By Gabbie Burton
Contributing Writer

History, or those who have kept track of it, has a way of omitting some names and many of those names have belonged to women. 

Nowadays, there is a concerted effort to rectify the errors of the past and ensure recognition goes to those women who deserve it most.

The Chester County History Center aims to do so through their walking tour, “Fierce: Women of West Chester,” which coincided with Women’s History Month. The tour had four sessions through the last week of March and brought curious attendees along seven spots in West Chester where significant women impacted history. Jennifer Green, the Center’s director of education, and tour guide Erica Imparato led the tour on March 26 and explained the purpose and goal of the event.

“Our goal is to highlight lesser-known stories of how West Chester developed,” Green said. “Women’s stories have been marginalized and when we find stories we want to tell them.”

The tour began at the Chester County History Center, which is partly composed of Horticultural Hall, a historic building which housed Pennsylvania’s first women’s rights convention in 1852. The keynote speech of the convention was given by West Grove woman, Ann Preston, M.D., who was a member of the first graduating class of the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1851. 

Green shared some remarks given by Preston in her address: “We ask that women shall have free access to vocations of profit and honor, the means of earning a livelihood and independence for herself.”

The second stop of the tour was the West Chester Friends School on North High Street to highlight the contributions of Julia Davis Rustin, the grandmother of local civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. Born in 1873, Julia was raised a Quaker and was the first person of color to attend the Friends School. She married Janifer Rustin and had eight children before raising her grandson, Bayard. Julia became known as “Ma Rustin” for her service to others. Green and Imparato shared how Bayard’s values and activism all stem back to the teachings of his “dominant” but “not at all domineering” grandmother, including his organizing of the 1963 March on Washington.

The third stop of the tour brought the group to the West Chester Public Library on North Church Street to honor Hannah Darlington. Hannah was born in 1808 to Irish immigrant parents who died young, leaving her to be raised by her grandfather. In 1832, Hannah married Chandler Darlington, and the couple moved to Kennett Square, where their home served as a stop on the Underground Railroad. The couple was active in the temperance and women’s rights movement with Hannah organizing the women’s rights convention at Horticultural Hall. 

After her husband passed away in 1879, Hannah moved to West Chester where she bought a home and subdivided her land, donating the piece next to her house to the Library Association for the public library to be built on. Hannah passed away in 1888 and left an endowment to the library which they still use today.

The next stop on the tour was the Lincoln Building on West Market Street. Before it was known as the Lincoln Building however, it was home to the photography studio of one of Pennsylvania’s first female photographers, Sarah Garrett Hewes. Hewes was the daughter of the abolitionist Thomas Garrett, who worked closely with Harriet Tubman on the Underground Railroad. Hewes was West Chester’s first professional photographer and opened her studio in 1850, although she would only stay there for a year before she became ill and moved to Philadelphia. Hewes died at age 34, but her photographs continue carrying her legacy including the collection housed at the History Center.

The fifth stop on the tour was to the Samuel Barber house on South Church Street. While Barber became a famous composer and musician, it was his aunt, Louise Homer, whom the tour focused on. Born in Pittsburgh in 1871, Homer moved with her family to Philadelphia and eventually settled in West Chester. She was immediately recognized for her voice while singing at church and was encouraged to seek professional training in Boston. She met her husband, Sydney Homer while in Boston and the pair relocated to Europe to continue her vocal training. She joined the Metropolitan Opera in 1900 and had a successful opera career. Although she is little known today, she was listed as one of the 12 greatest women alive by the National League of Women Voters for the years 1923 and 1924.

Stop six was to the Archangel Tattoo shop on South High Street, which was previously one of eight family homes owned by the Shadd family. Mary Ann Shadd was one of 13 children of Abraham and Harriet Shadd, a free Black family who moved to West Chester in 1833 for educational opportunities. Mary Ann followed in her father’s footsteps to become an abolitionist and public speaker. Mary Ann originally worked as a teacher until in 1848 Frederick Douglass asked readers of his publication, The North Star, to write in suggestions of how to improve life for Black people in America. 

Mary Ann, who was 25 at the time, wrote in suggesting, “We should do more and talk less.” This led Mary Ann on the path to become a journalist. In 1853 after moving to Canada, Mary Ann began her publication, The Provincial Freeman, making her the first Black female newspaper editor in North America. Mary Ann closed her newspaper in 1859 and moved back to the United States, where she continued to grow her activism, founded a school for children of freed enslaved people, became only the second Black woman in America to receive a law degree and worked for women’s suffrage.

The final stop of the tour was the West Chester Courthouse to highlight Isabel Darlington, Chester County’s first female attorney. Born in West Chester in 1865 to the prominent Darlington family, Isabel received a rigorous education which led to her attending Wellesley College in 1882. Her father, Smedley Darlington, relocated the family to Washington D.C. during his stint in Congress from 1887-1891 before moving the family back home to Faunbrook in West

Chester. 

The financial crisis of 1893 caused the family to lose massive amounts of their fortune which inspired Isabel to pursue an independent career. In 1894, she passed the Chester County bar exam and went on to attend law school at the University of Pennsylvania. Her law career included high profile clients including Pierre S. du Pont in his acquisition of the Longwood Gardens property. She served as president of the Chester County Bar Association in 1941 when the second female attorney was admitted. 

Green and Imparato passed around a photograph taken on the courthouse steps in 1897 showing over 30 male attorneys of the Chester County Bar and one woman, tucked away in the back of the picture.

To truly know local history, one must know the names and stories of the trailblazers and the marginalized who forever changed our communities, including those who were women.

For a complete list of upcoming events and walking tours at the Chester County History Center, visit www.mycchc.org.

To contact Contributing Writer Gabbie Burton, email [email protected].