Mary McLeod Bethune
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Object Details
- Date
- c. 1925
- Artist
- Winold Reiss, 16 Sep 1886 - 29 Aug 1953
- Sitter
- Mary McLeod Bethune, 10 Jul 1875 - 18 May 1955
- Exhibition Label
- Born Mayesville, South Carolina
- The fifteenth of seventeen children born to her formerly enslaved parents, Mary McLeod Bethune believed deeply in education as the main route out of poverty for herself and other African Americans. In 1904, she founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute—a school for Black girls in Daytona, Florida. By 1929, that institution had blossomed into Bethune-Cookman College.
- Perhaps Bethune’s greatest impact came in the mid-1930s with her service as a director for the National Youth Administration, a New Deal agency established to aid jobless African American youth during the Depression. She leveraged her position to speak out powerfully against racial discrimination throughout the federal government. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order in 1941 requiring equal consideration for African Americans seeking jobs in the government and in the nation’s defense industries, there was little doubt that Bethune’s lobbying had played a major role in bringing it about.
- Nacida en Mayesville, Carolina del Sur
- Mary McLeod Bethune fue la número 15 de los 17 hijos que tuvieron sus padres, antiguas víctimas de la esclavitud. Tenía una fe profunda en la educación como vía principal para salir de la pobreza, no solo ella sino los demás afroamericanos. En 1904 fundó el Instituto Normal e Industrial de Daytona, una escuela para jóvenes negras en Florida. Hacia 1929, la institución se había transformado en el BethuneCookman College.
- Quizás Bethune tuvo su mayor impacto a mediados de la década de 1930 como directora de la Administración Nacional de la Juventud, una agencia del Nuevo Trato para ayudar a jóvenes afroamericanos desempleados durante la Gran Depresión. Bethune usó su puesto para denunciar enérgicamente la discriminación racial en el gobierno federal. Cuando en 1941 el presidente Franklin D. Roosevelt emitió una orden ejecutiva que requería igual consideración para los afroamericanos que solicitaran empleo en el gobierno y en la industria de defensa nacional, no quedó duda de que los esfuerzos de Bethune habían sido cruciales en ese logro.
- Topic
- Costume\Jewelry\Brooch
- Mary McLeod Bethune: Female
- Mary McLeod Bethune: Education and Scholarship\Founder\School
- Mary McLeod Bethune: Education and Scholarship\Educator\Teacher
- Mary McLeod Bethune: Social Welfare and Reform\Philanthropist
- Mary McLeod Bethune: Education and Scholarship\Administrator\College administrator\President
- Portrait
- See more items in
- National Portrait Gallery Collection
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Credit Line
- National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; purchase funded by Lawrence A. Fleischman and Howard Garfinkle with a matching grant from the National Endowment for the Arts
- Data Source
- National Portrait Gallery
- Object number
- NPG.72.75
- Type
- Drawing
- Restrictions & Rights
- CC0
- Medium
- Pastel on board
- Dimensions
- 75.9 x 54.8cm (29 7/8 x 21 9/16"), Accurate
- Frame: 89.5 × 68.4 × 3.3cm (35 1/4 × 26 15/16 × 1 5/16")
- Metadata Usage
- CC0
- Record ID
- npg_NPG.72.75