"A" is for Adams, Mattie Jean

Adams was a native of Newberry County and graduated from Leesville College in 1892. In 1896 she entered the junior class at South Carolina College (later the University of South Carolina). She was awarded a bachelor of arts degree in 1898, the first woman to graduate from South Carolina College. Adams established herself as a leader in the field of education. For eighteen years she served as the head of the Department of English at Meridian College in Meridian, Mississippi. From 1900 to 1903 she took leave from Meridian to serve as organizer of the South Carolina Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Mattie Jean Adams received a master of arts degree from Columbia University and later taught for five years at the Teacher’s College in Livingston, Alabama.