Educator Alberta Mae Knox (1896-1991) was the first Black graduate from the newly built New Bedford High School in 1913, when she was elected class salutatorian by the faculty.
How can a teacher ensure that her students learn skills to build a more peaceful world? For New Bedford educator Lillian Ross (1904?-2003), the answer was to develop active global citizens through educational and cross-cultural exchanges of the American Field Service (AFS).
When dancer/actress/choreographer Carol Haney (1924-1964) was a young child, a Portuguese fortune teller in New Bedford predicted her stardom. In a critically-acclaimed but short-lived career, Carol won a Tony Award and earned three Tony nominations for excellence on Broadway.
From immigrant textile mill worker to Ivy League student to pioneering New Bedford educator, Laurinda C. Andrade (1899-1980) overcame barriers of tradition, poverty, language, and discrimination to establish the first high school Portuguese language department in the United States at New Bedford High School.
Pioneering educator and community activist Mary Hudson Onley (1889-1980) was one of the first African American graduates of Bridgewater State Normal School in 1912.
A U.S. military veteran with overseas tours during three wars, Lieutenant Colonel Mary Elizabeth Hartley (1920-1999) served in the Army Nurse Corps for 25 years, from 1942 to 1967.
New Bedford educator Marial Harper (1934-2016) positively impacted numerous lives at New Bedford High School and was the first woman and minority to be appointed a Housemaster there.
The first African American woman to become a registered pharmacist in southeastern Massachusetts, Rosamond Alice Guinn (1892-1923) graduated from New Bedford High School and the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy.