Sylvanie Williams

Sylvanie Francoz Williams (died August 12, 1921) was an American educator and clubwoman based in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Sylvanie F. Williams, from an 1896 newspaper.

Early life

Sylvanie Francoz was born in New Orleans, the daughter of François Francoz and Sarah Francoz. The date of her birth varies in sources, from 1847 to 1855; her obituary places her birthdate around 1849.[1] She trained as a teacher at Peabody Normal School.[2]

Career

Sylvanie F. Williams worked as a school administrator, principal of the Fisk School Girls' Department from 1883 to 1896,[3] and of the Thomy Lafon School from 1896 to 1921. The latter school was burned down during rioting in 1900, but rebuilt under her leadership.[4] Among the students under her care were A. P. Tureaud, who became a prominent civil rights lawyer.[5] Williams prepared a report on the educational, economic, and cultural conditions of black residents of New Orleans, to be presented at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.[6]

Williams was founder and president of the Phillis Wheatley Club, a prominent organization for black women in New Orleans. The club sponsored a nursing school, a hospital, and a free clinic for African-Americans in New Orleans;[7] they also conducted sewing bees to make clothing for orphans.[8] She was also active in creating the first public playground for African-American children in New Orleans. A writer in her lifetime called Sylvanie Williams "a fine example of the resourcefulness and noble influence that a cultivated woman can and will give to the uplift of her race."[9] She was a vice-president of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACW) when it was founded in 1896.[2][10]

Williams supported women's suffrage, including black women's suffrage. In 1903 she attempted to attend the annual meeting of the National American Women's Suffrage Association (NAWSA), when it was held in New Orleans, but was barred because of her race.[11] Instead, Williams welcomed a visit to the Phillis Wheatley Club from white suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony, and she spoke with Anthony about the place of black women in the suffrage movement.[12][13]

Personal life and legacy

Sylvanie Francoz was married to Connecticut-born musician and educator Arthur P. Williams. She was widowed when he died in 1920.[14] She died in 1921, aged about 72 years.[1] A New Orleans elementary school is named for Sylvanie Williams.[15]

References
  1. V. P. Thomas, "Veteran Teacher Dies after 51 Years Service" New York Age (August 27, 1921): 7. via Newspapers.comopen access
  2. "Voices of Progress: Sylvanie Francoz Williams" The Historic New Orleans Collection, Virtual Exhibits and Collections.
  3. "Peabody Normal Institute" The Times-Picayune (June 10, 1887): 4. via Newspapers.comopen access
  4. "A Colored Woman Talks of Miss Jewett" The Times-Picayune (August 9, 1900): 11. via Newspapers.comopen access
  5. Rachel Lorraine Emanuel, Alexander P. Tureaud, A More Noble Cause: A.P. Tureaud and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Louisiana : a Personal Biography (LSU Press 2011). ISBN 9780807139424
  6. "Colored Statistics" The Times-Picayune (September 29, 1892): 3. via Newspapers.comopen access
  7. "A Hospital for Negroes" Wilkes-Barre Times Leader (November 5, 1896): 3. via Newspapers.comopen access
  8. "To Aid the Little Orphans" The Times-Picayune (September 17, 1900): 12. via Newspapers.comopen access
  9. John William Gibson, The Colored American from Slavery to Honorable Citizenship (J. L. Nichols & Company 1903): 207.
  10. "Colored Women's Association" Daily Commercial Herald (July 23, 1896): 2. via Newspapers.comopen access
  11. Lee Sartain, Invisible Activists: Women of the Louisiana NAACP and the Struggle for Civil Rights, 1915-1945 (LSU Press 2007): 48. ISBN 9780807135761
  12. Adele Logan Alexander, "Adella Hunt Logan, the Tuskegee Women's Club, and African Americans in the Suffrage Movement" in Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, ed., Votes for Women! The Woman Suffrage Movement in Tennessee, the South, and the Nation (University of Tennessee Press 1995): 89, 102. ISBN 9780870498374
  13. Darlene Clark Hine and Christie Ann Farnham, "Black Women and the Right to Vote", in Jonathan Birnbaum and Clarence Taylor, eds., Civil Rights Since 1787: A Reader on the Black Struggle (NYU Press 2000): 256. ISBN 9780814782156
  14. Al Kennedy, Chord Changes in the Classroom: How Public School Teachers Shaped Jazz and the Music of New Orleans (Scarecrow Press 2005): 2-3. ISBN 9781461657460
  15. Kelsey Davis, "Sylvanie Williams College Prep Students Go On Civil Rights Trip to Alabama" WOSU News (January 23, 2015).
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