Adelia Field Johnston

Adelia Antoinette Field Johnston (February 5, 1837 – July 22, 1910) was an American educator and college administrator. She was the first female faculty member at Oberlin College, where she taught history, and the school's Dean of Women from 1870 to 1900.

Adelia Field Johnston
An old white woman, seated, wearing academic robes and a mortar board cap
Adelia Field Johnston, from a 1912 publication
Born
Adelia Antoinette Field

February 5, 1837
Lafayette, Ohio, US
DiedJuly 22, 1910
Oberlin, Ohio, US
Occupation(s)Educator, college administrator
Known forDean of Women at Oberlin College, 1870-1900; first female faculty member at Oberlin College

Early life

Adelia Antoinette Field was born in Lafayette, Ohio, the daughter of Leonard Field and Margaret Gridley Field.[1] At age 13, she taught school for three weeks, while the assigned adult teacher was ill with measles.[2] She attended Geauga Seminary and then Oberlin College. She graduated from Oberlin's literary course in 1856. In widowhood in the 1860s, she pursued further studies in Latin and in German, including an extended study trip to Germany. She later received an honorary master's degree from Hillsdale College, and in 1906 an honorary doctor of laws degree from Western Reserve University.[3]

Career

Field taught in Mossy Creek, Tennessee before she married in 1859, and she taught with her husband in Orwell, Ohio. She was principal at schools in Ohio and Rhode Island.[3]

Johnston served as principal and dean of the Women's Department of Oberlin College from 1870 to 1900,[4] and became the college's first female faculty member in 1878, when she began teaching history courses. She was appointed Professor of Medieval History in 1890.[3]

Johnston was also active in the town of Oberlin, Ohio, holding art exhibitions, supporting a natural history club, and cleaning up unsightly lots in the town as a founder of the Oberlin Village Improvement Society.[5][6] She traveled to Norway, Spain, Egypt and Algeria,[7] and gave a lectures about her travels,[8][9] including a lecture on Norway at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.[10] She wrote a novel, Two Sides of a Shield: A Story of the Civil War (1911).[1]

Personal life and legacy

Adelia Field married fellow Oberlin alumnus James Mix Johnston in 1859; he died in 1862. Adelia A. Field Johnston died in 1910, aged 73 years, at her home in Oberlin.[3][11] Harriet Louise Keeler wrote a biography of Johnston, published in 1912.[1]

Oberlin College has a professorship named for Johnston, and a travel fellowship for Oberlin alumni.[12]

References
  1. Keeler, Harriet L. (1912). The life of Adelia A. Field Johnston ... Cleveland: Korner & Wood.
  2. "Men and Women of Oberlin's Hundred Years". Oberlin Alumni Magazine: 208. April 1933 – via Internet Archive.
  3. Tenney, Henry M. (October 1910). "Adelia A. Field Johnston, A. M., LL.D." Oberlin Alumni Magazine. 7: 1–8 – via Internet Archive.
  4. "Gift for New Gymnasium at Oberlin". New-York Tribune. 1900-03-09. p. 7. Retrieved 2021-03-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. Root, Azariah S. (October 1910). "Mrs. Johnston and the Village". Oberlin Alumni Magazine. 7: 9–14 – via Internet Archive.
  6. Murphy, Patricia (October 23, 2007). "An Extraordinary Oberlinian: Adelia A. Field Johnston, 1837-1910". Lorain County. Retrieved 2021-03-09.
  7. Warner, Lucien C. (October 1910). "Some Characteristics of Mrs. Johnston". Oberlin Alumni Magazine. 7: 15–17 – via Internet Archive.
  8. "Traveler Will Talk to Women". The Dayton Herald. 1909-11-16. p. 12. Retrieved 2021-03-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. "Spain and the Spaniards". The Sandusky Register. 1892-11-29. p. 4. Retrieved 2021-03-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. Johnston, Adelia A. F. (1894). "Norway and the Midnight Sun". The Congress of Women Held in the Woman's Building, World Columbian Exposition, Chicago, U.S.A., 1893: 565.
  11. "Educator Met Thousands in Oberlin Life". The Chronicle-Telegram. 1910-07-23. p. 1. Retrieved 2021-03-09 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. "Oberlin Names Award Winners". The Newark Advocate. 1949-04-14. p. 31. Retrieved 2021-03-09 – via Newspapers.com.
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