Renowned educator and reformer Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955) dedicated her life to organizing and empowering African American women to work for equality. In 1904, Bethune founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute, a school for Black girls that gave Florida students the tools they needed to become community leaders. In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her director of the Division of Negro Affairs in the National Youth Administration, making her the first African American woman to head a division of a federal agency. Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935 and acted as their first president. The council influenced civil rights, education, U.S. relations with Africa, and other 20th-century movements.
Mary McLeod Bethune
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Object Details
- Date
- 1943
- Artist
- Betsy Graves Reyneau, 1888 - 1964
- Sitter
- Mary McLeod Bethune, 10 Jul 1875 - 18 May 1955
- Exhibition Label
- Born Mayesville, South Carolina
- The fifteenth of seventeen children born to formerly enslaved parents, Mary McLeod Bethune believed deeply in education as the main route out of poverty for herself and other African Americans. In 1904, she founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute—a school for Black girls in Daytona, Florida. By 1929, that institution had blossomed into Bethune-Cookman College.
- Bethune went on to make a significant impact in the mid-1930s with her service as a director for the National Youth Administration, a New Deal agency established to aid unemployed African American youth during the Depression. She leveraged her position to speak out powerfully against racial discrimination throughout the federal government. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order in 1941 requiring equal consideration for African Americans seeking jobs in the government and in the nation’s defense industries, there was little doubt that Bethune’s lobbying had played a major role in bringing it about.
- Nacido en Mayesville, Carolina del Sur
- Hija de antiguos esclavos y decimoquinta de 17 hermanos, Mary McLeod Bethune tenía una gran fe en la educación como vía principal para escapar de la pobreza, no solo ella sino los demás afroamericanos. En 1904 fundó el Instituto Normal e Industrial de Daytona, una escuela para jóvenes negras en Florida. Hacia 1929 la institución se había convertido en el Bethune-Cookman College.
- Bethune tuvo gran impacto a mediados de la década de 1930 como directora de la Administración Nacional de la Juventud, una agencia del Nuevo Trato para ayudar a jóvenes afroamericanos desempleados durante la Gran Depresión. Bethune aprovechó su puesto para denunciar enérgicamente la discriminación racial en el gobierno federal. Cuando en 1941 el presidente Franklin D. Roosevelt emitió una orden ejecutiva que requería igual consideración para los afroamericanos que solicitaran empleo en el gobierno y en la industria de defensa nacional, no quedó duda de la importancia que tuvo Bethune en ese logro.
- Provenance
- Harmon Foundation; gift 1967 to NPG.
- Collection Description
- The Harmon Foundation, a philanthropic organization based in New York City (active 1922–1967), included this portrait in their exhibition Portraits of Outstanding Americans of Negro Origin, which opened at the Smithsonian in 1944 and documented noteworthy African Americans’ contributions to the country. Modeling their goal of social equality, the Harmon sought portraits from African American artist Laura Wheeler Waring and Euro-American artist Betsy Graves Reyneau. The two painters followed the conventional codes of academic portraiture, seeking to convey their sitters’ extraordinary accomplishments. This painting, along with a variety of educational materials, toured nation-wide for ten years, serving as a visual rebuttal to racism.
- La Harmon Foundation, entidad filantrópica con sede en la ciudad de Nueva York (activa entre 1922 y 1967), incluyó este retrato en Portraits of Outstanding Americans of Negro Origin (Retratos de estadounidenses destacados de origen negro), una exposición inaugurada en la Smithsonian en 1944 que documentó las aportaciones de afroamericanos notables al país. A tono con sus ideales de igualdad social, la fundación encargó retratos a la artista afroamericana Laura Wheeler Waring y a la euroamericana Betsy Graves Reyneau. Ambas adoptaron los códigos convencionales del retrato académico para comunicar en sus obras los logros extraordinarios de sus modelos. Esta pintura, junto con diversos materiales educativos, viajó por la nación durante diez años planteando una impugnación visual del racismo.
- Topic
- Interior
- Artwork\Painting
- Equipment\Walking stick\Cane
- Home Furnishings\Globe
- Mary McLeod Bethune: Female
- Mary McLeod Bethune: Arts & Culture\Education and Scholarship\Founder\School
- Mary McLeod Bethune: Arts & Culture\Education and Scholarship\Educator\Teacher
- Mary McLeod Bethune: Social Welfare and Reform\Philanthropist
- Mary McLeod Bethune: Arts & Culture\Education and Scholarship\Administrator\College administrator\President
- Portrait
- See more items in
- National Portrait Gallery Collection
- Exhibition
- The Struggle for Justice Refresh
- On View
- NPG, West Gallery 220
- Credit Line
- National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Harmon Foundation
- Data Source
- National Portrait Gallery
- Object number
- NPG.67.78
- Type
- Painting
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Copyright
- © Peter Edward Fayard
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Stretcher: 114.9 x 89.5 x 2.5cm (45 1/4 x 35 1/4 x 1")
- Frame: 133.4 x 108 x 6.4cm (52 1/2 x 42 1/2 x 2 1/2")
- Metadata Usage
- Usage conditions apply
- Record ID
- npg_NPG.67.78