Area 135 square miles (350 square km). With the help of a scholarship from the African Methodist Church and financial support from her aunt, Coppin was able to enroll at Oberlin College, Ohio - the first college in the United States to accept both black and female students - in 1860. Mrs. Coppin retired from her beloved school in 1902 at age 65 and began a new career. To illustrate her point on Black economic independence, Jackson organized an effort to save the Christian Recorder from bankruptcy in 1879. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Based on various German exemplars, the school was intended to serve as a model for other teacher-training schools.….

At one time, when I had quite a signal triumph in Greek, the Professor of Greek concluded to visit the class in mathematics and see how we were getting along. That same year the Coppins sailed for Cape Town, S.Af., and over the next decade she worked tirelessly among the native black women, organizing mission societies and promoting temperance, as well as founding the Bethel Institute in Cape Town. I was particularly anxious to show him that I was as safe in mathematics as in Greek. After her graduation in 1865, Fanny Jackson was appointed to the Institute for Colored Youth, a Quaker school in Philadelphia. In her last years, she completed her autobiography, Reminiscences of School Life, which remains a record of a remarkable life. On December 21, 1881, Fanny married Reverend Levi Jenkins Coppin, a minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church pastor of Bethel AME Church Baltimore.

I, indeed, was more anxious, for I had always heard that my race was good in the languages, but stumbled when they came to mathematics. She prodded them toward excellence. She returned to Philadelphia in 1907, broken in health but not in spirit. Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. All Rights Reserved. Fanny Jackson Coppin, née Fanny Marion Jackson, (born 1837, Washington, D.C., U.S.—died Jan. 21, 1913, Philadelphia, Pa.), American educator and missionary whose innovations as head principal of the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia included a practice-teaching system and an elaborate industrial-training department. One of the divisions ran up again, but the Faculty decided that I had as much as I could do, and it would not allow me to take any more work." [1][2], Born into slavery, Fanny/Fannie Jackson's freedom was purchased by her aunt at age 12.

I felt that, should I fail, it would be ascribed to the fact that I was colored. She made them become more than they ever thought they could. She was the first African American superintendent of a school district in the United States, but soon went back to being a school principal. Moreover, she persuaded employers to hire her pupils in capacities that would utilize their education. From overcoming oppression, to breaking rules, to reimagining the world or waging a rebellion, these women of history have a story to tell.

There was plenty of Latin and Greek in it, and as much mathematics as one could shoulder. View the latest campus news & information surrounding COVID-19. In her senior year, she organized evening classes to teach freedmen. Fanny Jackson Coppin was an American educator, missionary and a lifelong advocate for female higher education. Now, I was always fond of a demonstration, and happened to get in the examination the very proposition that I was well acquainted with; and so went that day out of the class with flying colors. Throughout her youth, she used her earnings from her servant work to hire a tutor who guided her studies for three hours a week.

Philadelphia, city and port, coextensive with Philadelphia county, southeastern Pennsylvania, U.S.

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In 1926, a Baltimore teacher training school was named the Fanny Jackson Coppin Normal School (now Coppin State University).[8].

In 1926 the High and Training School of Baltimore was renamed the Fanny Jackson Coppin Normal School (now Coppin State College). All went smoothly until I was in the junior year in College.

She expanded the curriculum to include an Industrial Department, established a Women’s Industrial Exchange to display the mechanical and artistic works of young women, and founded a Home for Girls and Young Women to house workers from out of town. Jackson Coppin's Reminiscences of a School Life and Hints on Teaching - a combination of autobiography and an account of her teaching and administration at the ICY - was published in 1913. She was the first black person chosen to be a pupil-teacher there. In a letter to Frederick Douglass in 1876, she explained her commitment: “I feel sometimes like a person to whom in childhood was entrusted some sacred flame…This is the desire to see my race lifted out of the mire of ignorance, weakness and degradation; no longer to sit in obscure corners and devour the scraps of knowledge which his superiors flung at him. She was one of the first vice presidents of the National Association of Colored Women, an early advocacy organization for black women founded by Rosetta Douglas.[9]. Fanny Jackson Coppin died in 1913 at age 76. Perhaps her greatest accomplishment was her influence on her students. Perkins, Linda M. "Heed life's demands: The educational philosophy of Fanny Jackson Coppin". In 1881, she married Rev. Born a slave, Fanny Jackson was bought into freedom by an aunt while still a small girl. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Fanny Jackson Coppin was an African-American educator and missionary and a lifelong advocate for female higher education. She gained her freedom when her aunt was able to purchase her at the age of twelve. Born a slave in the nation’s capital, the child Fanny was purchased by an aunt. It may be obtained either formally in trade schools, technical secondary schools, or in on-the-job training programs or, more informally, by picking up the necessary skills on the job. All content © 2020 Coppin State University.

By age fourteen, she was supporting herself in Newport, Rhode Island, and struggling for education. To her, vocational training was as important a tool as academic education in the struggle to end racial discrimination. [4], Jackson Coppin was the first black teacher at the Oberlin Academy. She made them dream. In 1899, the Fannie Jackson Coppin Club was named in her honor for community oriented African American women in Alameda County. In 1889, after a 10-year campaign, Fanny Coppin realized her hope to introduce an industrial-training department that offered instruction in 10 trades. In 1860 she entered Oberlin College. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Meet extraordinary women who dared to bring gender equality and other issues to the forefront. Another aunt took the little girl in, but Fanny had to go out and work as a domestic, getting schooling whenever she could. I want to see him crowned with strength and dignity; adorned with the enduring grace of intellectual attainments.”. Then, one day, the Faculty sent for me--ominous request--and I was not slow in obeying it. Fanny Coppin resigned her post with the Institute in 1902. This article was most recently revised and updated by, Blackpast.org - Biography of Fannie Jackson Coppin. Initially enrolling for the "ladies' course", Coppin switched to the more rigorous "gentlemen's course" the following year. She served as the principal of the Ladies Department and taught Greek, Latin, and Mathematics.

Reminiscences of School Life and Hints on Teaching, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fanny_Jackson_Coppin&oldid=979419258, Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 20 September 2020, at 17:08.

Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. One of the first schools so named, the École Normale Supérieure (“Normal Superior School”), was established in Paris in 1794. Get kids back-to-school ready with Expedition: Learn!