Edwina Kruse

Edwina Kruse (February 22, 1848 – June 23, 1930) was an American educator, born in Puerto Rico. She was principal of Howard High School in Wilmington, Delaware for almost 40 years, and a close associate of Alice Dunbar-Nelson, who taught at Howard.

Edwina Kruse
Born	February 22, 1848 San Juan, Puerto Rico
Died	June 23, 1930 Wilmington, Delaware
Occupation(s)	Educator, school administrator

Early life

Edwina B. Kruse was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico; one of her parents was German, the other Puerto Rican or Cuban.^[1][2][3] She moved to the United States as a small child, and both of her parents died when she was young. She was educated in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and at Hampton Institute in Virginia.^[4]

Career

Kruse taught at Black schools in Delaware.^[5] In 1881, Kruse became the principal of Howard High School in Wilmington, Delaware.^[1][6] She often spoke to community groups about her work at the school, which was for a time the state's only public high school for Black students.^[4][7] Her tenure as the school's head covered a time of expansion and improved quality of the school, and the students held an annual celebration on her birthday (she liked to point out that she share a birthday with George Washington).^[8][9][10] Among the Howard students during her time as principal were civil rights lawyer Louis L. Redding and teacher and activist Pauline A. Young. When Booker T. Washington visited Wilmington in 1900, he stayed with Kruse.^[11]

She retired as principal in 1920.^[12][13] She helped establish the state's Industrial School for Colored Girls, which was renamed for Kruse in 1943;^[13][14] it was later merged with a white girls' reformatory, before being absorbed in a co-educational state program in the 1980s.^[15] She also helped create the Sarah Ann White Home for the Aged in Wilmington.^[4] She was one of the organizers of Wilmington's branch of the NAACP in 1914,^[16] and hosted an early meeting of the group in her home.^[17]

Personal life

Kruse had a longtime personal relationship with writer Alice Dunbar-Nelson,^{[18] [19]} who taught at Howard High School.^[20][21][22] Kruse mentored a girl from Trinidad, Etta A. Woodlen, who became a music teacher at Howard High School.^[23] Kruse died in 1930, aged 82 years.^[1][24] She left an unpublished novel in manuscript, This Mighty Oak.^[20] A public pool in Wilmington was named for Kruse.^[25][26] In 1948, her former home was sold to raise funds for a scholarship at Howard High School.^[27]

References

1. "A Love Deeper Than Friendship". The Authorship and Activism of Alice Dunbar Nelson. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
2. "Edwina B. Kruse Dies at 82 Years". The Morning News. 1930-06-24. p. 12. Retrieved 2021-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.
3. "Howard High Plans Best Yearbook". The Morning News. 1975-02-19. p. 10. Retrieved 2021-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.
4. Gibson, Judith Y. (1997). "Mighty Oaks: Five Black Educators". A History of African Americans of Delaware and Maryland's Eastern Shore. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
5. "Getting at the Truth About Miss Kruse's Salary". The Morning News. 1883-03-05. p. 2. Retrieved 2021-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.
6. "Howard School". The Morning News. 1900-06-13. p. 5. Retrieved 2021-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.
7. "Women Hear Fine Address". The Morning News. 1909-04-07. p. 9. Retrieved 2021-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.
8. "Gift of a Portrait to Miss E. B. Kruse". The Morning News. 1918-02-22. p. 8. Retrieved 2021-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.
9. "Honor Former Howard High School Head". The News Journal. 1929-02-23. p. 18. Retrieved 2021-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.
10. "Honor Memory of Veteran Educator". The News Journal. 1931-02-28. p. 22. Retrieved 2021-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.
11. "Not a Candidate". The Sun. 1900-06-28. p. 1. Retrieved 2021-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.
12. "Men of the Month". The Crisis. 21: 32. November 1920.
13. Frank, Bill (1983-09-16). "Educator Edwina Kruse's Trial and Triumph". The Morning News. p. 13. Retrieved 2021-02-22 – via Newspapers.com.
14. "Exercises to Honor Miss Edwina B. Kruse". The Morning News. 1943-06-11. p. 7. Retrieved 2021-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.
15. Frank, Bill (1981-11-10). "Boys and Girls Together at Last". The Morning News. p. 14. Retrieved 2021-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.
16. Boylan, Anne M. "Biography of Mary J. Johnson Woodlen, 1870-1933". Alexander Street, Biographical Database of African American Suffragists. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
17. "Colored Society Talks Segregation". The Evening Journal. 1914-12-16. p. 11. Retrieved 2021-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.
18. Hull, Gloria T.; Hull, Akasha Gloria (1987). Color, Sex & Poetry: Three Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Indiana University Press. pp. 60–63. ISBN 978-0-253-20430-1.
19. "19 Game-Changing Queer Women to Celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month". www.advocate.com. 2019-03-01. Retrieved 2022-04-04.
20. Timmons, Monet (April 6, 2019). "Recovering Black Women in the Archive". Black Women's Studies Association. from the original on 2021-02-12. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
21. Lee, Hellen. "Alice Dunbar-Nelson". 64 Parishes. from the original on 2020-01-30. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
22. Forsythe, Pamela J. (February 18, 2021). "The Rosenbach Museum presents 'I Am an American!'". Broad Street Review. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
23. "Mrs. John H. Woodlen, 71, City Music Teacher, Dies". The News Journal. 1965-06-28. p. 32. Retrieved 2021-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.
24. "Many at Funeral of Miss E. B. Kruse". The Morning News. 1930-06-27. p. 5. Retrieved 2021-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.
25. "Wilmington's Poplar Street Pool". Delaware Today. 2014-05-14. Retrieved 2021-02-22.
26. "Tribute is Paid Negro Educator". The Morning News. 1930-10-11. p. 2. Retrieved 2021-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.
27. "Court Files Opinion on Fund to Howard". The News Journal. 1948-03-15. p. 4. Retrieved 2021-02-23 – via Newspapers.com.

External links

• WITN, "Black History Month - Edwina B. Kruse" (February 25, 2020), a minute-long video about Kruse as a "Delaware First".
• J. Saunders Redding, Troubled in Mind: J. Saunders Redding's Early Years in Wilmington, Delaware (Delaware Heritage Press 1991), includes memories of Kruse (Redding, a professor at Cornell University, was a student at Howard High School in Kruse's last years).
• "Letter from Edwina B. Kruse to the Crisis, July 23, 1926" in the W. E. B. Du Bois Papers, University of Massachusetts Amherst.