By chance I found the following verse given to a member of the Radcliffe class of 1905, Evangeline Rachael Hall (1882-1947), who was one of Radcliffe’s early African-American alumnae. While the verse testifies to her active participation in Radcliffe economics class(es?), it turns out that she went on instead to a long career at the oldest historically black college, Cheyney State Teachers College, where she taught education and English. Maybe a century later she would have continued studying economics.
In any event we all know how some of our economics students “only dully stare, or sit and sigh” and how few are “keen” and ask “The ‘how’ and ‘why things were’.”
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Radcliffe Yearbook 1905
Evangeline Rachael Hall, 39 Parker St., Cambridge
In economics she was keen and asked the “how”
and “why
Things were:” while some did only dully stare,
or sit and sigh.
Source: Radcliffe College. Book of the Class of Nineteen Five. (Boston: Everett Press, 1905), p. 27.
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Evangeline graduated A.B. cum laude, June 27, 1905.
Source: Annual Report of the President of Radcliffe College, 1904-1905, p. 24.
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Taught English at the Cheyney Training School for Teachers
Hall’s Special Work in English
(as of 1914/14)
(1) Public Speaking — Summer Course at Emerson’s College of Oratory; (2) Composition and Literature, Harvard Summer School, 1912; (3) The Teaching of Oral English, Harvard Summer School, 1913.
Source: Annual Report of the Cheyney Training School for Teachers 1914/15, p. 8.
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Portrait from ca. 1930
Detail from an oil on canvas portrait painted by Laura Wheeler Waring in her style for portraits of leading African Americans.
Evangeline Rachel Hall, painted around 1930, portrays the educator and Wheeler’s long-time colleague at Cheyney as a mature, refined and educated woman, serene in her heritage and her achievements. Her pale, lightly patterned dress, draped on even paler skin, and her elongated face and pursed mouth give the impression of purity and untouchable respectability. She wears a corsage, not unlike an honored member of an exclusive sorority. She is clearly a member of the black middle class, the kind of person who inhabited Wheeler’s personal and professional sphere.”
Source: Life of a Portrait: Laura Wheeler Waring’s Anna Washington Derry by Valerie Harris in Pennsylvania Heritage, Summer 1919.
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A Pair of Obits
Miss Evangeline R. Hall
Funeral services for Miss Evangeline R. Hall, member of the faculty of Cheyney State Teachers College, Cheyney, Pa., will be held at 3 o’clock tomorrow afternoon at the Bell Funeral Home, 909 Poplar Street.
Miss Hall, a native of Cambridge, Mass., died Sunday in Delaware Hospital. She received her B.A. degree with honors from Radcliffe College, and did graduate work at Harvard University where she won her master of arts degree. She had taught at Cheney for 42 years.
Surviving are: A sister, Mrs. Madeline Hall Wheeler, this city; two nieces, Mrs. Mary Ann Avent, Buffalo. N. Y., and Mrs. Wheeler Murphy of Baltimore, and a nephew, Arthur E. Wheeler, Jr, this city.
Source: The Morning News (Wilmington, Delaware), 2 Dec 1947, p. 4.
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Miss Evangeline Hall
Miss Evangeline Rachel Hall, connected for more than 42 years with the State Teachers College at Cheyney, Pa., died Sunday morning in Delaware Hospital, Wilmington, Del.
Miss Hall was director of the Coppin Laboratory Practice School and a teacher of education and English at the Cheyney School. She held an A.B. degree from Radcliffe College and a Master of Education degree from Harvard University.
Funeral services will be held at 3 P. M. today at 909 Poplar st., Wilmington. A memorial service will be held in Pennsylvania Hall at the college at 3:30 P.M. Sunday.
Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer, 03 Dec 1947, p. 32.
Image Source: Radcliffe College. Book of the Class of Nineteen Five. (Boston: Everett Press, 1905).