Coppin, Fanny Jackson (1837–1913)

American teacher and missionary who became the first black woman in the U.S. to head an institution of higher learning. Name variations: (pseudonym) Catherine Casey. Pronunciation: KOP-in. Born Fanny Marion Jackson in 1837 in Washington, D.C.; died of arteriosclerosis at her home in Philadelphia on January 21, 1913; daughter of unknown father and Lucy Jackson, a slave; attended public school briefly and received private tutoring; attended Rhode Island State Normal School in Bristol, 1859; A.B., Oberlin College, 1865; married Reverend Levi Jenkins Coppin, in 1881.

Worked as domestic (1851–59); served as principal of the female department and teacher of Greek, Latin, and mathematics, Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia (1865–69); served as principal of the Institute (1869–1902); served as AME missionary, South Africa (1902–04); wrote autobiography, Reminiscences of School Life and Hints on Teaching (1913).

At the age of 14, Fanny Jackson took a job as a domestic servant in the household of George Henry Calvert, author and great-grandson of Lord Baltimore, the founder of Maryland. For the next six years, the recently freed slave used money she earned in the Calvert's Newport, Rhode Island, home to hire a tutor. For one hour, three days a week, she pursued her studies. This preparation allowed her to attend a year of public school for black children, Rhode Island State Normal School in Bristol, and, ultimately, the Ladies Department of Oberlin College. Driven by a dream to "get an education and become a teacher to my people," Fanny Jackson graduated from Oberlin in 1865. Four years later, she became the first black woman in the United States to head an institution of higher learning.

Fanny Marion Jackson was born in 1837 in Washington, D.C. Her father's identity is not known, but her mother's name was Lucy Jackson . Her aunt, Sarah Orr Clark , purchased Fanny's freedom for $125 when Fanny was a young girl, then sent her to New Bedford, Massachusetts, to live with another aunt and perform domestic service outside the home. Fanny moved to Newport in 1852, where she went to work for the Calverts. Although working as a domestic did not provide her with funds for further education, she was able to attend Oberlin College in Ohio, one of very few schools that admitted black students during this period, thanks in part to scholarships—one from Bishop Daniel Payne of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the other from Oberlin. Her Aunt Sarah continued to assist her, as well.

Fanny Jackson turned out to be an exceptional student who within a year moved from the "literary" course usually pursued by women to the "gentlemen's" classical course leading to the A.B. degree. In her junior year, the faculty selected her to serve as a pupil-teacher in the preparatory department, a position in which no black student had ever before served. Each year, 40 students were chosen from the junior and senior classes to teach these preparatory classes, but Jackson quickly became the most popular instructor. While at Oberlin, she was named senior class poet, gave music lessons, and also organized an evening literacy class for recently freed slaves.

In 1865, the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia hired Jackson as principal of the female department and teacher of Greek, Latin, and mathematics. The Institute had been established by Richard Humphreys, a member of the Society of Friends, in 1837 as a classical high school. It was considered one of the nation's most prestigious black educational institutions, a reputation that would only increase during Jackson's tenure there. In 1869, when the Institute's principal Ebenezer Bassett was appointed U.S. minister to Haiti, the board of managers named Jackson principal of the school, making her the first African-American woman to hold such a position in the United States.

Jackson proved to be an active and imaginative leader of the Institute for Colored Youth. In 1871, she responded to the growing need for public-school teachers by initiating a normal-school program. She also became a prominent advocate of industrial and technical education, often lecturing on the subject or writing about it under the pseudonym "Catherine Casey" for the Christian Recorder. After years of her pressuring the board of managers, the Institute added an industrial department in 1889. By 1900, the department offered training in ten fields, including printing, bricklaying, tailoring, and sewing.

When speaking to Institute students or other African-American groups, Jackson often stressed the virtues of self-help and self-denial. As she told the Institute class of 1879:

You can do much to alleviate the condition of our people. Do not be discouraged. The very places where you are needed most are those where you will get least pay. Do not resign a position in the South which pays you $12 a month as a teacher for one in Pennsylvania which pays $50.

The fact that Jackson practiced what she preached by dedicating her life to others added great weight to her argument.

Fanny Jackson married Reverend Levi J. Coppin, pastor of the Philadelphia Bethel Church, in 1881. He transferred to a Baltimore congregation soon after the marriage, so the couple often lived apart until his return to Philadelphia in 1885. Fanny Coppin became quite active in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in subsequent years, serving as national president of its Home and Foreign Missionary Society. When Levi was elected an AME bishop in 1900, he was assigned to Cape Town, South Africa. Fanny resigned her position as principal two years later to join him in Africa. She threw herself into missionary work, traveling hundreds of miles to establish new missions and to "talk to the women upon the subjects of righteousness, temperance, and the judgement to come."

A hundred men can lift a log together very easily, but when only a few take hold at a time very little is accomplished.

—Fanny Jackson Coppin

Fanny Coppin returned to Philadelphia in 1904 with her health failing. Though she was often confined to her home during her remaining years, she remained on the board of managers of the Home for the Aged and Infirmed Colored People in Philadelphia. She also worked on an autobiography, Reminiscences of School Life (1913), which appeared in the year she died. In 1909, a Baltimore normal school was named in her honor. This institution became Coppin State College.

sources:

Coppin, Fanny Jackson. Reminiscences of School Life and Hints on Teaching. Philadelphia: AME Book Concern, 1913.

Perkins, Linda M. "Heed Life's Demands: The Educational Philosophy of Fanny Jackson Coppin," in Journal of Negro Education. Vol. 51, 1982, pp. 181–190.

suggested reading:

Sterling, Dorothy, ed. We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century. NY: W.W. Norton, 1984.

collections:

Institute for Colored Youth Papers, Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania

John Craig , Professor of History, Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania