"Mary Jane Patterson"(1840-1894)

Educator Mary Jane Patterson is considered to be the first African-American to receive a B.A. degree when she graduated from Oberlin College in 1862.A fellow Oberlin alumnus,Lucy Stanton Day Sessions,graduated twelve years earlier but was not in a program that awarded official bachelor's degrees.Mary early years are unclear,it is believed that she was born into slavery in Raleigh,North Carolina in 1840.As a young girl,she arrived in Oberlin, Ohio with her family during the mid-1850s.In 1857 she completed a year of preparatory coursework at Oberlin College.Rather than transitioning into Oberlin's two-year program for women,she enrolled in the school's "gentleman's course,"a four-year program of classical studies that led to a Bachelor of Arts degree with high honors in 1862.She spent the next year as a teacher in the Southern Ohio of Chillcothe.At age of 22 she left Ohio for Philadelphia,Pennsylvania where she taught at the institute for Colored Youth (later M Street High School and now Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School)Which was was the first U.S. public high school for African Americans and the first public high school in Washington,D.C.Two years later in 1871 she became principal of the school,serving one year before appointed assistant principal when Richard T.Greener,the first black graduate of Harvard University,came on as principal.Richard left after one year,and Mary resumed her position as principal,staying there until her resignation in 1884.During her her tenure the school thrived and became well known as prestigious institution for secondary education.It is believed that Mary remained at the school as a teacher following her tenure as principal.Aside from her career as an educator,Mary was involved in women's rights helping to found the colored Women's League of Washington,D.C. she died at the age of 54.Her home at 1532 15th street,NW is part of the Washington,D.C.'s historic walking tour.