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Rossa Belle Cooley

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Rossa Belle Cooley
BornOctober 3, 1872
Albany, New York, U.S.
DiedSeptember 24, 1949 (aged 76)
Greenport, New York, U.S.
OccupationEducator
Known forPrincipal, Penn School (1904-1944)

Rossa Belle Cooley (October 3, 1872 – September 14, 1949) was an American educator. She taught at Hampton Institute and was the second principal of the Penn School on Saint Helena Island, South Carolina from 1904 to 1944.

Early life and education

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Cooley was born in Albany, New York, the daughter of LeRoy Clark Cooley and Rosa Bella Flack Cooley. Her father was a chemistry professor at Vassar College.[1] She graduated from Vassar in 1893.[2][3]

Career

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Cooley taught at Hampton Institute as a young woman. She taught at the Penn School on Saint Helena Island beginning in 1901, and became the school's principal in 1908, succeeding Laura Matilda Towne.[4] Grace Bigelow House was her vice-principal.[5] She reorganized the school's curriculum along the lines of Hampton Institute's, to emphasize practical skills including carpentry and nursing.[4] She explained, "Our object was to bring island life into the classroom—into the little world of teaching too bound up in the printed word."[6]

Much of her work involved promotion and fundraising.[7] She wrote two books about the school, and several articles.[8][9][10] She visited Poughkeepsie often in this work.[11][12][13] Her sister Mabel organized a Penn School Club at Vassar, to collect donations from the student body for Cooley's work.[14][15] Ella McCaleb was president of the Penn School Club at Vassar in 1932.[16]

Cooley was retired from her position in 1944, by the school's trustees.[4][17] The school closed in 1948.[18]

Publications

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  • America's Sea Islands (1919)[19]
  • Homes of the Freed (1926)[8]
  • School Acres: An Adventure in Rural Education (1930)[9]
  • "A Day's Work at Penn's School" (1933)[10]
  • Education in the Soil (1940)[20]

Personal life and legacy

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Cooley lived with her sister in retirement. She died in September 1949, at the age of 76, in Greenport, New York.[2][3] The Rossa Cooley Health Center was dedicated at the Penn Community Center in 1958.[21] Many of Cooley's papers and photographs are in the Penn School Papers at the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.[22]

References

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  1. ^ "Rossa B. Cooley Writes of the Life of Negroes". Poughkeepsie Eagle-News. 1926-11-30. p. 5. Retrieved 2025-05-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ a b "Rossa B. Cooley" The County Review (September 29, 1949): 6; via NYS Historic Newspapers.
  3. ^ a b "Rossa B. Cooley, Educator, 77". Brooklyn Eagle. 1949-09-26. p. 9. Retrieved 2025-05-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ a b c Robbins, Gerald (1964). "Rossa B. Cooley and Penn School: Social Dynamo in a Negro Rural Subculture, 1901-1930". The Journal of Negro Education. 33 (1): 43–51. doi:10.2307/2294513. ISSN 0022-2984.
  5. ^ "South Carolina: Penn Center". U.S. National Park Service. Retrieved 2025-05-12.
  6. ^ Klindienst, Patricia (2006). The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans. Beacon Press. pp. 39–40. ISBN 978-0-8070-8562-2.
  7. ^ "Reformed Church". Poughkeepsie Eagle-News. 1935-11-16. p. 16. Retrieved 2025-05-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ a b Cooley, Rossa B. (1970). Homes of the freed. New York: Negro Universities Press. ISBN 978-0-8371-2929-7 – via HathiTrust.
  9. ^ a b Cooley, Rossa B. (1930). School acres, an adventure in rural education. New Haven : London: Yale university press; H. Milford, Oxford University Press – via HathiTrust.
  10. ^ a b Cooley, Rossa B. (1930) [ "A Day's Work at Penn School" Project Reconstruction, accessed May 11, 2025.
  11. ^ "Tells of Penn School Headway; Miss Rossa Cooley, Principal of the St. Helena Institution". Poughkeepsie Eagle-News. 1922-02-09. p. 5. Retrieved 2025-05-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ "Miss Thurston to Entertain in Honor of Miss Rossa Cooley". Poughkeepsie Eagle-News. 1929-01-11. p. 12. Retrieved 2025-05-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ "Miss Rossa Cooley to Tell of Work". Poughkeepsie Eagle-News. 1930-02-14. p. 1. Retrieved 2025-05-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ "A Delightful Tea, given by Penn School Club at Home for Miss Mable Cooley in Honor of Her Sister". Poughkeepsie Eagle-News. 1916-01-25. p. 5. Retrieved 2025-05-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ "Rossa Cooley is Honored at Penn School Club Tea". Poughkeepsie Eagle-News. 1936-11-17. p. 4. Retrieved 2025-05-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ^ "Rossa Cooley to Address Penn School Club Today". Poughkeepsie Eagle-News. 1932-02-08. p. 3. Retrieved 2025-05-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ^ Neufeldt, Harvey G. (1984). Jacoway, Elizabeth (ed.). "Northern Philanthropy and Black Education". History of Education Quarterly. 24 (1): 153–161. doi:10.2307/368000. ISSN 0018-2680.
  18. ^ Thaxton, Vanessa (1998). "The Praise House Tradition of St. Helena Island, South Carolina". In Gundaker, Grey (ed.). Keep Your Head to the Sky: Interpreting African American Home Ground. University of Virginia Press. p. 230. ISBN 978-0-8139-1824-2.
  19. ^ Cooley, Rossa Belle. America's Sea Islands. Outlook Company, 1919.
  20. ^ Cooley, Rossa Belle. Education in the Soil. Agricultural Missions Foundation, 1940.
  21. ^ "Rossa Cooley Health Center Dedication". The Beaufort Gazette. 1958-06-19. p. 15. Retrieved 2025-05-12 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ^ "Penn School Papers, 1862-2004". Southern Historical Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill. Retrieved 2025-05-12.
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