Prudence Crandall

• Born: December 6, 1905
• Birthplace: Buffalo, New York
• Died: July 29, 2001
• Place of death: Concord, New Hampshire

First published: 1955; illustrated

Subject(s): Africans/African Americans and educators

Type of Biography: Individual

Time of work: 1833–1886

Recommended ages: 10–15

Locale: Canterbury, Connecticut

Form and Content

The first chapter of Prudence Crandall: Woman of Courage, by Elizabeth Yates, begins in January, 1833, with a dramatic scene between Andrew Judson, the mayor of Canterbury, Connecticut, and Quaker teacher Crandall. He had come to confront her with the complaints that the townspeople had made concerning Crandall’s boarding school, a conflict that began with the admission of an African-American girl. As the narrative unfolds, the issue evolves from the local level to a state and then a national concern.

Yates does not include a discussion of Crandall’s childhood or family experiences prior to her decision to become a Quaker teacher. Instead, the author’s main focus is on Crandall’s acts of bravery as a pioneer in the education of African-American children. Yates portrays Crandall as a woman who would not retreat from her beliefs that schools belong to all children. The author also offers an in-depth depiction of the boarding school’s struggles by describing some of the children who were living at the institution, where they remained throughout the conflict until the school was destroyed in 1834.

Yates uses actual clippings from major newspapers and quotes from Crandall’s journals in order to emphasize the events that took place in Connecticut in 1833; these efforts at documentation lend credibility to the biography. Passages from the newspapers The Liberator and The Union, which advocated the emancipation of slaves and the rights of African Americans, are effectively used by Yates to underscore the fact that Crandall’s boarding school did have some outside support.

Crandall experienced many disappointments in trying to establish an educational institution for African-American girls, and Yates allows these realities to be reflected in the biography. One such disappointment described in the book is the establishment in 1833 of a restrictive educational law through the leadership of Judson, the lawyer and town leader of Canterbury who opposed Crandall’s boarding school. The law stated that African-American students could not be educated outside the communities in which they lived. Yates reveals the fear that came with being African American during this period in American history. According to the book, the general belief of the Canterbury residents was that African Americans should be returned to Africa if they did not obey all the state laws to the letter, including those pertaining to education.

The author also describes Crandall’s romance with Calvin Philleo, whom she first encountered at abolitionist rallies. Yates describes their simple wedding and their continued commitment to the boarding school. Crandall was soon sent to jail, however, for her role as the administrator of the institution. Yates portrays her subject’s imprisonment by describing the feelings that Crandall experienced from a Quaker’s philosophical point of view. The book then recounts how the school was destroyed by militant townspeople. Afterward, Crandall and her husband decided to move to Kansas.

Yates ends Prudence Crandall by documenting the many advancements made by African Americans during Crandall’s lifetime. In the last few pages of the book, the author uses a journal format as she lists the dates and events of Crandall’s life in chronological order. Young readers will enjoy this book because the plot moves quickly, many conversations are recorded, and the chapters are brief. A half-page illustrative pencil sketch is provided at the beginning of each chapter, which helps the young reader to visualize its contents.

Analysis

Prudence Crandall is composed largely of dialogue between Crandall and the other figures who are described within the book. Yates uses short, concise sentences to lend clarity to her account of how Crandall sought to reach her all-encompassing goal: to create a successful educational institution for African-American girls in Canterbury, Connecticut. The extensive use of dialogue, which does not encourage the inclusion of descriptive adjectives, helps to maintain a fast-paced narrative style. In addition, the chapters are short and important events in Crandall’s life occur frequently in the text. These factors make the biography attractive to young people who need to improve their reading skills.

Yates’s text accurately portrays the cultural attitudes of Crandall’s day. Thus, the African-American girls are referred to as “Negroes” and “colored people” in order to reflect the language of the historical period in which these events occurred. Yet Yates is careful in her use of these terms, employing them only as a part of the conversations of the figures and not in other sections of the text.

Prudence Crandall is peppered with several short references to Quaker beliefs, especially as they relate to Crandall’s attitudes and actions. Consequently, Yates constructs an image of her subject as a peaceful advocate of nonviolent change. Crandall’s role as a confrontational and strong-willed individual seems contrary to her Quaker upbringing, but these qualities supported her moral convictions and helped in her educational activities. Yates portrays Crandall as a white Quaker teacher who never wavered from her beliefs and who had little doubts concerning her vision for African-American education.

The author also presents the heroic actions of others who shared Crandall’s convictions. Yates weaves into her biography the stories of many brave children and adults who, despite the dangers of such a commitment, remained steadfast in their support for the boarding school. One of these individuals was Crandall’s father, who risked fines and injuries by bringing much-needed drinking water to the school while Crandall and her students stayed inside. This anecdote is one example of the warmth and love exhibited by Crandall’s family, which helped her to be strong throughout her ordeal.

The biography attempts to represent the attitudes of the time period, as well as the reality that not every endeavor ends in success. Thus, in one of the book’s last chapters, the author describes the destruction of Crandall’s boarding school by the towns-people of Canterbury. Yet the biography ends on a more encouraging note with Yates’s chronology, which reminds the young reader of the many accomplishments in Crandall’s lifetime. In April, 1886, Crandall accepted a statement from the Canterbury city leaders honoring her for standing by her convictions and for her efforts to establish the first school for African-American girls, and she received many posthumous awards as well. Crandall’s fame, as documented in the text through newspaper clippings, helps readers to understand that she was breaking new ground for minority groups in the United States.

Critical Context

This biography has become a classic for juvenile readers because of its easy-to-read format of brief sentences, large print, and short chapters. Yates teaches these readers the importance of having convictions and backing up those convictions with actions.

After Prudence Crandall, Yates continued to write about the early struggles of African Americans. Her most famous book was Amos Fortune, Free Man (1967), a young adult biography that takes place in the seventeenth century community of Jeffery, New Hampshire, and chronicles the life of a freed slave. This book was awarded the Herald Tribune Spring Festival award, the William White award, and the prestigious Newbery award.

Yates closes Prudence Crandall with documentation of the positive educational changes within Crandall’s lifetime. This biography, which was published in 1955 in the midst of controversy over the desegregation of American schools, no doubt struck a chord in many contemporary readers. Yates hoped to leave her young readers with the desire to update her documentation of the positive changes experienced by African Americans with new gains in civil rights. Therefore, Prudence Crandall can be used as a tool for children to understand African-American history.

Principal Personages:

• Prudence Crandall, the administrator and head educator for an African-American girls’ boarding school in Canterbury, Connecticut
• George Benson, the editor of The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper
• Almira Crandall, Prudence’s sister and her partner in the boarding school
• Sarah Harris, the first African-American student at the school
• Andrew Judson, the mayor of Canterbury, a lawyer who took Crandall to court over her school
• Samuel May, a minister who was supportive of Crandall and her boarding school
• Calvin Philleo, a supporter of the school, who later became Crandall’s husband