Rebecca Primus

Rebecca Primus (July 10, 1837 – February 21, 1932) was a free African-American woman from Connecticut and is one of the few African-American women whose work in Reconstruction programs has been documented. Her life offers insight into the differences and similarities between free people and former slaves in the North and South and their experiences with racism and sexism in the period between the American Civil War and the Great Depression.

Primus was born into a prominent Black family in Hartford, Connecticut, and attended the First African School, located in the basement of the Talcott Street Congregational Church. After graduating in 1853, she opened a private school in her home. She taught there until 1865, when she was selected as one of the first two teachers and the only Black teacher from Hartford to go to the South to participate in the Freedmen's Bureau program to educate recently freed slaves. She established the first school for Black students in the local church of Royal Oak, Maryland, and within two years raised sufficient funds to build a separate school, named the Primus Institute in her honor. She taught there until 1869, when the Freedmen's Bureau was dissolved and funding ran out. Returning to Hartford, she worked as a seamstress and taught Sunday school at the Talcott Street church. In 1870, she was appointed assistant to the superintendent of Sunday school, making her the first woman to hold a management post at the church. She served until her marriage in 1873, and after a period of some years, returned to the position in 1881.

From 1859 to 1868, Primus wrote letters to her romantic friend, Addie Brown. Although Brown's side of the correspondence has been preserved, Primus's letters have not been found. She also wrote to her own family, discussing her insights into both the communities of Royal Oak and Hartford. Most of her papers were acquired by the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History in Hartford in 1934 and an additional group of correspondence to her was obtained by Harvard University's Schlesinger Library in 2017. The letters have been studied by numerous scholars as they provide a rare glimpse of the Black community from an insider's point of view. Provided by Wikipedia