Alberta Virginia Scott
Class of 1898
Alberta Virginia Scott
Alberta Virginia Scott created a quietly powerful legacy as the first Black woman to graduate from Radcliffe College.
School: Radcliffe College
Degree: A.B.
Area of Impact: Education
HBCU Affiliation: Tuskegee University
The archives are largely silent when it comes to the life of Alberta Virginia Scott, in part because of the times in which she lived and in part because she died at the tragically young age of 26. Yet she left a quiet but powerful legacy and broke barriers for generations of Black women students who followed in her footsteps.
Early Life
Born in 1875 near Richmond, Virginia, Scott moved with her family to Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a child. After graduating from the Cambridge Latin School, she entered Radcliffe’s Class of 1898 — the first class to matriculate after the Commonwealth of Massachusetts chartered the College as a degree-granting institution. Because Radcliffe did not have dormitories at the time, she boarded with a Black family near campus.
Scott broke the color barrier at Radcliffe as the only Black woman in her class. This fact, coupled with the era’s prevailing negative views about women pursuing higher education, would have been daunting. Nevertheless, she excelled. Well regarded by her classmates, she was an active participant in the College’s German club and the Idler Club, a theatrical group. A Boston Daily Globe profile wrote that “she carries herself with unassuming dignity.”
Scott was the first Black woman from Massachusetts and the fourth Black woman from any state to graduate from a college in Massachusetts. After earning her degree in 1898, she moved to Indianapolis to teach at a high school. Then in 1900, Booker T. Washington offered her a position at his Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute — now Tuskegee University — in Alabama. She accepted, teaching there for a short period from January to May 1901.
A Promising Life Cut Short
Scott became an educator because, the Boston Daily Globe reported, “She believes it is a duty for those young colored people who are so inclined to take every advantage along educational lines which they can easily obtain in New England, and then go South and teach their colored brethren.” Sadly, she soon left Tuskegee due to illness. She died September 2, 1902, at the age of 26.
The Cambridge Chronicle noted that her early death “[cut] off what should have been a useful and creditable life of work among those of her race.”
Open and scroll to read the article transcript
CAMBRIDGE LATIN.
Mayor Bancroft Presents Diploma to His Own Son.
The graduation exercises of the Cambridge Latin school were held this morning at 10 o’clock in the school hall. The exercises opened with music by the Latin and English high school orchestra. A salutatory in Latin was given by Miss Alice B. Holmes, and the history of the class by Master Hugh Bancroft.
Following an address by Rev. Francis G. Peabody of Harvard a metrical translation from Virgil’s Eneid was given by Robert P. Utter. A Greek exercise from Homer was participated in by C. K. Moore, J. A. L. Odde, C. L. Stebbins, J. E. Lansing and Miss A. F. Stratton. The prophecy for the class was presented by Miss Kate C. Berry, and an address followed by Prof Frank W. Taussig of Harvard.
The valedictory was given by Miss Helen Fuller. Remarks were made by superintendent of schools Cogswell and Hon Robert O. Fuller of the school board. The diplomas were presented by Mayor Bancroft, who ha the pleasure of presenting a diploma to his own son.
The graduates are as follows: Hugh Bancroft, Allan Foster Barnes, George Barrett Burrage, Henry Bradford Dyer, Frederick James Goodridge, John Ernest Lansing, Charles Frederick Manning, Kenneth Lamartine Mark, Clarence King Moore, John Alvin Lawson Odde, Arthur Warren Reynolds, James Forrest Sanborn, Charles Livingston Stebbins, Gorham Phillips Stevens, Richard Alfred Knapp, Kate Chase Berry, Sarah Elizebeth Chandler,Maude Lucy Fellows, Helen Fuller, Charlotte Elizabeth Hawes, Alice Bertha Holmes, Carolyn Louise Humphrey, Eva Ellen Merrill, Laura Lyman Parmenter, Edith Lillian Sawyer, [red underline added by site designers] Alberta Virginia Scott, Annie Francis Stratton.
[end of article]
Born in 1875 near Richmond, Virginia, Scott moved with her family to Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a child. She graduated from the Cambridge Latin School — Cambridge’s integrated public high school — in 1894. “Cambridge Latin.” The Boston Daily Globe. June 26, 1894/Public Domain
Open and scroll to read the article transcript
HARVARD’S NEGRO GRADUATE
Miss Alberta Scott is the first negro girl to be graduated from the Harvard annex. Her classmates and the professors of the institution have congratulated her in the warmest terms and in the literary and the language club of Boston her achievement of the M. A. degree has been spoken of with high praise. Miss Scott is but the fourth student of the negro race to attain this honor at the colleges for women in Massachusetts. Two received diplomas from Wellesly and one from Smith college. They all came from other states. Miss Scott is 20 years old. She was born in Richmond, Va. Her mother was one of the famous cooks of the plantation country. The Scott family had lived in a picturesque shanty on that part of an old estate willed to them after the civil war. When the girl was 6years old the family sold their plantation home, moving to Cambridge, where they still live. Graduating from the common schools in Boston, Miss Scott’s teachers spoke so encouragingly of her work that the girl was determined to have a college education. She paid particular attention to the study of languages and literature and she is now a fluent linguist and a member of the Idler and German clubs. She has contributed considerably to college and New England journals. Miss Scott will leave her New England home and return to
[black and white line drawing of a young woman in graduation cap and gown; her skin appears white, not being shaded to approximate Scott’s actual light brown skin tone]
[image caption] MISS ALBERTA SCOTT.
Dixie — for it is her ambition to teach in some of the high schools for negroes.
[end of article]
Scott’s achievement as the first Black woman to graduate from Radcliffe — here still referred to as the “Harvard annex” — made news. However, this largely flattering profile gives a glimpse of the stereotypes that Black students had to face. Describing her childhood in Virginia, the writer refers to her mother as “one of the famous cooks of the plantation country” and the family home as a “picturesque shanty.” “Harvard’s Negro Graduate.” The Dighton Herald. Dighton, KS. August 18, 1898/Public Domain
Open and scroll to read the article transcript
DIED IN LIFE’S BLOOM.
Miss Alberta Scott, the Young Radcliffe Girl, Passes Away After a Lingering Illness.
The funeral services for Miss Alberta V. Scott, who died Saturday evening, Aug. 30, took place from her late home in Hubbard Avenue, North Cambridge, Monday afternoon. A large number of friends and relatives were out. Services were conducted by Rev. Jesse Harrell of the Union Baptist church and consisted of two solos by Mr. William Lew and resolutions of regret from the Union Baptist Sunday school and a solo, “O Land of Rest,” by Miss Charlotte Hawkins, this last being a favorite hymn of the deceased. Rev. Harrell spoke a few words which were very appropriate to the occasion and did much towards assuaging the bereavement of relatives and friends. After the services the cortege journeyed to the Cambridge cemetery, where interment was made. There were many beautiful floral tributes from the mother, Mr. and Mrs. H. Henderson, Omar Khayam circle, Mr. and Mrs. C.G. Morgan, Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Forbes, Miss Sarah Hall Sharples, Mrs. C. S. Adams and others.
Alberta Virginia Scott was born in the state of Virginia in 1875, but had lived in Massachusetts for the past 20 years. The deceased was a graduate of both the Cambridge public schools and of Radcliffe college, being the first
[photograph of Alberta Virginia Scott, head and shoulders in profile]
THE LATE ALBERTA SCOTT. Who Died Last Saturday.
colored girl to finish at the latter institution, which she did some years ago last June. Since leaving college, Miss Scott had taught both in the Indianapolis high school and at Tuskegee, home from which latter school she came last May a year ago, and has been confined to her bed more or less ever since. The deceased was an unusually bright young woman; she was thoroughly grounded, both in the sciences and the classics. Of the classics she was extremely fond, delighting to read even the sublime choruses of the old masters, especially the murmuring beauty of the lovely Sophoclean lines which run:
“Hail. O sea-gist isle of Lemnos,
Send me hence on my journey in safety away.
There where fate supreme holds sway,
Pure, love, and that all-conquering spirit, which accomplishes all things.”
The bright young soul of Miss Scott is off in safety on its journey. yet her untimely death cannot but be a severe loss no less to her many friends than to her mother and immediate relatives, who survive her.
[end of article]
Scott’s death, at the tragically young age of 26, received front-page coverage from the Black newspaper, The Guardian. Mourners at her funeral included Black Harvard graduate, lawyer and activist Clement G. Morgan. “Died in Life’s Bloom.” The Guardian. Boston, MA. Sept. 6, 1902/Public domain
Remembering a Trailblazer
Thanks to the efforts of the Cambridge Black History Project, a local community organization, the City of Cambridge has honored Scott with a placard in front of her parents’ home at 28 Union Street, where she lived during her senior year at Radcliffe. In addition, at least two student groups at Harvard today honor Scott’s legacy: The Association of Black Harvard Women is home to the Alberta V. Scott Leadership Academy, a mentorship program for high school students. In 2018, a group of undergraduate and graduate students created the Greener Scott Scholars Mentorship Program, named in honor of Scott and Richard T. Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard College.
Selected Sources
“Colored Graduate: Miss Alberta Scott, of Cambridge, Will Teach Her Brethren in the South.” Kansas City Journal. Sunday, July 3, 1898.
Sarah L. Burks. “Alberta Scott House 28 Union Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02139: Preliminary Landmark Designation Report.” Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Historic Commission, 2021.
“Colored Teacher Dead.” The Cambridge Chronicle. September 6, 1902.
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