Welcome to Women Volunteers, a GFWC-NC podcast where we talk with women across North Carolina, who volunteer their time in support of community improvement. We'll find out how they got started, how they manage these projects, and the impact of their volunteer actions.
Hello, everyone, I hope you're all doing well today. To close out February I want to highlight a special project of the GFWC-NC, the General Federation of Women's Clubs of North Carolina President Crystal O'Neal. And that project is a focus on helping the Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown Memorial site, improve the grave site of Dr. Brown and the area around the flagpole. Now, she chose this project because she's been enamored with the Palmer Memorial Institute, the Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum, since she was a kid, and it's important part of women's history and African American history, and really is a hidden gem. And she wants to encourage club women to think about those hidden gems all across the state of North Carolina.
Now, this is a North Carolina State Historic Site, the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Memorial at Palmer Memorial Institute. It was founded in 1902 by Dr. Brown and it transformed the lives of more than 2000 African American students. Today, the campus provides a setting where visitors can explore the environment where boys and girls lived and learned during the greater part of the 20th century. The museum connects Brown and Palmer Memorial Institute to the larger themes of African American history, women's history, social history and education, as well as emphasizing the contributions of African Americans in North Carolina.
Now, Dr. Brown was born Lottie Hawkins in 1883 and Henderson, North Carolina and moved with her family later to Cambridge, Massachusetts. And there she attended the grammar school, high school and eventually the Salem State Normal School. While she was a student at Salem, the American Missionary Association offered her a teaching position in North Carolina, and she was dissatisfied with the lack of educational opportunities for African Americans in the South. So she accepted.
At the beginning, Palmer's curriculum emphasized agricultural and industrial education for rural living, but she expanded the school to more than 350 acres which included a farm and eventually began to really emphasize academics and cultural education. So around the 20s and 30s, they basically abandoned their attempt to create a junior college and changed from its original emphasis on industrial education, discontinued its elementary department, and limited its focus to college preparatory work. The Palmer Memorial Institute was fully accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. We call that SACSS for short. In 1922, at a time when really few African American high schools were, and by that time, Brown, you know, Charlotte had built Palmer into the only finishing school of its kind in America. Now, these changes were really successful by the end of the 50s Palmer Memorial Institute had an enrollment of more than 200, and for decades, more than 90% of their graduating students attended college, and 64% pursued postgraduate degrees.
She returned to North Carolina in 1901, to teach at Bethany Congregational Church in Sedalia, that's in Guilford County. Now that school closed after one term, but she decided to remain and establish her own school. In 1902. After raising money in New England, she founded Palmer Memorial Institute, it was a day in boarding school, it was established in a converted blacksmith shop and the school was named in honor of Alice Freeman Palmer, and she was Charlotte's mentor and benefactor and Mrs. Palmer was also the second woman president of Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
Now as the fame of the school spread, Dr. Brown became nationally known as an educator, lecturer, civil rights activist, author and cultural leader. She received several honorary degrees and her many associates include, included Mary McLeod Bethune Nanny Helen burrows, Eleanor Roosevelt, W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington.
Well, several years after her death in 1961, the school did begin to decline. And this was partly a result of integration which made it possible for African Americans to be admitted to white public schools, and partly because of increasing costs associated with private education. Because of this and other factors Palmer Institute experienced tremendous financial difficulties, and eventually was, you know, forced to close after really disastrous fire destroyed the school's administration and classroom building in 1971.
Now, today, the campus is a North Carolina State Historic Site, as I mentioned earlier, that provides a setting where people can come and visit and explore this place where boys and girls lived and learned right? Now there are several buildings on campus. I'm just going to kind of cruise through some of these and give you a little bit of an overview overview.
So Canary Cottage that was the personal residence of Dr. Brown, and it was furnished to give students practical ideas on interior decoration, and she hosted many teas and other social events in her home to provide students with training in cultured behavior and a little bit of trivia. Canary cottage was the model for the Kerry M. Stone Teachers Cottage, and then Massachusetts Congregational Women's Cottage.
The Kerry Stone Teachers Cottage was made possible primarily through the efforts of Dr. Brown's longtime friend Jay S. Bright at Bright had been associated with Memorial Institute longer than anyone really except for Dr. Brown and stone cottage was named in honor of the wife of Palmer's largest benefactor, Galen l. Stone of Boston, and it was constructed in 1948 and was built to to provide campus housing for the schools unmarried female teachers.
Elliott Hall was named in honor of noted educator Charles W. Elliot, and served as a school's a dormitory for the boys. It was built in 1934 and is similar in style to Galen Stone Hall for girls, which is located on the east end of the campus. But due to a shortage of funds Elliott Hall was only two thirds completed. Although plans were developed to finish the dorm, they were never realized.
Now Kimball Hall served as a school's dining hall and was open for use in 1927, and it was dedicated in honor of the Kimble family. Helen Kimball was among the Palmer Institute's earliest supporters, as well as a close friend of Dr. Brown. Now, it was in Kimball hall that Palmer students learned and practiced their social dining graces, and separated by custom boys entered the hall from the right entrance and girls from the left, and any departure from acceptable table manners resulted in immediate disciplinary action and possible removal from the dining hall. And that separation of boys and girls continued well into the 60s.
Now built in 1927, and dedicated to the Palmer Memorial Institute's largest contributor Stone Hall served as a school's dormitory for girls in 1950s suffered a disastrous fire. By the following fall, however, had been completely renovated for continued use.
Now, in 1948, the Massachusetts Congregational Cottage or the girl's home economics practice house, which, you know, was pretty common in the home economics realm was made possible through the efforts of Brown's longtime friend Jay S. Bright, and the cottage was named in honor of the Massachusetts Women's Congregational Society, who gave an additional $10,500 for the new girls practice him. The tea house, functioned as a campus cantina bookstore, and it was also the hands on learning center for business management, illustrating a typical Palmer Memorial Institute method of teaching. Each year, students took over the operation of the tea house in the hope of making it a profit-yielding business. Here they practiced theories of buying and selling, planning, budgeting, cooperation and service.
Now one of the most important features of the Palmer campus is the grave site of the school's founder. Before the death of Dr. Brown in 1961 she had requested that she was buried - or would be buried - on the grounds of the campus that she'd spent her life building and caring for. So the family of Dr. Brown, alumni of the Institute, and Wilhelmina Crossan, who was a second president of Palmer Memorial Institute, were influential in carrying out Dr. Brown's funeral wishes and this is where you know GFWC-NC that special presidents project is really coming into play because GFWC-NC is fundraising to support a landscaping project.
And this project is to improve the grave area of where Dr. Brown is buried and their whole flagpole area, which did experience some damage recently. So the goal that we have at GFWC-NC is to raise $10,000 in support of this and so far we have raised $7,000, we have a little bit longer to go. But if you would like to join us and make a donation, whether you are a member of the General Federation of Women's Clubs or not, you can do so via PayPal at GFWCNC or you can reach out to me directly at media@GFWCNC.org and we'll figure out the best way to get your donation to the right people.
Now you can visit the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum, it is in Gibsonville. Or you might hear people say it's in Sedalia, but technically it is at 6136 Burlington Road in Gibsonville, North Carolina. They are open Tuesday through Saturday from 9am to 5pm. And if you want to make a donation directly to the Charlotte Hawkins brown museum, you can you just need to reach out to them at CHB@NCDCR.gov. I hope you'll join many of our club women in visiting this site of Charlotte Hawkins Brown Memorial, or maybe finding a gem in your own backyard that supports women's history and African American history.
Women volunteers is a podcast by Kelly Paul for GFWC-NC. If you're interested in learning more about the General Federation of Women's Clubs of North Carolina, and how you can join these amazing women in improving our communities. Please visit us on the web at gfwcnc.org.
