Mary Jane Patterson

Mary Jane Patterson was born to formerly enslaved parents in Raleigh, North Carolina, and her family relocated first to Pennsylvania and later to Oberlin, Ohio, specifically to access the educational opportunities available at Oberlin College, one of the very few American institutions of the era admitting Black students and women.

In 1862, Patterson completed Oberlin's rigorous four-year "gentleman's course," rather than the shorter, less demanding literary course more commonly taken by women, becoming the first African American woman to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in the United States. She went on to a distinguished career as an educator, teaching first in Philadelphia and then at the Institute for Colored Youth before moving to Washington, D.C.

In Washington, Patterson taught at the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth, later known as the M Street School and then Dunbar High School, one of the most academically respected Black institutions in the country, eventually becoming its first Black principal in 1871. She led the school for over a decade, building its reputation for academic excellence that would go on to produce generations of prominent Black professionals, before returning to teaching for the remainder of her career.