Mary Ann Goodman – The Good Woman of New Haven: Lunchtime Webinar

The inspirational life story of Mary Ann Goodman, a free woman of African descent whose bequest to create a fund for seminarians of color made history, will be presented by Joan Duffy, senior archives assistant in the Yale Divinity Library Special Collections, in a lunchtime webinar for the New Haven Museum (NHM). “Mary Ann Goodman – the Good Woman of New Haven,” will be presented on Wednesday, February 19, 2025, at 12:30 p.m. Register here.

The program is the second in the new NHM webinar series, “Voices of Legacy: Lunchtime Conversations on Early Black Women.” During her webinar, Duffy will demonstrate how Goodman’s 1872 endowment of her entire estate ($5,000) made her the first woman of color to establish a scholarship at Yale University. Goodman’s bequest to Yale Divinity School, at a time  when students of color were denied formal matriculation into the University, was extraordinary, says Duffy. The gift changed the face of the school with the admission of Solomon Melvin Coles. From that point forward, Duffy says, the Divinity School’s African American presence has continued to grow and thrive.

In recent years Duffy was contacted by numerous people wanting to know more about Goodman. “Clearly Goodman required a more complete biography,” Duffy says. “I continued doing genealogical research and found much more than I ever expected about Goodman, her family and friends. I am now working on additional stories to tell about the people who were important in Goodman’s life.”

Duffy maintains that Goodman accomplished what white abolitionists like the Rev. Simeon Jocelyn had tried unsuccessfully to do when proposing plans for an African American college in New Haven. “This story should be known by all New Haveners and be a source of great pride for the African American community. I’d love to see her commemorated every year,” Duffy adds.

Duffy points out that her work follows that of the late Judith Ann Schiff, an archivist at Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library and the former New Haven’s City Historian, who wrote the basic story of the Goodman endowment.” My work is a continuation of what Judith started many years ago, “ Duffy says. Goodman is highlighted in the “Shining Light on Truth: New Haven, Yale, and Slavery” exhibition, which is on view at the New Haven Museum through Saturday, March 1, 2025.

This free NH250 event will be recorded and available via New Haven Museum YouTube and social media. It will be the second lecture in the new NHM webinar series, “Voices of Legacy: Lunchtime Conversations on Early Black Women.”