Mary Jane Patterson Research Paper

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Mary Jane Patterson

Mary Jane Patterson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her parents brought and their family to Oberlin, Ohio to find an education for their children. In 1835, Oberlin College admitted its first black student and eventually became the country’s first coed institution of higher education. It was also the first college in the country to grant women undergraduate degrees. Mary Jane Patterson studied for a year in the college’s Prepatory Department and she was the first African-American women to earn a Bachelor’s degree. Born into slavery, she is known as the first black woman in the United States to graduate from an four-year college.
Mary Jane Patterson taught at the Institute for Colored Youths in Philadelphia, and took