Her Name Was Sally Brown
When she died, the Alumnae Quarterly printed a remembrance. Although affectionate, the obituary neglected to include her full name.
From 1885 to 1900, Sally Brown worked as a maid on the third floor of Merion Hall. Her work included doing laundry, ironing, cleaning private rooms and common spaces, and serving meals, and her hours were long—often 12 hours a day.
As is true for many African-Americans of the time, little was recorded about Sally Brown. According to the U.S. Census, she was born in New Jersey in March 1848, two years after passage of that state’s Act to Abolish Slavery.
The 1870 census lists her as a servant in the West Philadelphia household of E. A. Rollins, along with his wife, three children, and two other white servants.
She does not appear again in census records until 1900, when “Sallie” Brown’s address is listed as Bryn Mawr College; at the time, 68 Black people lived on campus— all of them servants, most of them women, and some living in student dorms. The census also reveals that Brown was married with five children, but not whom or when she married, nor where her children lived.
In 1907, the Alumnae Quarterly printed a rare memorial of a former maid. While affectionate, Sally Brown’s obituary nowhere mentions her full name.
The above is based on research conducted by the Who Built Bryn Mawr? project, which supports research and curatorial opportunities for students interested in changing the way the College understands its history and seeks to recognize the whole range of alumnae/i, faculty, and staff who have made important contributions to building Bryn Mawr.
