The following materials from the Barnard Archives speak to Hurston’s experience at the college. Special thanks to Donald Glassman, College Archivist, for helping to curate this exhibit.
Zora Neale Hurston’s “Record of Freshman Interest.” (December 16, 1925). Zora Neale Hurston enrolled at Barnard College in 1925 as a transfer student from Howard University. When she graduated in 1928, she became Barnard’s first black graduate.
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Committee on Transfers Record. (September and October 1925).
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Correspondence between M. Carey Thomas, Dean of Bryn Mawr College, and Virginia C. Gildersleeve, Dean of Barnard College, regarding admission of “Negro women into residence.” (1930). As a Barnard student, Zora Neale Hurston ’28, did not live on campus. this correspondence indicates the racist climate of the elite women’s colleges at the time.
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Zora Neale Hurston’s transcript from Barnard College. (1928).
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Correspondence between J.B. Lippincott, Co., publishers of Zora Neale Hurston’s first novel, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, and Barnard Dean Virginia C. Gildersleeve. (1934).
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