Adena C. E. Minott
A young African-American woman wearing a mortar board cap and a blouse with a high lacy neckline. There is a ribbon pinned to her academic robes. She is wearing glasses, and resting her had on her right hand.
Adena C. E. Minott, from a 1911 newspaper
Bornabout 1879
Jamaica
DiedApril 13, 1955
New York, New York, US
Other namesA. C. E. Minott, Adena Minott-Hinds
Occupation(s)Educator, consultant

Adena Clothilda Eugenie Minott (born about 1879 – April 13, 1955[1]) was a Jamaican-born American educator and consultant. She was the only Black woman to be a fellow of the American Institute of Phrenology.

Early life and education

Minott was born in Allmantown, Jamaica, the daughter of John Thomas Minott and Leonora Green Minott. She moved to the United States as a child, and was educated in New York City, where suffragist Mary E. Eato was one of her teachers.[2][3] One of her brothers was Harlem real estate broker J. Anthony Minott (1886 –1922).[4]

Minott earned a bachelor's and a master's degree from the McDonnall College of Phrenology and Psychology in Washington in 1899.[2] with further studies at the Fowler and Wells Institute of Phrenology and Anthropology[5] in New York until 1903.[6] In 1921, she was awarded a Doctor of Metaphysics degree from the College of Metaphysics in St. Louis.[7]

Career

In 1906, Minott was founder and principal of the Clio School of Mental Sciences in New York,[8] promising "a thorough and practical course of instruction ... in phrenology, physiognomy, psychology and kindred subjects".[9] Frances Reynolds Keyser and Addie Waites Hunton served on the school's advisory board. From 1917 to 1922, she also ran a branch of her school in Chicago.[10] She was the only Black woman to be a fellow of the American Institute of Phrenology.[6] Her work was published in The Phrenological Journal and Science of Health,[11] and The Colored American Magazine.[12]

Minott did anti-lynching work with the Northeastern Federation of Colored Women's Clubs.[13] In 1911, she hosted a fundraiser for Harriet Tubman's care, and for the work of the YWCA.[14] When she bought "one of the finest houses in the block" in Harlem in 1911, as housing for her students, white property owners tried to pressure her and other Black business owners to leave.[15] She was charged with fortune telling, but the charges were dropped.[10] She sued The New York Times for mischaracterizing her work and her clientele in coverage of the situation.[10][16]

Minott wrote and sold a book, How to be Beautiful and Keep Youthful (1923).[17][18] She had a private practice consulting on metaphysics, efficiency, and character analysis.[10] In 1932, the Clio Welfare and Community Center[19] opened a playground in Harlem.[20] Beginning in 1937, she edited and published a magazine, The Community Messenger, with an advisory board of Harlem Renaissance lights including Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Thelma Berlack Boozer.[21]

Personal life

Adena Minott married businessman Harold McDonald Hinds, a widower with two daughters, in 1932.[22] She was widowed when Harold Hinds died in 1945.[23]

References

  1. ↑ Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Death Index, 1949-1965 [database on-line]. Death index lists an "Adena Hinds", born about 1880, died 13 April 1955.
  2. 1 2 J. Samuel Watson, "Prof. Adena C. E. Minott, Ph.B., M.S., F.A.I.P." The Colored American Magazine (October 1908): 521-525.
  3. ↑ Baumgartner, Kabria (2019-12-31). In Pursuit of Knowledge: Black Women and Educational Activism in Antebellum America. NYU Press. pp. 101–102. ISBN 978-1-4798-2311-6.
  4. ↑ "Real Estate Broker Dead from Pneumonia". The New York Age. 1922-05-20. p. 5. Retrieved 2021-02-19 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ↑ Leman, Peter (2019-10-02). "How Profit and Prejudice Built a Family's Human Skull Collection". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 2021-02-20.
  6. 1 2 Dodson, N. Barnett (1911-05-13). "Clio School of Mutual Science (cont.)". The Pittsburgh Courier. p. 8. Retrieved 2021-02-19 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ↑ "Doctor of Metaphysics to Adena C. E. Minott". The Chicago Defender. April 9, 1921. p. 4 – via ProQuest.
  8. ↑ "Clio School in Third Year". The New York Age. 1909-06-17. p. 3. Retrieved 2021-02-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ↑ Dodson, N. Barnett (1911-05-13). "Clio School of Natural Science". The Pittsburgh Courier. p. 1. Retrieved 2021-02-19 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Pietruska, Jamie L. (2017-12-08). Looking Forward: Prediction and Uncertainty in Modern America. University of Chicago Press. pp. 228–232. ISBN 978-0-226-50915-0.
  11. ↑ Minott, Adena C. E. (January 1905). "A Phrenological Detective: A New Year's Story". The Phrenological Journal and Science of Health. 118: 10–11.
  12. ↑ Minott, Adena C. E. (November 1907). "Phrenology and Child Culture". The Colored American Magazine. 13: 388–390.
  13. ↑ Brown, Mary Jane (2017-09-25). Eradicating this Evil: Women in the American Anti-Lynching Movement, 1892-1940. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-71253-1.
  14. ↑ Weisenfeld, Judith (1997). African American Women and Christian Activism: New York's Black YWCA, 1905-1945. Harvard University Press. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-674-00778-9.
  15. ↑ "News of Greater New York". The New York Age. 1911-12-21. p. 15. Retrieved 2021-02-20.
  16. ↑ "Minott v. New York Times Co., 146 App. Div. 857". Casetext. Retrieved 2021-02-20.
  17. ↑ Minott, Adena C. E. (1923). How to be Beautiful and Keep Youthful. Gotham Press.
  18. ↑ "Dr. Minott's Book". The Chicago Defender. December 8, 1923. p. 10 – via ProQuest.
  19. ↑ "Clio Welfare and Community Center". Chicago Defender. September 21, 1929. p. 11 – via ProQuest.
  20. ↑ "Open Playground". Chicago Defender. May 28, 1932. p. 11 – via ProQuest.
  21. ↑ "New Journal Makes Bow". The New York Age. 1937-10-02. p. 10. Retrieved 2021-02-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ↑ "Dr. Adena C. E. Minott and Harlem Business Man Secretly Wed". The New York Age. 1932-04-02. p. 1. Retrieved 2021-02-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ↑ "Harold Hinds, Harlem Printer, Succumbs from Heart Attack". The New York Age. 1945-01-27. p. 4. Retrieved 2021-02-20 – via Newspapers.com.
  • Joy Lumsden, The Minott Family, a genealogical website with extensive primary sources on Adena C. E. Minott and her family
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