Minnie Braithwaite Jenkins
{{Short description|United States Indian Service educator}}{{Infobox person
| name = Minnie Braithwaite Jenkins
| birth_name = Minnie Galt Braithwaite
| birth_date = {{birth year|1874}}
| birth_place = Williamsburg, Virginia, U.S.
| death_date = {{death year and age|1954|1874}}
| occupation = School teacher
| employer = Bureau of Indian Affairs
| known_for = 1896 petition to the College of William & Mary to attend chemistry lectures
| notable_works = Girl from Williamsburg (1951)
}}
Minnie Galt Braithwaite Jenkins (1874–1954) was a United States Indian Service (now known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs) school teacher and the first woman to attempt to take classes at The College of William & Mary.{{cite news |last1=Freehling |first1=Alison |date=October 2, 1996 |title=Light Of Learning To Shine In Teacher's Memory |url=https://www.dailypress.com/1996/10/02/light-of-learning-to-shine-in-teachers-memory/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180220212619/https://articles.dailypress.com/1996-10-02/news/9610020089_1_women-s-studies-william-and-mary-lectures |archive-date=February 20, 2018 |access-date=20 February 2018 |work=Daily Press |url-status=live |publisher=Daily Press}}
Biography
=Education=
Braithwaite was born in Williamsburg, Virginia. On October 2, 1896, she petitioned the faculty at the College of William & Mary to allow her to attend chemistry lectures. Her petition was denied 4 to 3. Among the seven men who voted, President of the College Lyon Gardiner Tyler voted in favor of the petition and English professor John Lesslie Hall voted against it.{{cite news|last1=Rouse|first1=Parke|title=W&m Hails Woman's Effort|url=https://www.dailypress.com/1996/09/29/wm-hails-womans-effort/|access-date=20 February 2018|publisher=Daily Press|date=September 29, 1996}}
=Career=
Braithwaite intended to travel to China as a medical missionary after being trained at William & Mary to be a doctor, but this plan was derailed when her petition to attend was denied.{{cite book|last1=Cahill|first1=Cathleen D.|title=Federal Fathers and Mothers A Social History of the United States Indian Service, 1869-1933|date=June 2011|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|location=North Carolina|isbn=978-0-8078-7773-9|pages=384|url=https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469606811/federal-fathers-and-mothers/|accessdate=20 February 2018}} Instead, Braithwaite began her teaching career in 1899 at the Blue Canyon Day School near the Hopi Reservation in Arizona.{{cite journal|last1=Carter|first1=Patricia A.|title=Completely Discouraged': Women Teachers' Resistance in the Bureau of Indian Affairs Schools, 1900-1910.|journal=Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies|date=1995|volume=15|issue=3|pages=53–86|doi=10.2307/3346785|jstor=3346785}} She later taught at the Fort Mojave School from 1902 to 1906.{{cite journal|last1=Sherer|first1=Lorraine M.|title=The Clan System of the Fort Mojave Indians: A Contemporary Survey.|journal=Southern California Quarterly|date=1965|volume=47|issue=1|page=67|doi=10.2307/41169900|jstor=41169900}} It was at Fort Mojave that she met and married Clarence W. Jenkins in 1906. Her memoir, Girl from Williamsburg, was published in 1951.{{cite book|last1=Jenkins|first1=Minnie Braithwaite|title=Girl From Williamsburg|date=1995|publisher=Dietz Press|location=Richmond, Virginia|pages=343|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4315296;view=1up;seq=1|accessdate=20 February 2018}}
=Legacy=
The Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Department at the College of William & Mary hosts an annual lecture in commemoration of her efforts to attend classes at the College.{{cite web|title=Braithwaite Lecture|url=https://www.wm.edu/as/gsws/events/braithwaitelecture/index.php|website=College of William & Mary|accessdate=20 February 2018}}
Some of her and her family’s papers can be found in the Special Collections Research Center at Earl Gregg Swem Library. One such paper is a letter from William & Mary Board of Visitors member Thomas Barnes to Braithwaite regarding her petition to attend classes at the College.{{cite web|title=Bucktrout-Braithwaite Papers, 1780-1996|url=http://scdb.swem.wm.edu/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=7711|website=Earl Gregg Swem Library Special Collections Database|accessdate=20 February 2018}}
In 1996, her daughter Dorothy Jenkins Ross, a historian, published the book Jenkins Farms: Life on a Family Fruit Farm in Early California, 1910 about her family's life in Sutter County, California.
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{Find a Grave | id= 17360556 | name= Minnie Braithwaite Jenkins }}
- [http://scdb.swem.wm.edu/?p=creators/creator&id=3207 Minnie Braithwaite] Special Collections at William & Mary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jenkins, Minnie Braithwaite}}
Category:People from Williamsburg, Virginia
Category:19th-century American women educators
Category:Educators from Virginia
Category:19th-century American educators
Category:20th-century American women educators