Rosetta Douglass

Rosetta Douglass-Sprague (June 24, 1839 – November 25, 1906) was an American teacher and activist. She was a founding member of the National Association for Colored Women. Her mother was Anna Murray Douglass and her father was Frederick Douglass. Early years Rosetta was born to Anna Murray-Douglass and Frederick Douglass in 1839, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She was the eldest of five children. When she was five, she moved with her parents to Lynn, Massachusetts. When she was six, she stayed with Abigail and Lydia Mott, from Albany, New York. Abigail taught her to read and write, and Lydia taught her to sew. At the age of 11, she assisted her father in making and packaging his newspaper. On December 24, 1863, she married Nathan Sprague. In 1845, the Rochester Board of Education closed public schools to black students. Frederick Douglass sent Rosetta to a private school rather than send her to an all-black school that Rochester set up for black students. She eventually was tutored between the ages of two and seven. In 1848, Rosetta was admitted into the Seward Seminary in Rochester, New York. Rosetta was segregated from the white students while she was there, and her father spoke out against this in his newspaper. She was expelled after a vote of her white classmates with only one vote against her, proposed by the white, and abolitionist, director. She also attended Oberlin College’s Young Ladies Preparatory and Massachusetts' Salem Normal School.