Oberlin's Women: A Legacy of Leadership & Activism

Caroline Still Anderson

Caroline Still Anderson (1848-1919, OC 1868) was an educator and physician. She attended the Friends Raspberry Alley School and the Institute for Colored Youth before she enrolled at Oberlin College in 1864. She graduated in 1868. Anderson was the only African American woman in her class and the youngest graduate. She was the first African American woman at the school to present the college’s Ladies Literacy Society during her commencement ceremonies. After graduating, Anderson began her teaching career in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She married a fellow Oberlin graduate, Edward Wiley, in 1869. Wiley died in 1874, and Anderson enrolled at Howard University in 1875 to study medicine. While studying at Howard University, Anderson also taught elocution, drawing, and music at the university. She later transferred to the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania and graduated with a medical degree in 1878. Anderson interned at the New England Hospital for Women in Children in Boston in 1879. After finishing her internship, she became the city district physician in Philadelphia. The following year, in 1880, she married Matthew Anderson, the Presbyterian pastor of the Berean Presbyterian Church. She helped manage the church’s activities and services and ran the medical dispensary. In partnership with the church, Anderson’s husband later founded the Berean Manual Training and Industrial School. Caroline Anderson taught public speaking, hygiene, and physiology there. She was also assistant principal for over thirty years.  In addition to her work for the school, Anderson was a member of the Women’s Medical Society, a board member for the Home for Aged and Infirm Colored People of Philadelphia, the president of the Berean Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and the treasurer in 1888 of the Woman’s Medical College Alumnae Association. She helped organize the first Colored Young Women’s Christian Association in Philadelphia. Anderson continued to practice medicine and present research papers at medical conventions until her death.

Sources:
Berhanu, Aslaku. “Biography of Caroline Still Anderson.” Temple University Libraries.   Accessed August 6, 2020. http://stillfamily.library.temple.edu/exhibits/show/william-still/historical-perspective/biography-of-caroline-still-an

Granshaw, Michelle. “Caroline Still Wiley Anderson (1848-1919).” Black Past. Last modified     December 16, 2009. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/anderson-caroline-still-wiley-1848-1919/

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