Lucretia H. Newman Coleman

In her 1890 book, "Poor Ben: A Story of Real Life," based on the life of Benjamin William Arnett, the seventeenth bishop of the AME Church. In the dedication section she wrote: "I dedicate this work with sincere love for my race. To the colored young men and women of America, with the hope that it may contribute something to that Christian knowledge, which is the very breath of all true nobility." ~ The Author

Lucretia H. Newman Coleman lived in Appleton, Wisconsin for only a short time, from around 1867 to about 1876. Her family moved to Appleton, from Cincinnati after the death of the family’s patriarch, Baptist Minister and Abolitionist, Reverend William P. Newman in 1866.

She entered Lawrence University as a freshman in September, 1872, enrolling in a scientific course and staying for about two years. She was one of the earliest African American students to enroll at Lawrence. Some biographies state she graduated from Lawrence, but the University Archives has no record of her being awarded a degree. Lucretia was born in Dresden, Ontario, Canada around 1854. Her family moved from Canada to the West Indies, then back to Cincinnati and finally to Appleton. She married Robert J. Coleman in Des Moines, Iowa in 1884 and soon moved to Minneapolis where her daughter Roberta was born. Eventually she and Roberta moved to Chicago where her entry in 1920 census listed her occupation as dressmaker.

She had a distinguished career as an author in the 1880s and into the 1890s, writing articles published primarily in African American journals such as Our Women and Children and the A.M.E. Review, in addition to a biographical novel and poetry. In The Afro-American Press and Its Editors (1891), Irvine Penn states that her writings were “rich in minute comparisons, philosophic terms, and scientific principles.” Martin Dann writes in The Black Press 1827-1890: The Quest for National Identity (1971) that her poem “Lucille of Montana” (1883) was praised at the time as being “full of ardor, eloquence and noble thought.” A contemporary account in the journal The American Baptist said “As a writer, her fame is spreading, not only in one or two states, but throughout the United States. Should she continue with the same success in the past, she will be equal to Harriet Ward Beecher Stowe, if not her superior.” And in Noted Negro Women, Their Triumphs and Activities (1893), Monroe Alphus Majors writes she contributed to black journals with her “usual fascination for saying things in her own way.”



Bio: Neighborhood News (The Newsletter of the Old Third Ward Neighborhood Association, Inc.,) Winter 2016 editors Antoinette Powell and Linda Muldoon.