We’re so excited to join the #ArchivesHashtagParty! Organized by the U.S. National Archives, the #ArchivesHashtagParty is a way for all types of archives to share their collections on social media around a fun topic. They provide a new hashtag theme each month; we bring our own collections. This month we’re celebrating #ArchivesBlackEducation: we’ve post stories from our collections about Black educators and students each Friday through February for Black History Month. Here on the blog, we’ll share longer versions of those stories with more context from our collections. 

Virginia Randolph at the Henrico County Training School, 1926.
Jackson Davis Collection of African American Photographs, uva-lib-371493

A pioneer in rural southern education for blacks during the Jim Crow Era, Virginia Estelle Randolph’s (1870-1958) career spanned over 60 years.

Born in May 1870, Randolph was raised in Richmond, Virginia, to formerly enslaved parents Nelson Edward Randolph and Sarah Carter Randolph. She graduated from the school previously known as the Virginia Normal School (now Armstrong High School), in Richmond at age 16. Randolph began her first teaching position in Goochland County, Virginia. A devoted educator, she was known for her tireless commitment to her students and her commitment to giving them a holistic education: “I believe in educating the hands, minds, the eyes, the feet and the soul.” Her dedication and passion for education did not go unnoticed, in 1908 Randolph became the first “Jeanes Supervising Industrial Teacher” in the South.

The Jeanes Program was established in 1907 and funded by Anna T. Jeanes, a Quaker philanthropist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The program provided funding for educators to teach both vocational and academic skills to African Americans in rural communities.

Jeanes Teachers, South Carolina, 1917. Jackson Davis Collection of African American Photographs, uva-lib-369896

This February 1911 Issue of the National Negro School News is published by the Tuskegee Institute and is solely devoted to Jeanes Teacher Fund. Papers of the Dillard Family, MSS 9498.

In her position as a Jeanes Teacher Supervisor, she oversaw 23 elementary schools in Henrico County, Virginia. As the first Supervisor of the Jeanes Teacher program, Randolph devised an in-service training program for African American teachers and improved the curriculum of the schools she supervised. Given the autonomy to create her own program, she specifically designed industrial work and community support programs to meet the needs of the communities she served. She wrote a book documenting the success of her program called the Henrico Plan, which would later serve as a reference source for Southern schools receiving funding from the Jeanes Foundation. Randolph held this position for over 40 years, retiring in 1949.

Virginia Randolph visiting a one room school in Henrico, County, Va (circa 1915/1941). Jackson Davis Collection of African American Photographs, uva-lib-326316

Virginia Randolph died March 16, 1958 of cardiovascular disease. In 2009, 51 years after her death, Randolph was posthumously honored by the Library of Virginia as one of their “Virginia Women in History” for her career and contributions to education.

Virginia Randolph at Dedication of New School Building. Jackson Davis Collection of African American Photographs, uva-lib-372185

Learn more about “Miss Randolph” in this 2018 Richmond Mag feature, or visit the Virginia Randolph Museum in Richmond, Virginia.

We’re so excited to join the #ArchivesHashtagParty! Organized by the U.S. National Archives, the #ArchivesHashtagParty is a way for all types of archives to share their collections on social media around a fun topic. They provide a new hashtag theme each month; we bring our own collections. This month we’re celebrating #ArchivesBlackEducation, except we’re already bending the rules: we’ll post stories from our collections about Black educators and students each Friday through February for Black History Month. Here on the blog, we’ll share longer versions of those stories with more context from our collections. 

Carte-de-visite of Philena Carkin taken by Charlottesville photographer William Roads

Under the auspices of the Freedmen’s Aid Society, Philena Carkin, a young white school teacher from Massachusetts, moved to Charlottesville in 1866 to teach newly freed children. Carkin worked under “Yankee School Marm” Anna Gardner who had founded the school the year before and had named it The Jefferson School. The Jefferson School initially was located in part of “an immense brick building… in an advanced state of dilapidation” on Main Street known as the “Mudwall” or Delevan building. This building had served as a Confederate hospital during the Civil War but was repurposed by the War Department as a Freedmen’s School during Reconstruction. The “Mudwall” was located behind the site of present-day First Baptist Church on Main Street, on the other side of and very close to the railroad tracks.

In her Reminiscences (MSS 11123), written 35 years after her time in Charlottesville, Carkin provides descriptions of many things, including poor treatment of freedmen and teachers by University of Virginia students:

“At one time they had a habit of climbing upon the top of the cars of the Va. Central trains that stopped at the University station. With their pockets filled with stones, as the train moved on they would throw these missiles right and left as they pleased. The train passed within a rod of our school building, and they would sometimes make a target of our windows, two or three times breaking every pane of glass in a window.”

The manuscript of the Reminiscences of Philena Carkin which resides in the Small Special Collections Library was transcribed as part of the E-Text project.

Pencil drawing by Philena Carkin of the floorplan of the school and teachers’ living quarters from “Reminiscences of my Life and Work among the Freedmen of Charlottesville, Virginia, from March 1st 1866 to July 1st 1875. Vol. 1”

We’re so excited to join the #ArchivesHashtagParty! Organized by the U.S. National Archives, the #ArchivesHashtagParty is a way for all types of archives to share their collections on social media around a fun topic. They provide a new hashtag theme each month; we bring our own collections. This month we’re celebrating #ArchivesBlackEducation, except we’re already bending the rules: we’ll post stories from our collections about Black educators and students each Friday through February for Black History Month. Here on the blog, we’ll share longer versions of those stories with more context from our collections. 

Albemarle Training School (ATS) was an industrial school for African American children. As noted in this excerpt from a history of ATS, Black families were hungry for this rare educational opportunity.

Albemarle Training School Building (MSS10176-F)

Albemarle Training School excerpt

Mary Carr Greer in the first ATS yearbook (1948).

Mary Carr Greer was the daughter of Hugh and Texie Mae Hawkins Carr, farmers whose land now forms part of Ivy Creek Natural Area. Greer taught domestic science at ATS for 15 years. Greer then served as ATS principal from 1931 until 1950. During her tenure, she introduced an academic curriculum, transforming ATS from a vocational school to the first four-year high school for African Americans in County.

These images of Black student life in Albemarle are from the 1948 yearbook, ATS’s first in the Papers of the Greer-Carr Family (MSS 10176)

Albemarle Training School Library and Typing Class

Upper class students

First, second, and third grade classes

Albemarle Training School Quartets

We’re so excited to join the #ArchivesHashtagParty! Organized by the U.S. National Archives, the #ArchivesHashtagParty is a way for all types of archives to share their collections on social media around a fun topic. They provide a new hashtag theme each month; we bring our own collections. This month we’re celebrating #ArchivesBlackEducation, except we’re already bending the rules: we’ll post stories from our collections about Black educators and students each Friday through February for Black History Month. Here on the blog, we’ll share longer versions of those stories with more context from our collections. 

Photo of portrait of BF Yancey, courtesy of Dave Johnson

Born in Howardsville, Virginia to parents Spencer and Fannie Brown Yancey on October 15, 1870, Benjamin Franklin Yancey, (1870-1915) was an African American educator and community leader who founded the Esmont Colored School in 1915.

Yancey graduated from what is now Hampton University and returned to Albemarle County to teach school. Yancey eventually obtained a teaching position in Esmont, Virginia, a small village approximately 10 miles from his birthplace.

Benjamin F. Yancey’s daily register for 1906-1907. The register includes students’ names, ages, and attendance along with some expense information.

Unflagging in his desire to improve the learning conditions of his “scholars,” Yancey spearheaded a group of community members to create the “Educational Board of Esmont” in 1907. The board’s mission was “to foster the cause of education and establish a better school.” Over the next eight years, Yancey and the board worked tirelessly to bring this dream to fruition. Eight years later the dream was realized, and the Esmont Colored School opened.

Benjamin Yancey died July 19, 1915.

Benjamin F. Yancey’s 1914 Virginia Teaching Certificate

Benjamin Yancey died July 19, 1915.

Benjamin F. Yancey’s 1911 contract with Albemarle County for teaching “five school months” at county school “No. 27” for a salary of $25 per school month; 3 holidays are noted: Christmas Day, Lee’s birthday, Arbor Day.

The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library holds the Papers of the Yancey Family (MSS 11599,-a)