Enid Cook
Enid A. Cook '31 was the first Black student to graduate from Bryn Mawr. After spending her freshman year at Howard University in Washington D.C., Cook transferred to Bryn Mawr in 1927. This was not without significant challenges, as President Park and the Board of Directors were extremely reluctant to admit Black students. Correspondence suggests that while the College wanted to avoid appearing racist, their personal convictions and desire to retain the loyalties of donors and students' families were not amenable to social reform. They therefore tried to delay clarifying College policy by attempting to discourage a determined and highly qualified Cook from applying. When this failed, the Board finally voted in the spring of 1927 to admit Cook to the school, but on the condition that she reside off campus. She endured physical isolation and the racial hostility of peers and the administration while a student.
A brilliant scientist, Cook graduated from the College with degrees in Biology and Chemistry in 1931 and next matriculated at the University of Chicago, where she earned her PhD in Bacteriology in 1937. After lecturing at the University of Chicago for eight years, Cook moved to Panama with her husband, where she worked as a professor of microbiology at the University of Panama until 1974.
Bryn Mawr's policy on the admission of Black students was intentionally left opaque until Katherine McBride's presidency. Subsequently, only one other Black undergraduate, Lillian A. Russell '34, is known to have graduated from Bryn Mawr during Park's tenure. It was not until 1944 that a Black undergraduate, Gloria M. White '48, was admitted as a residential student. A decade later, Evelyn Rich '54 became the first Black student to reside on campus for all four years.
Information for this page and other pages on the site related to the history of Black students was found on http://blackatbrynmawr.blogs.brynmawr.edu, a public history project by Grace Pusey '15 and Emma Kioko '15.
