M.E. Pauline Lyons
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- Name
- M.E. Pauline Lyons
- Image
- From The New York Public Library
- Portraits of M. E. Pauline Lyons (right) and her older sister, Maritcha Lyons (left).
- Biographical Information
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M. E. Pauline Lyons (full name Mary Elizabeth Pauline Lyons) was an African American woman from Providence, Rhode Island, who taught at the school at Bel Air (Hendon Hill). Lyons was only 19 years old when she arrived at the school to teach in January, 1870. She was born in New York City, where her father Albro owned a seamen’s outfitting store that doubled as a stop on the Underground Railroad. After their home was destroyed during the Draft Riots of July, 1863, the family relocated to Providence, Rhode Island, where they remained active in advancing the rights of African Americans in that city.
Pauline’s elder sister Maritcha would become a prominent educator in New York City, and an associate of fellow educator and activist Ida B. Wells. In keeping with the family mission, the young Pauline embarked upon her own teaching career with the support of the Pennsylvania Branch of the Freedmen’s Union Committee. She replaced the previous teacher at Bel Air, Rachel L. Alexander, for the spring 1870 term.
In September, 1870, Pauline Lyons’ job was threatened by the efforts of a local white woman, Esther J. Duvall. Esther was the daughter of Emmett Duvall, a white supporter of black education and associate of George M. McComas. She wrote to Superintendent W. L. Van Derlip in a bid to replace Lyons as teacher, claiming that the trustees of the school desired a replacement for the young Lyons. Esther described the African American people of her area as “’conservative’ in their ideas about youth and inexperience,” and “rather opposed to being subject to a teacher of their own color.” She suggested herself as an appropriate replacement for Lyons. There is no evidence that the Superintendent responded to her letter.
There is no evidence of M. E. Pauline Lyons teaching at Bel Air after the September, 1870 letter from Duvall. An 1873 Providence city directory indicates that she was residing at the family home there at that time. Pauline married sometime in the 1870s, and after her husband’s death in 1880, she and her son moved to Oakland, California, where she became a nurse. Her son, Harry Albro Williams, would become a prominent Freemason in the early twentieth century. - School Affiliation
- Bel Air aka Hendon Hill
Part of M.E. Pauline Lyons