Ida R. Cummings

Ida R. Cummings (March 17, 1867 — November 1958) was an American teacher and clubwoman, based in Baltimore, Maryland. She was an officer of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs in the 1910s.

Ida R. Cummings
Ida R. Cummings, from a 1912 issue of The Crisis
Born(1867-03-17)March 17, 1867
DiedNovember 1958
NationalityAmerican
Alma materMorgan College
Occupationteacher
Known forNational Association of Colored Women's Clubs

Early life and education

Ida Rebecca Cummings was raised in Baltimore, the daughter of Henry and Eliza Jane Davage Cummings. Her father was a chef, and her mother ran a boarding house.[1][2]

Ida and her siblings were active in Baltimore's public life. Her brother, Harry Sythe Cummings, served on the City Council as its first black councilman; in 1904 he seconded the nomination of Theodore Roosevelt at the Republican National Convention.[3] Their sister Estella married another Baltimore city councilman, Joseph C. Fennell, and another brother, Charles Gilmor Cummings, was a prominent clergyman in the city; Charles's wife was Grace Shimm Cummings, a teacher from another family of teachers.[4][5]

Ida R. Cummings graduated from Morgan College, and attended the Columbia University Summer School for teachers in 1922.[6] Later she would serve as the first female trustee at Morgan College.[7]

Career

Ida R. Cummings was the first black kindergarten teacher in Baltimore.[7][8] She was a teacher in the segregated schools of Baltimore County, Maryland, first at Sparrow's Point,[9] and later in the city.[10][11] In 1902 she was elected to serve on the executive committee of the Colored Teachers' Association of Maryland.[12]

She was elected corresponding secretary of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs in 1912,[13] and was elected vice president in 1916.[14] She was an officer of the first Farmers' Wives and Rural Women's Conference, which met in Baltimore in 1917.[15]

Ida R. Cummings was also active in church work in Baltimore, as a member of Metropolitan Methodist Episcopal Church and as president of the Colored Empty Stocking and Fresh Air Circle, which gave an annual festival to raise funds for the city's poor black children to have Christmas gifts and a summer trip to a nearby farm.[16] She wrote an essay that was included in Methodism and the Negro (1910).[17]

During World War I, she was appointed chair of the state's Women's Section Council of Defense.[8] In 1938, Ida R. Cummings was appointed by the governor of Maryland to the Board of Managers for the Cheltenham School for Boys.[3]

Personal life

Ida R. Cummings died in 1958, aged 91 years. The collected papers of her brother's granddaughter, Charlene Hodges Byrd, contain some letters regarding or addressed to Ida R. Cummings.[18]

References
  1. "Harry S. Cummings" Morning Register (August 7, 1904): 2. via Newspapers.com
  2. "Ida Cummings, Organizer for her People" in Susan Altman, ed., The Encyclopedia of African-American Heritage (Facts on File 1997).
  3. "Board is Chosen by Governor Nice" Daily Mail (June 2, 1938): 2. via Newspapers.com
  4. "Fennell-Cummings Wedding" New York Age (January 20, 1910): 8. via Newspapers.com
  5. "At Hymen's Alter" The Colored American (July 19, 1902): 15. via Newspapers.com
  6. "Manhattan and the Bronx" New York Age (July 22, 1922): 8. via Newspapers.com
  7. Harry Sythe Cummings Photograph Collection - PP240, Maryland Historical Society.
  8. Maryland State Archives, Archives of Maryland Online, The First Colored Professional, Clerical, and Business Directory of Baltimore City (1922-1923): 9.
  9. "Suburbs and County" Baltimore Sun (November 29, 1901): 6. via Newspapers.com
  10. "Permits to Teach" Baltimore Sun (August 31, 1895): 8. via Newspapers.com
  11. "Suburbs and County" Baltimore Sun (August 30, 1900): 7. via Newspapers.com
  12. "Colored Teachers Adjourn" Baltimore Sun (March 30, 1902): 7. via Newspapers.com
  13. "Suffrage Workers" The Crisis (September 1912): 223.
  14. Cynthia Neverdon-Morton, Afro-American Women of the South and the Advancement of the Race, 1895-1925 (University of Tennessee Press 1989): 194. ISBN 9780870496844
  15. Untitled news item, New York Age (July 5, 1917): 7. via Newspapers.com
  16. "Mayor Talks to Colored Children" Baltimore Sun (December 24, 1911): 7. via Newspapers.com
  17. Ida R. Cummings, "How Can We Best Utilize the Young People in the Interest of Home Missions and Church Extension?" in Isaac Lemuel Thomas, ed., Methodism and the Negro (Eaton & Mains 1910): 233-238.
  18. Charlene Hodges Byrd collection, National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution.
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