Bluford Archives: An Aggie Legend, Frances Grimes, A&T’s First Female Graduate
On May 30, 1901, three students were awarded bachelors’ degrees from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of the Colored Race (now North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University). This ceremony was significant because this was the first time a woman was a degree recipient from the college. This young lady was Francis Grimes of Asheville, N.C.
In the 120 years since this milestone, information on Grimes has been scarce in the North Carolina A&T histories. Thanks to new research, Aggies now can know her story today as part of A&T’s 130th anniversary and for Women’s History Month.
Frances Grimes was born around 1884 and grew up in the Asheville Township, Buncombe County, N.C. In the 1890s, Frances and her brother Felix were students at the newly built Catholic Hill School which was one of Asheville’s first public schools for African Americans.
In 1896, A&T was accredited to award bachelor’s degrees, and Frances enrolled in 1897 as one of 36 freshman students, 10 of whom were women. At that time, the college offered just three courses towards a bachelor’s degree in agricultural, mechanical and women studies; resulting in many more male and female students were enrolled in the old Preparatory Department.
As a student at the young A&M College, Frances would have had course work from Sophia Parker, principal teacher of domestic sciences and the first woman to head a department at A&T. Frances’ peers would have included Vivian and Inez Dudley, the daughters of President James B. Dudley and Mrs. Dudley, and J. R. Quick, president of the student Y.M.C.A and a future A&T professor. Also, the upperclassmen who graduated in 1899 like Austin W. Curtis Sr. (Curtis Hall on campus) and Isaac S. Cunningham who became a physician in Kentucky and Winston-Salem. In 1899, a photographer on behalf of Dr. W. E. B. DuBois took 23 images of A&T for the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris (Exposition Universelle Internationale de 1900) of African Americans. While several of those images feature women, it is not known if Frances Grimes was one of them.
In her senior year, Grimes was an assistant teacher in the preparatory department. With only three graduates, the class of 1901 was the smallest in A&T’s entire history, but those graduates were anything but insignificant. With the class motto “Fortune Favors The Brave,” she graduated with E. F. Colson who would teach at Tuskegee Institute under Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver before teaching dairy at A&T, and Gaston Alonzo Edwards the first licensed African-American architect in NC.
That same year, A&T decided to stop admitting women to the bachelor’s degree program and to close the preparatory department. After Grimes, only two of her classmates, Hannah Bullock and Florence A. Garrett would earn degrees in 1902. It would not be until 1929 that another woman, Hazel J. Jordon, would receive a bachelor’s degree from A&T after women were reinstated.
After graduating, Grimes returned to Asheville where she was a minister’s assistant in the First Baptist Church and was active in the local Ladies Aid Society. The Catholic Hill School hired her as a supply teacher where she was praised for her work in the local press. In A&T alumni records, she was also listed as a teacher at the Wharton Normal and Industrial School in Charlotte, N.C. until 1907.
In 1911, Grimes married John Runner a porter from Kentucky. The couple was married for 25 years until John’s death in 1936. In 1943, she married Charles L. Bryant Sr., ‘1900, a widower and a fellow Aggie of the old Preparatory Department.
As Mrs. Bryant, Grimes was part of a great A&T legacy family. Not only was Charles Bryant Sr., an Aggie but so were two of his sons H. C. Bryant and Charles Bryant Jr ‘1933, his grandson William Bryant Jr, and a nephew H. M. Harris. All five men attended the 1951 homecoming and posed for a picture with President F. D. Bluford and Dean Warmoth T. Gibbs that appeared on the cover of the November 1951 A&T Register. It is unknown if Frances attended that homecoming too, but in an interview, Charles Sr. stated that “I am proud, that my wife, my son, and I are “Ayanteeans,” and that he looked forward to future generations of his family who would attend A&T.
Mrs. Frances Grimes Runner Bryant passed away in Wilmington, N.C. the following year. In her footsteps, A&T has graduated thousands of remarkable women in education, agriculture, STEM, health and human sciences, visual and performing arts, business and economics, and will continue to do so for many more generations.
This article was possible from research by faculty and staff of the F. D. Bluford Library Archives & Special Collections and the Bluford Library Research Instructional and Engagement Services (RIES) unit. Additional histories were consulted from the Ramsey Library at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, The John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The Archives and Special Collections is seeking more information on the earliest women to work at and attend the university. Some of Frances Grimes’ classmates who did not earn bachelor’s degrees included Minnie J. Donnell, Della Cotton, & Mamie O. Pritchett of Greensboro, N.C., Alma J. Carter of Reidsville, N.C., and preparatory department student, Roxanna T. Grey of Greensboro, N.C., the first Prize winner of the 1897 college rhetorical contest.
For more A&T history or if you have more information about this story, please contact us at libraryarchives@ncat.edu.
