “Mary Conway was appointed chairman of the new social service committee which is making great headway under her leadership.” She graduated in 1926 with a Bachelor’s degree.

Mary Conway is in the top corner of this chapter composite.

Her engagement to John August Kohler was announced at the Kappa Kappa Gamma senior dinner. Her husband was a member of Sigma Nu. They married on June 16, 1926.

Hollywood Advertiser, June 28, 1925

In 1928, she graduated with a law degree. She was a member of Phi Delta Phi.

Kohler became a lawyer in 1929 and went to work as an assistant probation officer in juvenile court. A son was born in 1931 and two other children followed. A letter to the editor in the November/December 2004 Stanford Magazine from Miranda Ow, Stanford Class of 1984, includes this mention of Kohler:

My paternal grandmother, Mabel Chew, worked as a cook and nanny from 1927-28 for the first woman to graduate from Stanford Law School, Mary Conway Kohler. They became good friends; Mrs. Kohler helped my grandmother divorce her first husband, who had run off with another woman. She also later helped my grandmother and her entrepreneurial second husband, Ow Wat, obtain a laundry contract at Moffett Field.

Oakland Tribune, October 7, 1928

She became a referee (judge) in juvenile court in 1935. Kohler divorced her husband after 20 years of marriage. She began a legal and estate management practice in 1945.

In 1953, she went to New York to become a child welfare consultant. She was a special consultant on the Tweed Commission – the Family and Children’s Courts to the New York Temporary Commission on the Courts. The commission was responsible for the reorganization of the New York Court System as well as the development of the new Family Court of New York.

Kohler also served as a consultant to the Ford Foundation on Juvenile Delinquency in 1955. She established NYC’s first Neighborhood Youth Corps. In 1962, she was on the Committee on Youth Employment and a year later she was appointed to the NYC Board of Education.

Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. appointed her to his Poverty Council in 1964. That year she began as a consultant to Human Resources Administration of NYC.

In 1967, she became the executive director of the National Commission of Resources for Youth, an organization she helped found. Its mission was to “promote acceptance by the American public of the idea that youth could be integrated into the adult society at an earlier age.” 

She died on May 3, 1986, of cancer at the age of 82.

Posted in Fran Favorite, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Stanford University | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Mary Conway Kohler, Kappa Kappa Gamma, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2021

Mary Stewart Howarth, Chi Omega, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2021

Posted on March 21, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Mary Stewart (Howarth) was the first woman in Florida to attend law school and graduate. She was born in DeLand, Florida in 1886. A grandfather was an early settler and land developer. Her father, Isaac Stewart, was an attorney and judge.

She earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in 1906. A charter member of the Eta Chapter of Chi Omega, she also served on the Michiganesian staff.

When she entered the John B. Stetson University College of Law, she was the only female in her class. A member of Phi Delta Delta legal fraternity, she graduated with a law degree in 1908. On June 20 of that year she was admitted to the Florida Bar after an oral examination with the Florida Supreme Court. She entered into practice with her father.

On June 1, 1912, she married Caspar Howarth of Chester, Pennsylvania. He was a friend of the family and 20 years her senior. The Howarths lived in Chester and had three daughters in quick succession.

Howarth was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1914 and the U.S. District Court a year later. While in Chester, she established a residence for working women and the first child care center.

When Caspar Howarth had a heart attack in 1925, the family headed to Florida and Mary rejoined the family law firm.

She argued before the U.S. Supreme Court and taught constitutional law part-time at Stetson. The Howarths established the Surety Bank of DeLand and she had a hand in the running of the family’s orange groves. Casper died in 1933. She remarried late in the 1940s, but her second husband died a short time after the marriage.

One of her daughters, Catherine, a Zeta Tau Alpha, was the 112th graduate of Stetson’s College of Law and yesterday’s blog post subject. Mother and daughter worked together in the family law firm.  Mary’s other daughters, Sara and Mary, became surgeons.

Mary Stewart Howarth died on January 23, 1976 at the age of 90.

 

 

 

Posted in Chi Omega, Fran Favorite, University of Michigan | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Mary Stewart Howarth, Chi Omega, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2021

Catherine Stewart Howarth Carter-Lewia, Zeta Tau Alpha, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2021

Posted on March 20, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Catherine Stewart Howarth (Carter-Lewia) was born on September 30, 1913 in Chester, Pennsylvania. Catherine Carter was her professional name. Her mother, Mary Stewart Howarth-Hewitt, a Chi Omega, was the first woman to attend and graduate from John B. Stetson University’s College of Law. In fact, Howarth-Hewitt was the first Florida woman to hold that honor. Mary’s father and Catherine’s grandfather was a prominent lawyer and judge in DeLand, Florida.

Carter enrolled at Stetson where she was a member of several organizations including a local sorority, Sigma Alpha Phi, which began in 1926. After she received her Bachelor’s degree, she enrolled at George Washington University. There she became a member of the Beta Alpha Chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha. At GWU she received a Master’s in International Law.

She was 20 when she received her Bachelor of Law degree. An attorney was required to be 21 years of age to practice law in Florida, but she petitioned to be admitted to practice early and it was granted on June 30, 1934. She was the 112th woman admitted to the Florida Bar. She then entered into private practice with her mother, Mary Stewart Howarth-Hewitt, and her uncle, Tom B. Stewart. Stewart and Stewart was one of the oldest law firms in Florida. Her grandfather established it in 1882.

In 1934, Sigma Alpha Phi, the local sorority she had pledged at Stetson became the Beta Psi Chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha. The pledging ceremony took place at the Howarth home on October 12, 1934. For many years, Carter served as chapter advisor to Zeta Tau Alpha’s chapter at Stetson.

She married J. Howard Carter in 1935 and the law firm took on the name Stewart, Howarth and Carter. The Carters had four children.

Carter specialized in domestic relations law, wills, trusts, probate and real estate. In 1947, she became a founding trustee of the Lawyers’ Title Guaranty Fund (now Attorneys’ Title Insurance Fund). For about two decades, from the mid 1960s to the mid 1980s, Carter did marriage counseling.

In the late 1940s, the Carters divorced. She remarried in April 1958. Her second husband, Harry G. Lewia died in 1974.

In 1984, the Florida Bar gave Carter a silver plate to honor her 50 years of legal practice in Florida. She died on August 17, 2000. After her death she was honored at a ceremonial session of Florida’s Supreme Court which recognized the state’s first 150 female attorneys.

Posted in Fran Favorite, George Washington University, Zeta Tau Alpha | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Catherine Stewart Howarth Carter-Lewia, Zeta Tau Alpha, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2021

Merze Tate, Ph.D., Alpha Kappa Alpha, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2021

Posted on March 19, 2021 by Fran Becque, Ph.D.

Dr. Merze Tate was born Vernice “Vernie” Merze Tate on February 6, 1905 in Blanchard, Michigan. She was named valedictorian of Blanchard High School after the school burned and all students received diplomas in the 10th grade. She was 13 at the time. Although she was tops in the class, she it wasn’t prepared for college admission. She moved to Battle Creek and took a job as a maid to continue her high school education. In 1922, she graduated from Battle Creek Central High School.

She excelled at Battle Creek and her counselor sent an application to the University of Michigan. Her acceptance was rescinded when the school found out her race. Her employers contacted the president of Western State Teachers College (now Western Michigan University), Dr. Dwight Waldo, and told him about her. He gave her a scholarship and off she went to Kalamazoo. He also made the introduction to a family seeking a maid. Tate lived with the family and worked for them while attending classes.

She graduated in three years and in 1927 became the first African American woman to graduate from Western State Teachers College. However, she was unable to secure a secondary school teaching job in Michigan because of her race. She taught elementary school and then took a job at the segregated Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis, Indiana which opened in 1927.

During the summers, she worked on a Master’s degree in history from Columbia University. In 1930, she completed the next rung of her academic career.

Back in Indianapolis, she began a club, the Merze Tate Travel Club and later known as the Merze Tate Explorers. She took students on field trips throughout the country.

Indiana News, March 19, 1932

She was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. for most of her adult life having become a member when in Indianapolis.  She won an Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. fellowship for foreign study in 1932. It was to have been a $1,000 but it was increased to $2,000 at the organization’s Boule. With the funding, she travelled to England in and earned a degree in International Relations from Oxford University in 1935. She was the first African American woman to attend Oxford. Tate defended her research paper, “Movement for Disarmament 1863-1914,”  from an invalid’s chair because she broke her foot in a bicycle accident. She also missed the graduation ceremonies as she was confined to a nursing home while recovering from the injury.

Indiana News, January 2, 1932

While in Europe she traveled extensively. After her return to the United States, she earned a doctoral degree from Radcliffe College, the women’s coordinate of Harvard University. The degree was in government and international relations and she was the first African American woman to do so.

Alabama Tribune (Montgomery, Alabama), July 8, 1960

Between Cambridge and Washington, D.C. where she would live the rest of her life, she taught at several historically Black institutions, including Barber-Scotia Junior College, Bennett College and Morgan State University. She was a 1941 inductee of  Phi Beta Kappa. Howard University offered her a job in 1942. She was one of the first two women to teach in Howard’s Department of History. She retired in 1977.

The National Urban League recognized her for outstanding achievement with its award in 1948. A globetrotter, she spent time as a Fulbright Scholar in India in 1950-51. She also served as a representative for the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

In 1970, Western Michigan recognized her with a Distinguished Alumni Award. In 1981, she gave the university, $150,000 to create an information processing center for graduate research. Nine years later, she established the Merze Tate Student Academic Endowment Fund at Western Michigan University with a $1 million donation. She also endowed two Medallion Scholarship at the institution, WMU’s Sangren Hall is home to the Merze Tate Grant and Innovation Center.

Photo courtesy of Western Michigan University

She died on June 27, 1996, in Washington, DC at the age of 91 and is buried in Michigan.

Posted in Alpha Kappa Alpha, Fran Favorite | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Merze Tate, Ph.D., Alpha Kappa Alpha, #NotableSororityWomen, #WHM2021