Tag: 1931

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Mark, Jesse Jarue (M.S., Agriculture, 1931; Ph.D., Botany, 1935) 

Jesse Jarue Mark, Jr., was born 24 September 1905, in Apple Springs, Trinity County, Texas, to Jesse James Mark, Sr., a farmer, and his wife Lula V. Mark. Mark graduated from Prairie View State Normal & Industrial College (now Prairie View A & M University) in Prairie View, Texas, in 1929 and moved quickly on to Master’s Degree work in Agriculture at ISC, which he completed in 1931. While at ISC, Mark lived with Archie and Nancy Martin at 218 Lincoln Way

As early as 1931, Mark was teaching agriculture at Kentucky State Industrial College (now Kentucky State University), where fellow Iowa Stater Rufus B. Atwood was president. While working at Kentucky State, Mark pursued his Ph.D. in Botany, receiving it in 1935. That same year Mark’s work was recognized nationally when he was named a Rockefeller Fellow in Agriculture for 1935-36.

While at Iowa State, Mark had been employed at the Agricultural Experiment Station. He continued his ties to that organization while teaching and researching at Kentucky State, later becoming the Head of the Agriculture Department there. Following his teaching there, Mark also taught at Tennessee State College, Texas College, and Southern University of New Orleans. Mark He ended his career teaching biology there (“Dr. Mark Rites”).

Jesse Jarue Mark died at age 65 on 20 February 1971 and is buried in the Nigton Memorial Park Cemetery in Nigton, Texas.

Iowa State College Thesis Title: The relation of root reserves to cold resistance in alfalfa, 1935

Iowa State University Library Digital Repository Link:https://doi.org/10.31274/rtd-180813-14899; 

Iowa State College Dissertation Title: The response of winter grains to late fall seeding, 1931 

Iowa State University Catalog Record:https://iowa-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/12tutg/01IASU_ALMA21210594870002756

Sources

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Hunter, Mary Evelyn V. Edwards (M.S., Home Economics, 1931)

Headshot of Mary Evelyn V Hunter

Mary Evelyn V. Edwards Hunter was possibly the first woman of African descent to receive a Master’s degree at Iowa State University.  Prior to enrolling at Iowa State, the 1926 edition of The Prairie lists Hunter as a State Supervisor Home Demonstration Agent. After graduating with a masters degree in Home Economics in 1931, Hunter founded and directed the Division of Home Economics for the Virginia State College for Negroes (now Virginia State University), where she established a home economics graduate program for African American students.

Like a number of other Black graduates of Iowa State, she attended the banquet held by the Iowa State Alumni Association for Frederick D. Patterson’s inauguration as President of Tuskegee in 1935.

Iowa State College Thesis Title: Some effects of home economics training upon the home practices of Negro families in Texas, 1931 

Iowa State University Library Digital Repository Link: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/17671

Sources

Photo Credit: Prairie View A&M University (1926)

1926 The Prairie(p.35)

 https://digitalcommons.pvamu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=yearbooks

Biography available at  HBCU Connections at Iowa State University :  Mary E. V. Edwards Hunter ( http://hbcuconnections.iastatedigital.org/Mary_E._V._Edwards_Hunter )

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Crutcher, Benjamin (“Ben”) Harrison  (B.S., Dairy Foods and Industry, 1925; M.S., Dairy Husbandry and Comparative Physiology, 1931)

Headshot of Benjamin Harrison Crutcher

Benjamin Harrison Crutcher was born 6 August 1890 in Harrodsburg City, Kentucky, to Silas Crutcher, a plasterer and sometime clergyman, and his wife, Anna (aka Ann or Anne) M. Worrell Crutcher. On 26 April 1918, Benjamin enlisted in the Army. He was discharged 5 July 1919. Crutcher graduated from Tuskegee Institute, Florida A & M College in Tallahassee, Florida, and Iowa State College, where he earned a B.S. in Dairy Foods and Industry in 1925 and an M.S. in Dairy Husbandry and Comparative Physiology in 1931. When Crutcher earned his B.S. in 1925-26, he was one of only 13 Black regular session students at ISC (“A Record,” 1926). His classmates included Compton Chapman, Maurice Thomasson, and Willa Juanita Ewing.

Crutcher married Cleopatra Baker in 1922, while taking some time off from college coursework. As an Iowa State undergraduate, in 1924-25, Crutcher roomed at 2522 Chamberlain, with Holloway Smith, Thomas Whibby, and Harold Tutt.

In 1935, as a Dairyman at Tuskegee Institute, he was listed as an attendee at the banquet held by the Iowa State Alumni Association for Frederick D. Patterson’s inauguration as President of Tuskegee. By 1942, he was Head of the Animal Husbandry Department and assistant to the Director of Agriculture at Georgia State College, Savannah. In a second career, Crutcher worked as a medical technologist for the Veterans Administration in Tuskegee, Alabama, where he died on 3 August 1981. At the time of his death, Crutcher, age 91, was the oldest active member of the Alpha Nu Lambda Chapter (Tuskegee) of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity (“Omega Chapter,” 1981).

Iowa State College Dissertation Title: The animal parasites of the woodchuck (Marmota monax L.) with special reference to the protozoa, 1936 

Iowa State University Catalog Record:https://quicksearch.lib.iastate.edu/permalink/01IASU_INST/174tg9m/alma990007117870102756 

Sources

A record of the Negro at college 1926. (1926, August). The crisis: A record of the darker races, p. 174.

Omega chapter. (1981, Fall). Sphinx 67. p. 82.

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Crouch, Geneva Pensola (later Peters) (M.S., Home Economics Education, 1931)

Geneva Pensola Crouch was born 23 February 1902 in Cherokee County, Texas, to George Washington “Clyde” Crouch and Mary “Carrie” Ragsdale Crouch. She attended Iowa State College, where she graduated with a Master of Science in Home Economics Education in 1931. Her brother Hubert B. Crouch also attended Iowa State in the 1930s. She and her brother Hubert Crouch were two of the many Black ISC students who resided with Archie and Nancy Martin at their home at 218 Lincoln Way. In the 1930 census, when listed at home in Smith, Texas, with her parents and siblings, Geneva is a “teacher” at the “college”; Texas College, a private, historically black Christian Methodist Episcopal college, was located in Tyler.

In the late 1920s, she left Texas College for Prairie View Normal & Industrial School (now Prairie View A& M University). By 1931, she had become an instructor of Clothing and Handicraft at Prairie View. She married Wilk S. Peters on 3 September 1932. When her husband moved to Virginia in 1933 to gain a library degree at Hampton Institute, Geneva stayed at Prairie View to teach. By 1935, according to the Federal Census, she was no longer employed. By the 1940 Federal Census, she was living with Wilk Peters in Langston, Oklahoma, where he was librarian at Langston University, the only HBCU in Oklahoma. In 1948, Wilk landed a job at Tuskegee Institute, and they moved to Alabama. She and her husband next moved to Baltimore in 1950 when Mr. Peters became librarian at Morgan State College, another HBCU. In 1958, her employment appeared in the Baltimore City Directory as public school teacher. Geneva Crouch Peters died 27 November 1993 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Iowa State College Dissertation Title: Amount of waste, time required and cost in the preparation of fresh vegetables for institutional use, 1931

Iowa State University Catalog Record:https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/17759

Sources

Biography available at  HBCU Connections at Iowa State University :  Geneva Crouch  ( http://hbcuconnections.iastatedigital.org/Geneva_Crouch )

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Jones, Mae Bell Arrington Phillips (M.S., Home Economics, 1931)

Headshot of Mae Bell Arrington Phillips

Mae Bell Arrington Phillips was born 2 April 1900, in Bueinck County, Alabama, to Jim Phillips and Minnie Arrington. She received her undergraduate degree at Prairie View State Normal & Industrial College (now Prairie View A & M University) in 1926. That same year she became an Associate Professor of Household Arts at the school. Arrington Phillips was a member of the Alpha Omicron Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Following her time at Prairie View, Arrington Phillips began teaching at West Virginia State College, where she taught Home Economics and eventually rose to Director of the Home Economics Department.

She married Dr. Joseph Robinson Jones on 9 September 1935, but her husband died shortly after their union in 1939. Mae Bell Arrington Phillips died on 1 April 1988.

Sources

Photo Credit: Prairie View A&M University (1926). The Prairie, 1926 (p. 33). Retrieved from  https://digitalcommons.pvamu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=yearbooks 

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