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teacher, she was not hired by the
Cambridge public schools but instead first taught in a segregated school in Chestertown Maryland. After her father's death in 1880, she returned to Cambridge. Protests from the Cambridge African American community then led to her being hired to teach at the Agassiz school, a well regarded public school attended by middle class white children. In 1889 Baldwin was appointed principal, the first African-American female principal in Massachusetts and the Northeast. As principal, Baldwin supervised white faculty and a predominantly white student body. In 1916 when a new Agassiz school was erected, Baldwin was made master. She was one of only two women in the Cambridge school system who held the position of master and the only African American in
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women associates included Alice Dunbar Nelson, who literary historian Gloria T. Hull concludes had significant lesbian intimacies. Weiler speculates: "Perhaps Maria and Alice
Baldwin valued their professional lives over marriage, or they may merely have preferred to remain single. That we have no evidence of Maria's romantic relationships with either men or women does not mean they had no relationships. It means that this part of their history, like so much of the inner life of black women of this generation, is simply unknown."
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Niagara
Movement and a member of the Committee of Forty which organized the founding of the NAACP. Baldwin was an advocate of woman suffrage. She was also an early member of the board of the Boston Branch of the NAACP. She was active in supporting the Robert Gould Shaw House, a settlement house in South Boston. During the First World War, she was central in founding the Soldiers Comfort Unit, which supported black soldiers stationed at Fort Devens. After the war, the group changed its name to the
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According to biographer
Kathleen Weiler, Baldwin remained single: "As is true of many other aspects of Maria Baldwin's personal life, the reasons she remained single are not known. Her sister Alice also never married" and lived in all-female households with other black women teachers, and her black
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Miss
Baldwin, the dark lady mentioned in my first nonlecture (and a lady if ever a lady existed) was blessed with a delicious voice, charming manners, and a deep understanding of children. Never did any demidivine dictator more gracefully and easily rule a more unruly and less graceful populace. Her
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professors and many of the old
Cambridge families, becoming popular and respected among the larger Cambridge community. She introduced new methods of teaching mathematics and began art classes. She was the first to introduce the practice of hiring a school nurse. Her school was the only one in the
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the first periodical published by black women. She was a member of the board of directors and in 1903 was elected
President of the Boston Literary and Historical Association, an organization of leading black activists who supported black civil rights. She was one of the first women members of the
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In the late 1870s, Baldwin joined several Civil Rights groups, becoming a member and secretary of the debate club the
Banneker Society, using her position and skills to advocate for women's suffrage and the importance of childhood education. Her home was the central meeting place for the African
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She lectured widely to both Euro-American and
African American organizations. Her best-known presentation was her lecture on Harriet Beecher Stowe, which she first delivered as the Annual Washington's Birthday celebration at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1897. She was the first
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She belonged to numerous civic and educational organizations, both black and white. Among the white-dominated organizations were the
Twentieth Century Club, the Cantabrigia Club, and the Boston Ethical Society. She was also a leader of the black community. In 1893, along with her close friends
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Baldwin was born to Peter L. and Mary E. Baldwin in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She received all of her education in the city's public schools. In 1874, Baldwin graduated from Cambridge High School and a year later from the Cambridge training school for teachers. Despite her obvious talents as a
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American community. Beginning in the early 1890s she led a literary group for black Harvard students, among them William Monroe Trotter, William Lewis, and W.E.B. DuBois. She also organized and led the Omar Khayyam Circle, a black literary and intellectual group. Notable members included
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very presence emanated an honour and a glory: the honour of spiritual freedom—not mere freedom from—and the glory of being, not (like most extant mortals) really undead but actually alive. From her I marvellingly learned that the truest power is gentleness.
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Baldwin served as principal and master of Agassiz school for forty years. Under her leadership, it became one of the best schools in the city, attended by children of
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Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin and Flora Ruffin Ridley she founded the Woman's Era Club, one of the first African American women's clubs. The club published
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claimed she had achieved the greatest distinction in education to that time of any African-American not working in segregated schools.
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African American and the first woman to be invited to present this annual lecture. She also taught summer courses for teachers at the
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237:. The campaign was initiated by an eighth-grade student at the school and actively supported by other students and the principal.
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African American Civil Rights: Early Activism and the Niagara Movement: Early Activism and the Niagara Movement
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and was a supporter of Charlotte Hawkins Brown's Palmer Institute in Sedalia, North Carolina.
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The Agassiz neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts was renamed as Baldwin in 2020
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Winning the vote : the triumph of the American woman suffrage movement
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Blackseek.com/black history daily: Maria Baldwin, A Woman of Education
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532:(1st ed.). Santa Cruz, CA: American Graphic Press. p. 57.
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Defining the Struggle: National Racial Justice Organizing, 1880-1915
417:"Claiming Their Citizenship: African American Women From 1624-2009"
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On February 12, 2004, Agassiz School was officially renamed as the
110:. She lived all her life in Cambridge and Boston. Writing in 1917,
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The African American Registry: Maria L. Baldwin, graceful educator
650:"Cambridge City Council Approves Agassiz Neighborhood Name Change"
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for her connection with the League of Women for Community Service.
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I dare not fail : notable African American women educators
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city of Cambridge to establish an "open-air" classroom. Poet
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Agassiz Neighborhood Council: Agassiz Neighborhood Notables
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was one of her students and described her thus in his book
331:. Internet Archive. Greensboro, NC : Avisson Press.
209:, on January 9, 1922, she collapsed and died suddenly of
694:(University of Massachusetts Press, 2019), pp. 156-157.
98:(September 13, 1856 – January 9, 1922) was an American
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Maria L. Baldwin School: Maria L. Baldwin Biography
230:. It is privately owned and not open to the public.
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679:Give Us Each Day: The Diary of Alice Dunbar Nelson
419:. National Women's History Museum. Archived from
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222:Her home from 1892 on has been preserved as the
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737:Black Bostonians and the Politics of Culture
442:"Maria Baldwin (U.S. National Park Service)"
356:"Maria Baldwin (U.S. National Park Service)"
746:(University of Massachusetts Press, 2019).]
739:(University of Massachusetts Press, 2017).]
16:Pioneering female African American educator
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592:"Committee Renames Local Agassiz School"
817:Educators from Cambridge, Massachusetts
802:20th-century African-American educators
787:19th-century African-American academics
732:(Northeastern University Press, 1997).]
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792:19th-century American women academics
199:League of Women for Community Service
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782:20th-century African-American people
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102:and civic leader born and raised in
777:20th-century African-American women
78:, Maria L. Baldwin School, part of
590:Dorgan, Lauren R. (May 22, 2002).
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562:"The Mismeasure of Maria Baldwin"
288:"Maria Louise Baldwin, 1856-1922"
807:African-American women educators
797:19th-century American academics
660:from the original on 2024-07-04
631:from the original on 2016-03-15
602:from the original on 2014-05-02
452:from the original on 2024-07-06
395:from the original on 2022-12-10
366:from the original on 2024-07-06
292:The Journal of Negro Education
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625:Boston Women's Heritage Trail
242:Boston Women's Heritage Trail
80:Boston Women's Heritage Trail
822:African-American suffragists
568:. April 2002. Archived from
385:"Maria L. Baldwin Biography"
134:Maria Molly Baldwin ca. 1885
286:Porter, Dorothy B. (1952).
170:Institute for Colored Youth
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228:National Historic Landmark
730:Boston Confronts Jim Crow
476:. ABC-CLIO. p. 242.
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497:Carle, Susan D. (2013).
240:Baldwin is noted on the
226:and was designated as a
127:to hold such a position.
45:Cambridge, Massachusetts
528:Cooney, Robert (2005).
505:Oxford University Press
235:Maria L. Baldwin School
744:Maria Baldwin's Worlds
692:Maria Baldwin's Worlds
470:Jones, Angela (2011).
186:William Monroe Trotter
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89:Educator, civic leader
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66:, Massachusetts, U.S.
681:(W.W. Norton, 1984).
325:Wilds, Mary (2004).
96:Maria Louise Baldwin
23:Maria Louise Baldwin
654:The Harvard Crimson
596:The Harvard Crimson
267:Maria Baldwin House
224:Maria Baldwin House
76:Maria Baldwin House
812:American educators
566:Peacework Magazine
203:Copley Plaza Hotel
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41:September 13, 1856
742:Kathleen Weiler,
690:Kathleen Weiler,
338:978-1-888105-64-3
217:Legacy and honors
182:Clement G. Morgan
162:Hampton Institute
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172:in Cheyney,
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772:1922 deaths
767:1856 births
621:"South End"
446:www.nps.gov
360:www.nps.gov
125:New England
761:Categories
664:2024-07-06
635:2016-01-12
606:2013-03-03
576:2013-03-03
456:2022-11-19
427:2013-03-03
399:2022-09-15
370:2022-09-15
273:References
304:0022-2984
118:Biography
104:Cambridge
72:Monuments
658:Archived
629:Archived
600:Archived
548:61880194
450:Archived
393:Archived
364:Archived
261:See also
168:and the
166:Virginia
100:educator
312:2965923
140:Harvard
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207:Boston
64:Boston
47:, U.S.
308:JSTOR
544:OCLC
534:ISBN
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478:ISBN
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300:ISSN
53:Died
38:Born
205:in
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