By: Christina Terrell
When it comes to Women’s History many people think of influential women such as Rosa Park’s or Amelia Earhart. This is phenomenal, however, sometimes that spot-light can skip over women who have been a part of Women’s History as well. Not because they are less important, it’s just people need to be reminded that no matter what your contribution to history is, the fact that you want to contribute and are contributing is what leaves an impact.
For instance, Mary Jane Patterson was a young African American woman from North Carolina, born into slavery in 1840. However, as a young girl Mary Jane and her family moved to Oberlin Ohio in the mid 1850’s and when Mary Jane Patterson was around 17 years of age, she started her collegiate education. Mary Jane Patterson did one year of preparatory course work at Oberlin College , then in 1862, she enrolled into what was known as a “Gentlemen’s Course” at the time. This was a four-year program
in classical studies that lead to a Bachelor of Arts degree. Mary Jane Patterson went on to graduate from college in 1868, which would be the year she made history, because she was the first woman to graduate from a four-year Bachelor program.
Following her education at Oberlin College she moved around quite a bit working as an educator and activist for women’s rights. In 1971 she became a teacher in Ohio, then she went on to Pennsylvania where she taught at an institute for colored youth for about five years. Later she would move to Washington D.C. to teach at a Preparatory high school, where she became the assistant principle and then eventually the head principle.
Once Mary Jane Patterson retired from being an educator in 1884, she remained in Washington D.C. where she continued to advocate for women’s rights with the Women’s League in Washington D.C. until her death in 1894.