Mary Frances Gunner

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Mary Frances Gunner
MaryFrancesGunner.tif
BornMary Frances Gunner
Lexington, Kentucky, U.S.
OccupationPlaywright
NationalityAmerican
Alma materHoward University
Notable worksLight of the Women (1924)
SpouseJerry van Dunk

Mary Frances Gunner (November 9, 1894 – May 13, 1953) was an African American playwright and community leader based in Brooklyn, New York.

Early life and education[]

Mary Frances Gunner was born in Lexington, Kentucky and raised in Hillburn, New York, the daughter of Rev. Byron Gunner and Cicely Savery Gunner. Her parents, both born in Alabama,[1] were active in public life; her father was one of the 29 founders of the Niagara Movement and president of the National Equal Rights League, and her mother, a teacher, was president of the Empire State Federation of Women's Clubs.[2] Her grandfather William Savery, born a slave, was a founder of Talladega College.[3]

She finished at Suffern High School as the only black girl in her class, and as valedictorian.[4] She attended Middlebury College.[5] She also attended Howard University, and was an officer in that school's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.[6] In 1913, she was initiated into Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She served as President of Alpha Chapter from 1914-1915. In her capacity as President, she requested that Mary Church Terrell wrote the Sorority's Oath. In 1923, she completed a master's degree in the Political Science department at Columbia University, with a thesis titled "Employment Problems Among Negro Women in Brooklyn."[7]

Career[]

Mary Frances Gunner worked at the YWCA in Montclair, New Jersey, and after 1921[8] at the Ashland Place YWCA[9] in Brooklyn.[10] She also taught school in New York.[11] Gunner was a branch manager for the New York State Employment Service from 1938 to 1950.[12] She was active in the National Association of College Women.[13]

Her pageant play, Light of the Women (1924), presents the stories of such African-American heroines as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Fanny Jackson Coppin, and Phillis Wheatley. It was intended for performance by community groups and schools,[14] to teach and celebrate the achievements of African-American women.[15] It was performed in 1927 at the YWCA in Orange, New Jersey.[16]

Personal life[]

Mary Frances Gunner married Jerry van Dunk, also from Hillburn, in 1946.[17] She died in Brooklyn in 1953.[18]

References[]

  1. ^ Angela Jones, African American Civil Rights: Early Activism and the Niagara Movement (ABC-Clio 2011): 220. ISBN 9780313393600
  2. ^ "Hillburn, N. Y." New York Age (July 24, 1943): 9. via Newspapers.comopen access
  3. ^ Sallie L. Powell, "Byron Gunner", in Gerald L. Smith, Karen Cotton McDaniel, and John A. Hardin, eds., The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia (University Press of Kentucky 2015): 219-220. ISBN 9780813160665
  4. ^ "Miss Mary Frances Gunner" The Crisis (October 1911): 235-236.
  5. ^ Middlebury College, "Students", Catalogue (1915): 133.
  6. ^ Howard University Yearbooks, The Mirror (1915): 39.
  7. ^ Sallie L. Powell, "Mary Frances Gunner", in Gerald L. Smith, Karen Cotton McDaniel, and John A. Hardin, eds., The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia (University Press of Kentucky 2015): 220. ISBN 9780813160665
  8. ^ "Ashland Branch Y to Have New Secretary" New York Age (September 10, 1921): 8. via Newspapers.comopen access
  9. ^ "Whites Kinder in Attitude Towards Negroes is Claim; Frances Gunner, Colored Secretary of YWCA, Sees Improved Race Relations" Bridgeport Telegram (February 13, 1928): 3. via Newspapers.comopen access
  10. ^ Bernard L. Peterson, ed., Early Black American Playwrights and Dramatic Writers (Greenwood Publishing 1990): 93. ISBN 9780313266218
  11. ^ Catalogue of Officers and Students of Middlebury College (Middlebury College 1917): 453.
  12. ^ "Servants Scarce and Expensive As Result of Wartime Pay Rates" Brooklyn Daily Eagle (June 23, 1946): 10. via Newspapers.comopen access
  13. ^ Linda M. Perkins, "The National Association of College Women: Vanguard of Black Women's Leadership and Education, 1923-1954" Journal of Education 172(3)(1990): 68.
  14. ^ Lurana Donnels O'Malley, "Spirits in Black and White: Ethiopia as the Black Columbia in African American Pageantry" in Graley Herren, ed. Text & Presentation 2015 (MacFarland 2016): 144-146. ISBN 9781476624730
  15. ^ Willis Richardson, ed., Plays and Pageants from the Life of the Negro (University Press of Mississippi 1993): 333-342. ISBN 9781617034565
  16. ^ "Orange, N. J." Pittsburgh Courier (May 7, 1927): 9. via Newspapers.comopen access
  17. ^ "Frances Gunner Weds Jerry Van Dunk on Fri. By Rev. Stark" New York Age (February 16, 1946): 7. via Newspapers.comopen access
  18. ^ "Ramapo Valley Independent 3 June 1954 — HRVH Historical Newspapers".
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