EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; MARY JANE MCLEOD BETHUNE P/65

  

In this story I will continue to focus on a woman named Mary Jane McLeod Bethune. She lived from 1875 - 1955. Mary married Albertus Bethune is 1898. They moved to Savannah, Georgia,where she did social work until they moved to Florida. A visiting Presbybeterian minister, Coyden Harold Uggams, persuaded the couple to relocate to Palatka, Florida, to run a mission school. They moved in 1899. Mary ran the mission school and began an outreach to prisoners. However, Albertus left the family in 1908 and relocated to South Carolina.

Mary then moved to Daytona where, in 1904, she rented a small house for $11 per month. She made benches and desks from discarded crates and acquired other items through charity. She then started the Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls. She initially had six students - five gitls and her son.However, within one year, she was teaching 30 girls at the school. After two years of operation, 250 girls were enrolled.

In 1923, Daytona School merged with the co-educational Cookman Institute, run by the Methodist Church. The Institute was the first Black College in Florida. Mary became the president at a time when Black women rarely headed colleges,