Digital NC is excited to announce new materials relating to Sarah “Sadie” Delany now live on our website, thanks to our partner St. Augustine’s University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Included in this upload are a full textbook and recipe book, staff and student directories, newspaper clippings, handwritten recipes, and other ephemera collected by Delany.
Sadie Delany and her sister, Dr. Annie Elizabeth “Bessie” Delany, are known for being pioneering figures in the Black community. As children of an enslaved man, Sadie became the first black woman to teach home economics in white New York schools while Bessie was the second black woman with a dentistry license in New York. The sisters grew up on the St. Augustine campus in Raleigh, which their father attended. The sisters later moved to New York, after living through the Jim Crow era in the South.
With a master’s degree from Columbia and many years of experience teaching in black schools, Sadie sent an application to a white high school to teach home economics. However, she knew that if the Board of Education preemptively met her, she would never get the job because of the color of her skin. Instead, she feigned a mix-up and only met the staff on her first day arriving to teach. She went on to instruct at multiple high schools, including the Girls’ High School in Brooklyn and the Washington Irving High School in Manhattan. Below is a Washington Irving class list taught by Delany and a Girls’ High School faculty list that pictures Sadie Delany’s name.
In tandem with her academic accomplishments, Sadie was also an accomplished cook. This upload contains many of her handwritten recipes and newspaper clippings that she likely used. Pictured below is her recipe for 60-minute rolls.
Sadie lived to be 109, passing away in 1999. To learn more about these impressive women, check out Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years, a memoir published by Sadie and Bessie in 1993. Click here and here for further reading. To explore other North Carolina collections on our site, click here.
