Dr. Lucie Bragg Anthony M.D. | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Lucinda Bragg 4 December 1870 |
| Died | 22 August 1932 |
| Resting place | Mount Auburn Cemetery |
| Alma mater | Oberlin Conservatory of Music (1893); Meharry Medical College (1907) |
| Occupation(s) | Physician, educator, temperance leader, musician, writer |
| Employer(s) | Sumter County Colored Schools (supervisor); The Musical Messenger (associate editor) |
| Notable work | Little Clusters: a Mixed Method for Beginners (1925) |
| Spouse(s) | John Wesley Adams; Francis W. Anthony (m. 1908) |
| Relatives | George Freeman Bragg (brother) |
Lucie Bragg Anthony (née Bragg, also known as Lucinda Bragg Adams;[1] 4 December 1870-22 August 1932)[2] was an African American physician, educator, temperance leader, musician, and writer.[3]
Early life edit
Lucie Bragg Anthony was born in Warrenton, North Carolina on 4 December 1870, to George Freeman and Mary Bragg.[3] The family later moved to Petersburg, Virginia, and were active in the Episcopal Church there, where Lucie's father acted as junior warden.[3] Lucie's brother was George Freeman Jr, who became a priest, journalist, activist, and historian.[3]
She graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1893,[1] and Meharry Medical College in 1907.[4]
Married Rev. F. W. Anthony.[2] He died on 20 February 1928, aged 60, and was buried at Rock Springs United Methodist Church, Kershaw County, South Carolina.[5] Lucie Anthony married but never had children. Lucie Anthony’s husband was an AME Zion minister.[6]
Dr. Lucie Bragg Anthony, another Meharry graduate, class of 1907, became the supervisor of the segregated black county schools in Sumter, South Carolina. She not only worked to improve the health of the youngsters in the area, but she gave her time to literacy classes and teacher training, helping to establish twenty-seven new schools. Dr. S. Maria Steward worked as a low-paid doctor among the poor and was an activist in the antilynching and suffrage movements as well.30 None of these women seemed particularly concerned about accumulating wealth.[4]
Dr. Lucie Bragg Anthony, another Mehany graduate, class of 1907, became the supervisor of county schools in Sumter, South Carolina, doing health work, literacy work, and teacher training in the rural areas of the county. During her tenure she was instrumental in establishing twenty-seven new schools in the area.[7]
Similarly, as the first county supervisor of Sumter County Colored Schools, Dr. 102 Lucie Bragg Anthony aimed to improve the health of students in rural South Carolina, as well as the quality of their educations, especially through improving their diets. Beginning in 1918, she instituted demonstration clubs to teach nutrition and food preservation. Several years later, she created the Milk Campaign, which raised money for families to purchase dairy cows and increase milk consumption among undernourished children and their parents.103 Her didactic text, Little Clusters, included discussions of child health and psychology, as well as Christian character, spelling, basic math, and geography.[6] Lucie Anthony read the Journal of the National Medical Association, at least in its first year, and even wrote in to describe it as “most dignified, creditable, interesting and in every way acceptable.”[6]
Bragg enjoyed regional popularity as a singer, either as a soloist, or occasionally with ensembles such as the [Marie] Selika Quartette, and as a performer on organ, piano, violin and guitar. A teacher since her early teens, she was also a published composer of sacred songs. The song Old Blandford Church, appeared in 1886 and is the second composition known to have been published by an African American woman. In 1887, she married John Wesley Adams, a Philadelphia resident. She graduated from Oberlin (Ohio) College Conservatory of Music in 1893 and Meharry Medical College with a M.D. degree in 1907. John Wesley Adams apparently died unexpectedly, and in 1908 she married Francis W. Anthony, an A.M.E. Zion Minister. Eventually settling in Sumter, South Carolina, she combined teaching with the practice of medicine.
Writing edit
In 1925, Anthony published Little Clusters: a Mixed Method for Beginners, which contained lessons for children in areas of religion, psychology, and hygiene.[8]
Singular among the books recently brought to our attention is the one entitled “Little Clusters,” by Lucie Bragg Anthony, M.D,, of Sumter, S. C. Within its ninety-two pages are to be found lesson stories, demon¬ strated lessons, health notes, child s^dy and psychology, and child astrology. The teach¬ ers of Sumter County have the following comment to make: “We have used the ma¬ terial matter contained in ‘Little Clusters,’ and we take great pleasure in recommending it to the public. We feel that it is a blessing to all, both children and grown people as well, who peruse and study its pages.”[9]
For the Musical Messenger, a newspaper created by Amelia Tilghman.[1]
Tilghman's newspaper staff consisted of agents in Washington, Philadelphia, and New York, and an associate editor, Lucinda B. Bragg Adams (1870-1932) who resided in Baltimore, Maryland." Adams had earned her reputation as a woman of indomitable will and a writer of superior ability through her associations with the A.M.E. Church Review, Our Women and Children, and the newspaper the Petersburg, Virginia Lancet, which she helped edit along with siblings Caroline F. Bragg and George F. Bragg, Jr. Noted author Monroe Majors predicted that the Messenger, with Mrs. Adams's aid, will be a paper of commanding influence in Afro-American journalism." While still a teenager the precocious Adams in- spired regional acclaim as a singer, composer and teacher. Her introduction to Washington's black intelligentsia came in March 1885 at a meeting of the Bethel Literary and Historical Association where she presented some of her compositions." Since Tilghman probably frequented meetings of the Association, it seems likely that she and Adams may have met in March 1885, before Tilghman moved to Alabama... Tilghman's and Adams's combined knowledge in the fields of teaching, per- formance, and social reform endowed their writing with a special musical focus, resulting in a direct, astute, and uncompromising style.[1]
Miss Adams worked with her as an associate editor and proved to be a valuable acquisition to the staff. She was a native of Petersburg and described as 'a woman of indomitable will, and a writer of superior ability as well as a highly proficient musician.' She contributed to other leading magazines of her race on various subjects.[10]
Suffrage edit
Lucie Bragg Anthony, a physician from just over the border in South Carolina, soon wrote to second Walls’s position. She first objected to Dudley’s advice to “keep out of politics” and reminded him that she was a citizen and as such was already in politics. Therefore, she should have a right to vote. Women needed the vote to continue their work for the welfare of their race and their country, she argued. Anthony was particularly irate at Dudley for predicting that women would “add fuel to the fires of racial prejudice.” The fires of race prejudice had been burning out of control for twenty years. She professed that it was just like a man to shirk responsibility for his own situation and turn around and place the blame for African American politi¬ cal problems on women. “We suppose if everything doesn’t turn out right it will be a case of Adam and Eve. The woman gave me the apple, and I ate it,” Anthony recounted. “Well, brother,” she continued, “we are so used to being blamed for the forbidden fruit, we are now in a good fix to be blamed for the forbidden suffrage.”[11]
References edit
- ^ a b c d Karpf, Juanita (1997). "The Early Years of African American Music Periodicals, 1886-1922: History, Ideology, Context". International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music. 28 (2): 143–168. doi:10.2307/3108447. ISSN 0351-5796.
- ^ a b Beckford, Geraldine Rhoades (2013). Biographical Dictionary of American Physicians of African Ancestry, 1800-1920. Africana Homestead Legacy Pb. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-937622-18-3.
- ^ a b c d Smith, Jessie Carney (1996). Notable Black American women. Internet Archive. New York : Gale Research. ISBN 978-0-8103-9177-2.
- ^ a b Garza, Hedda (1994). Women in medicine. Internet Archive. New York : Franklin Watts. ISBN 978-0-531-11204-5.
- ^ "Rev Frank W. Anthony (1867-1928)". www.findagrave.com. Retrieved 2021-03-28.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b c Vigil-Fowler, Margaret (2018). "Two Strikes -- a Lady and Colored:" Gender, Race, and the Making of the Modern Medical Profession, 1864-1941 (Thesis). UCSF.
- ^ Aptheker, Bettina (1982). Woman's legacy : essays on race, sex, and class in American history. Internet Archive. Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 978-0-87023-364-7.
- ^ Anthony, Lucie Bragg (1925). Little clusters : a mixed method for beginners. Sumter, South Carolina: the author.
- ^ Southwestern Christian Advocate (1926). Southwestern Christian Advocate (New Orleans, La.) [microform]. Centenary College of Louisiana Archives and Special Collections. Methodist Book Concern.
- ^ Dunnigan, Alice E. (1965). "EARLY HISTORY of NEGRO WOMEN in JOURNALISM". Negro History Bulletin. 28 (8): 178–197. ISSN 0028-2529.
- ^ Gilmore, Glenda Elizabeth (1996). Gender and Jim Crow : women and the politics of white supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920. Internet Archive. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-2287-6.