Joanna Snowden Porter (February 14, 1864 – October 1, 1941) was an American clubwoman based in Chicago; she was founder and president of the Northwestern Federation of Colored Women's Clubs.
Early life edit
Joanna Cecilia Hudlin[1] was born in Chicago, the daughter of Joseph Henry Hudlin and Anna Elizabeth Lewis Hudlin (the family name also appears as Hudlun or Hudlum). She graduated from Englewood High School before attending business college in Chicago.[2] In 1905-1906 she was enrolled in the Institute of Social Science and Arts, which became the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, and in 1920 was merged into the University of Chicago.[3][4]
Career edit
Joanna Snowden Porter worked for the City of Chicago in the 1910s and 1920s, in the Recorder's Office and as a probation officer at the Juvenile Court.[5][6] She was on the founding board of the Chicago Urban League in 1916, representing the Chicago Federation of Colored Women's Clubs.[7] She was founder and president of the Northwestern Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, served on the National Speakers' Bureau with Hallie Quinn Brown, treasurer of the Phyllis Wheatley Home for Colored Girls, and part of the Colored Women's Department of the Republican National Committee. She also wrote articles for National Notes, a black women's news magazine.[8]
Personal life edit
Joanna C. Hudlum married Samuel R. Snowden, a saloon keeper, in 1884. Their son Joseph was born in 1886.[2] They separated in 1902.[9] She married again, to lawyer James Hale Porter, in 1913.[1] She died in 1941, aged 77 years.
References edit
- ^ a b "Snowden-Porter Wedding Solemnized at Famous Hudlin Residence" The Broad Ax (November 8, 1913): 2. via Newspapers.com
- ^ a b Sylvia Hood Washington, "Mrs. Block Beautiful: African American Women and the Birth of the Urban Conservation Movement, Chicago, Illinois, 1917–1954" Environmental Justice 1(1)(March 2003): 13-23. DOI: 10.1089/env.2008.0505
- ^ Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, Bulletin 17(1912): 69.
- ^ University of Chicago Library, Guide to the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy Records 1903-1922.
- ^ Elizabeth Lindsay Davis, The Story of the Illinois Federation of Colored Women's Clubs (1922): 53.
- ^ Anne Rice Knupfer, Reform and Resistance: Gender, Delinquency, and America's First Juvenile Court (Routledge 2013): 62-63. ISBN 9781136691737
- ^ Administrative History, Chicago Urban League records, an inventory of the collection at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
- ^ Lisa G. Materson, For the Freedom of Her Race: Black Women and Electoral Politics in Illinois, 1877-1932 (University of North Carolina Press 2009): 115, 127. ISBN 9780807894033
- ^ Untitled brief news item, The Broad Ax (June 7, 1902): 1. via Newspapers.com
