Call Number:

MC.1164

Repository:

Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections

Extent:

.5 linear ft. (1 box)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Emily Howland papers (HC.MC.1146), Quaker & Special Collections, Haverford College, Haverford, PA.

Date:

1926-1975 (inclusive)

Creator:

Drummond, Richard C. S.

Abstract:

The collection consists of correspondence between the administrator of Emily Howland's estate, Richard C.S. Drummond, and representatives of 39 mostly southern African American educational institutions, as beneficiaries of her will.

Emily Howland (1827-1929) was an activist for Black education, women's rights (with Susan B. Anthony and Anna Howard Shaw), temperance, and peace. She grew up in the Quaker community of Sherwood, New York, raised by an abolitionist family. She attended the Margaret Robinson School in Philadelphia, but was prevented from continuing her education because of her gender. In 1857, she became a teacher in a school for young Black girls run by Myrtilla Miner in Washington, D.C. After the Civil War broke out, Howland worked at Camp Todd, also in Washington, D.C. This was the largest refugee camp in the country, established after President Lincoln's emancipation proclamation of 1862. At Camp Todd, Howland was a nurse and teacher to many African Americans, and served as director of the settlement from 1864 to 1866. This time served to confirm her opinion that education was the road to equality. She also determined that this education needed to be practical rather than classical, a route she felt would allow African Americans to function independently in society. At age 99, Emily Howland was awarded an honorary Litt.D. from SUNY-Albany.

In her will, dated 1926, Emily Howland named almost 50 educational institutions as legatees, some 30 of them Southern, which were providing an industrial education to Black Americans. She also left bequests to institutions such as the National Council for the Prevention of War and the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Richard C.S. Drummond, the father of donor Burke Drummond, was the administrator of Emily Howland's estate.

Papers include the correspondence of Richard C.S. Drummond with legatees under Howland's will, primarily representatives of African American educational institutions in the South. The administration of the will required verification of incorporated names, since some of the beneficiary institutions had names that were different from those Howland used in her will. Much of the correspondence involves this verification, but, in the process, provides histories of these institutions. Correspondents include Mary McLeod Bethune, Levi Hollingsworth Wood, J. Henry Scattergood, Isabel Howland, and Frederick Libby. The colletion also includes biographical materials about Emily Howland.