Charles Alexander and Thomas Graham Dorsey
Charles and Thomas Dorsey were born in Philadelphia, PA and were children of Augustus and Mary E. Dorsey. Charles was born in 1835, while Thomas was born in 1839. The brothers both went on to play leading roles in the African American community after the Civil War. This exhibit explores their lives in Brooklyn and Washington D.C. after leaving New York Central College.
New York Central College
According to the New York Central College catalog, Charles attended from 1855-1857, while Thomas only attended from 1856-1857. Charles first attended in 1855 as a student in the preparatory Academic Department, but began in 1856 as a freshman in the collegiate department. Thomas first attended Central College in 1856-1857 as a student in the prep school.
The years 1856-1858 were huge in terms of increased activism and speakers such as abolitionist Wendell Phillips visiting the school to give a speech. Unfortunately, these years were also a time of financial struggle for NYCC. The school began reaching out to the public in hopes of receiving donations; and at one point relying on professors who began donating their own profit to support the school. Additionally, some of their classmates became active participants in the National Dress Reform Association, advocating for less restrictions on women’s clothing during this time.
Both of the Dorsey brothers attended NYCC when John H. Fleet, the fourth African American professor was hired. Additionally, during Charles' first year, George B. Vashon, a graduate of Oberlin and son of an abolitionist, was a professor at the institution. NYCC quickly became a place where abolitionist speeches were not only welcomed, but encouraged.
Their learning opportunities allowed them to pursue higher education, better themselves, and better their communities in the future. It is not known exactly when the brothers left central college. We can surmise that Charles and Thomas both also attended Central College in the 1857-1858 academic year, since Charles began his first classes at Oberlin in Fall 1859 as a junior. This then would imply that neither brother graduated from NYCC. We however do not have a college catalog to confirm this.
We can surmise that the Dorsey brothers left NYCC for a multitude of reasons; including lack of funding and a loss of abolitionist values. George B. Vashon, a black teacher at NYCC, left due to his limited sallary. In a letter he wrote to Gerrit Smith, he also mentioned that there was speculation of the university trying to push out black faculty in favor of the public. Though this made him hesitant to leave out of fear no more African Americans would work there, Vashon ultimately left. Additionally, Cortland Presbyterian Church had prohibited anti-slavery lectures in 1858. The ban of anti-slavery lectures would also correspond with a lack of abolitionist values being maintained at the institution, thus cotributing to the Dorsey brothers departure to Oberlin.
Oberlin College
Both of the brothers went on to study at Oberlin College in Ohio. Oberlin was the first college that not only admitted male African American students, but encouraged them to enroll due to its reputation as an abolitionist institution. Oberlin had gained the support of the black church, as well as both black and white abolitionists. After the civil war, Oberlin administered honorary master’s degrees to black male graduates. Though only 2-5% of the student body were black, Oberlin highly contributed towards the advancement of education for African Americans prior to the civil war. Many of the black attendees were born free, and all had the required pre-college training to enroll. Due to the lack of public schools in Ohio that were open to blacks, black students had to obtain pre-college training in private institutions. An important leader in black education, Fanny Jackson Coppin, was a graduate from Oberlin in 1865 that had received a scholarship through the church. (Ellen N. Lawson and Marlene Merrill, “The Antebellum ‘Talented Thousandth’: Black College Students at Oberlin Before the Civil War,” The Journal of Negro Education 52, no. 2 (Spring 1983): 142-145.)
Charles was a junior at Oberlin in 1859-1860, while Thomas was a senior in the prep school during this time. Charles was a senior in 1860-1861, with no record of attendance in the year 1861-1862. It can be assumed that Charles graduated from Oberlin in 1861, while Thomas was a sophomore in 1861-1862. Due to Thomas’s attendance at a few other colleges and lack of college records, it is unknown if he had graduated from Oberlin.
Worth noting; two students from NYCC, Benjamin Kellogg Sampson and James P Osbourn, also attended Oberlin alongside the Dorsey brothers. This coincides with the idea that black students were leaving NYCC, assuming that lack of funding and abolitionist values pushed students out.
After Charles’s graduation at Oberlin, he went on to pursue his career as a principal and school administrator. After Thomas’s attendance, he pursued a medical degree at Harvard.