N.C. A&T Alumni Times

While the first graduating class at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University was all male in 1899, there have always been female faculty, staff, and students since the beginning. Today there is very little known about the lives of the first women of Aggieland before the college stopped enrolling women from 1902 to 1928. However, throughout those years women were allowed to attend summer school sessions. What is known about the women of N.C. A&T comes from surviving college bulletins and agricultural experimental station books.

The earliest known woman who was called an instructor in the history of The Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race, now North Carolina A&T, was Mrs. John O. Crosby. She was the first “first lady” of the college, who was a college graduate, skilled in textiles and she began teaching home economics on the campus.

Sophia M. Parker (c. 1876 - ?) of Beaufort, N.C. was the first woman to head a department at the A&M College. She was a graduate of St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh, N.C. and from 1897 to 1901, she was the principal of the department of domestic science. A January 1898 newspaper article declared that she was the only woman teaching at the college. She would soon return to St. Augustine’s in 1901 as an instructor of sewing and dressmaking.

From 1898 to 1901, Estella May Carter (c. 1875 - ?) served as a bursar and librarian, both were titles for the financial administrator of the A&M College. She was a native of New Bedford, Mass. where she returned to work as a school teacher. Also, hired in 1898 was Mary Harris Perry who was the assistant for the A&M preparatory department.

During this time the A&M College had a matron or a woman in charge of domestic and nursing duties. Some of our first matrons included Joanna Jones and Eliza A. Cheek. Cheek was the mother of William T. C. Cheek, one of the first seven graduates from A&M in 1899. She was also an instructor of domestic science under Sophia M. Parker. After 1900, she was succeeded by Alice V. Williams. Along with the college matron, there were several female domestic workers at the college whose names are still recorded in paperwork from the James B. Dudley Collection in archives.

At least 12 women were enrolled as students in 1895, three of whom would earn bachelors’ degrees before 1902. The first female graduate of A&T was Frances T. Grimes in 1901, who became a school teacher in Charlotte, N.C.

One of the most instrumental women of A&M College was no one other than Susie B. Dudley (c. 1860 – 1933). She was the wife of President James B. Dudley, she was also an instructor of literature, a poet, playwright, designer, a popular hostess, and the lyricist of “Dear A & T” our Alma Mater. She is still remembered as one of Aggieland’s greatest women. One of the Dudley daughters, Vivian, was a freshman in 1900, who later married Dr. S. B. Jones, the college physician in 1917.

If you have any information about the women mentioned in this article or would like to learn more about N.C. A&T History, please contact the F. D. Bluford Library Archives at libraryarchives@ncat.edu.