Main content

Extent:

1.0 linear feet (; 2 boxes, 1 volume, 2 flat files)

Abstract:

Nellie Rathbone Bright, born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1898, was the only child of the Rev. Richard Bright and his wife, Nellie (Jones) Bright. Despite segregation barriers, the African American Bright family attained educational levels surpassing those of the general population of their generation. Rev. Bright, assigned to the Episcopal diocese in Savannah, Georgia, in 1891, was appointed two decades later to a Philadelphia parish and moved his family to that city. A student of Philadelphia public schools, Nellie Rathbone Bright qualified as a grade school teacher with a special certificate for sewing in 1916. She then entered the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1923 with a B.A. in English. Single all her life, Bright spent her entire career as a teacher and then principal in the Philadelphia school system. Her efforts as an educator, spanning more than thirty years, focused not only on the schools but also on the housing and neighborhoods in which her students lived. In...(see more)

Held at: Historical Society of Pennsylvania [Contact Us]