On Jan. 21, 1913, Fanny Jackson-Coppin, a former slave who graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio, died in Philadelphia. Born into slavery in Washington, D.C., in 1837, Jackson-Coppin was 12 years old when her aunt Sarah Orr Clark purchased her freedom for $125. She moved to Newport R.I., where she attended the Rhode Island Normal School, before entering Oberlin - the first U.S. college to accept blacks and women - in 1860. After she received her bachelor's degree in 1865, she joined the faculty of the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia. She was later appointed principal of the Ladies Department of the institution. Jackson-Coppin created the Women's Exchange and Girls' Home and served on the board of the Home for the Aged and Infirmed Colored People in Philadelphia.

- Rebecca Goodman

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