Dates

• Existence: 1928-

Biography

Frances E. Hawthorne was born in 1928, the oldest of nine children. Hawthorne grew up on a farm near Eolia, Missouri, where she walked three miles each way to attend a segregated school. In 1947 Hawthorne started college at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. She moved to Des Moines, Iowa, following her marriage to Peter Hawthorne. Frances Hawthorne taught fourth and fifth grade history in Des Moines schools before becoming the principal of Edmunds Academy of Fine Arts (Des Moines), which offered a creative learning environment for kindergarten through fifth grade children by combining fine arts with the curriculum. Hawthorne retired in 1990. In 1992 the Iowa Humanities Board awarded a grant to the African American History Project, which sponsored Hawthorne's research resulting in African-American History in Iowa: A Chronicle of Contributions, 1830-1992. In 1996, Hawthorne joined a group of historians who began working on a comprehensive book about African Americans in Iowa, Outside In: African American History in Iowa, 1838-1998, which was published in 2000. Hawthorne wrote "Chapter 16: The Church."

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