IN 1859, philanthropist Nathaniel Ingersoll Bowditch, the son and namesake of the noted navigator, contributed funds to aid impecunious female students training to be teachers at Salem's Normal School. His letters to the principal, Alpheus Crosby, singled out one student for his largesse—Charlotte Forten. After graduating from the Normal School in 1856, Forten continued to take classes in this institution's Advanced Program while teaching at her alma mater, the nearby Higginson Grammar School. She deeply impressed Bowditch. Declaring Forten “the finest specimen of a colored woman, for character, talent, taste, & accomplishment that I know,” Bowditch added that supporting her studies was a “matter of high philanthropic & national importance.”1
Charlotte Louise Forten Grimké (1837–1914) merited Bowditch's confidence in her. By birth and marriage, she belonged to antebellum Philadelphia's most prominent Black families, the Fortens and the Purvises, noted for their commitment to racial equality and community organizing stretching...