Biography

Emily Howland was born in 1827 on a farm near Sherwood, New York, to Slocum and Hannah Howland, members of the Society of Friends and staunch anti-slavery advocates. Their home was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Emily Howland was well educated and became a teacher in 1857. From 1857-1859, Howland taught at the Miner School for Colored Girls in Washington, D.C., founded by Myrtilla Miner. Howland returned to New York in 1859, but during the height of the American Civil War served in "contraband" camps in and around Washington, D.C. distributing food, nursing the ill, and teaching formerly enslaved men, women, and children. Emily Howland founded or contributed to (with family support) several schools for black Americans. Later in life, she became a tireless advocate in the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Emily Howland died June 29, 1929 at the age of 101. Howland corresponded with Frances Seward on several occasions and a photographic album belonging to Howland, acquired by the Library of Congress and Smithsonian Institution in 2017, contains a carte-de-visit of Frances "Fanny" Seward, along with a previously unknown image of Harriet Tubman.