C.1845–1949
GREENE COUNTY
HALLIE QUINN BROWN, the daughter of former slaves, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on March 10, 1845, and raised in Chatham, Ontario. Her parents successfully educated all six of their children, moving their family in 1870 to Wilberforce, Ohio, where Brown and her brother could attend Wilberforce University, from which she graduated in 1873.
Brown began a career as a teacher of both adults and children in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia in the aftermath of the Civil War. In 1875, she returned to Ohio to teach in the Dayton Public Schools. In 1885, she was named dean of women at Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina, where she also administered a night school for adults. From 1892 to 1893, she served as dean of women at Tuskegee Institute, under the leadership of Booker T. Washington. In 1893, she returned to Ohio as professor of elocution at Wilberforce University, where she retained her connection for the rest of her life.
Early in her career, Brown earned a reputation as a passionate advocate for education and as an excellent public speaker, a talent that she would use as a social activist throughout her life. In 1894, for example, she began a five‑year stint as lecturer for the British Woman's Temperance Association and was made a member of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. She returned to teach at Wilberforce in 1906, but by then her work as an activist equaled her work as an educator. She was a highly respected leader in the African American Episcopal Church, women's organizations, and the Republican Party; her other leadership positions included founder of the Neighborhood Club in Wilberforce, president of the Ohio Federation of Colored Women's Clubs (1905–12) and the National Association of Colored Women (1920–24), a speaker for state, local, and national political campaigns in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Missouri, and vice‑president of the Ohio Council of Republican Women, speaking in 1924 at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
During this period, Brown also authored seven books, the best known of which were Bits and Odds: A Choice Selection of Recitations (1880) and Homespun Heroines and Other Women of Distinction (1926). Brown died on September 16, 1949, in Wilberforce, where two buildings now stand as memorials to her.
Source: Profiles of Ohio Women 1803-2003, By Jacqueline Jones Royster, Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. 2003.