Emily Howland papers

Emily Howland (1827-1929) was an activist for Black education, women's rights (with Susan B. Anthony and Anna Howard Shaw), temperance, and peace. She grew up in the Quaker community of Sherwood, New York, raised by an abolitionist family. She attended the Margaret Robinson School in Philadelphia, but was prevented from continuing her education because of her gender. In 1857, she became a teacher in a school for young Black girls run by Myrtilla Miner in Washington, D.C. After the Civil War broke out, Howland worked at Camp Todd, also in Washington, D.C. This was the largest refugee camp in the country, established after President Lincoln's emancipation proclamation of 1862. At Camp Todd, Howland was a nurse and teacher to many African Americans, and served as director of the settlement from 1864 to 1866. This time served to confirm her opinion that education was the road to equality. She also determined that this education needed to be practical rather than classical, a route she felt would allow African Americans to function independently in society. At age 99, Emily Howland was awarded an honorary Litt.D. from SUNY-Albany.

In her will, dated 1926, Emily Howland named almost 50 educational institutions as legatees, some 30 of them Southern, which were providing an industrial education to Black Americans. She also left bequests to institutions such as the National Council for the Prevention of War and the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Richard C.S. Drummond, the father of donor Burke Drummond, was the administrator of Emily Howland's estate.