Prudence Crandall

Prudence Crandall (September 3, 1803 – January 27, 1890) was an American schoolteacher and activist. She ran the Canterbury Female Boarding School in Canterbury, Connecticut, which became the first known school for African American girls ("young Ladies and little Misses of color") in the United States led by a white woman. She was the sister of Reuben Crandall, the defendant in the Trial of Reuben Crandall.

In 1832, when Crandall admitted Sarah Harris, a 20-year-old African American woman, to her school, she created what can be considered the first known integrated classroom in the United States. Following the decision, parents of white students began to withdraw their daughters. She left Connecticut and never lived there again. She had two brothers, Reuben and Hezekiah, and a sister, Almira. When she was about 10, her father moved the family to nearby Canterbury, Connecticut.

Crandall attended the New England Yearly Meeting School, a Quaker boarding school in Providence, Rhode Island when she was 22. She became a Baptist in 1830.

Canterbury Female Boarding School Establishment

In 1831 she and her sister purchased the Elisha Payne house to establish the Canterbury Female Boarding School, at the request of Canterbury's elite residents, to educate young girls in the town. As principal of the boarding school, Prudence Crandall was praised for her ability to educate young girls. The school flourished and was well received in the community. [King James translation; the same quotation is on the title page of Charles Crawford's Observations upon Negro-slavery, 1790]

She then admitted Sarah, establishing what is considered to be the first integrated school in the United States.

As word of the school spread, African American families began arranging enrollment of their daughters in Crandall's academy. On April 1, 1833, twenty African American girls from Boston, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, and the surrounding areas in Connecticut arrived at Miss Crandall's School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color. He predicted the destruction of the town if Crandall's school for colored children succeeded. Frost claimed that the boarding school would encourage "social equality and intermarriage of whites and blacks." To this, her response was "Moses had a black wife." In July, Crandall was arrested and placed in the county jail for one night—she refused to be bonded out, as she wished the public to know she was being jailed. (A Vermont newspaper reported it under the headline "Shame on Connecticut". ) The next day she was released under bond to await her trial.

A second trial in Superior Court decided against the school, and the case was taken to the Supreme Court of Errors (now called the Connecticut Supreme Court) on appeal in July 1834. On September 9, 1834, a group of townspeople broke almost ninety window glass panes using heavy iron bars.

Later years At the suggestion of William Garrison, who raised the money from "various antislavery societies", Francis Alexander painted a portrait of Crandall in April 1834. She had to go to Boston for the sittings, where she "became the center of attention at abolitionist parties and gatherings each evening. The Boston abolitionists honored her as a true heroine of the antislavery cause." She separated from Philleo in 1842 after his "deteriorating physical and mental health" led him to be abusive. with "a host of good books in her house", quoted her as follows:

My whole life has been one of opposition. I never could find anyone near me to agree with me. Even my husband opposed me, more than anyone. He would not let me read the books that he himself read, but I did read them. I read all sides, and searched for the truth whether it was in science, religion, or humanity. I sometimes think I would like to live somewhere else. Here, in Elk Falls, there is nothing for my soul to feed upon. Nothing, unless it comes from abroad in the shape of books, newspapers, and so on. There is no public library, and there are but one or two persons in the place that I can converse with profitably for any length of time. No one visits me, and I begin to think they are afraid of me. I think the ministers are afraid I shall upset their religious beliefs, and advise the members of their congregation not to call on me, but I don't care. I speak on spiritualism sometimes, but more on temperance, and am a self-appointed member of the International Arbitration League. I don't want to die yet. I want to live long enough to see some of these reforms consummated.

Legacy 19th century An oil portrait of her by Francis Alexander was commissioned by her supporters in 1834. It is at Cornell University. A printed copy is in the Prudence Crandall Museum.

The Glasgow Emancipation Society prepared the following piece of silver plate, which a traveler to the U.S. was going to take to her:

20th century In the late 20th century, Crandall received renewed attention and honors: On February 21, 1965, the NBC television series Profiles in Courage broadcast an episode about her. The Prudence Crandall House in Canterbury was acquired by the State of Connecticut in 1969. Now a Connecticut state museum, it was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1991. In 1973, the Prudence Crandall Center for Women, since 2003 the Prudence Crandall Center, Inc., was founded in New Britain, Connecticut, to provide shelter for victims of domestic violence. Crandall was the subject of a Walt Disney/NBC television movie entitled She Stood Alone (1991), in which she was portrayed by actress Mare Winningham. In 1994 Crandall was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame. In 1995, the Connecticut General Assembly designated Prudence Crandall as the state's official heroine. The Prudence Crandall Elementary School in Enfield, Connecticut, opened in 1966. In 2001 Crandall was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame. In 2008, a statue of Crandall and a pupil was erected at the Connecticut State Capitol.

Historical marker The following marker is at Osage Street and U.S. Route 160, Elk Falls, Kansas:

Archival material The Linda Lear Center for Special Collections & Archives, at Connecticut College, in New London, Connecticut, has a Prudence Crandall Collection. It contains "23 letters and one manuscript of poems by Crandall, including three letters to the abolitionist Simeon Jocelyn detailing the opposition to her school. Most of the remaining letters are to her husband, Calvin Philleo. There are also nearly three dozen manuscripts of correspondence and business records to and about Philleo. The remainder of the collection consists of photographs of Crandall, her family members, and their places of residence and Helen Sellers' research materials and correspondence related to her biography." The Lear Center has also posted a guide to other archival material of or relating to Crandall.

Correspondence with William Garrison is in his papers in the Boston Public Library.