Tossie Permelia Frances Whiting (1879 – April 23, 1958) was an American educator, and Dean of Women at Virginia State University from 1919 to 1936.

Early life

Tossie Whiting was born in the Fulton Hill neighborhood of

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

, the daughter of Robert W. Whiting and Nancy Whiting. She graduated from

Hartshorn Memorial College Hartshorn Memorial College was a school for African-American women in Richmond, Virginia, from 1883–1932, when it merged into Virginia Union University. History Hartshorn Memorial College was created in Richmond, Virginia, in 1883 as a colleg ...

(then a high school) in 1895, then earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Chicago and a master's degree at Columbia University.Tossie P. F. Whiting Papers
Archives and Special Collections Department, L. Douglas Wilder Library, Virginia Union University.

Career

In 1901, Whiting was named a commissioner of the Negro Young People's Christian and Educational Congress. Whiting worked at Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute from 1904 until 1948, when she retired. In 1919 the position of Dean of Women was created for her, and she was dean until 1936. In 1929 she was one of the founding members of the Association of Deans of Women and Advisors to Girls in Negro Schools, an offshoot of the National Association of College Women. She was an associate professor of English at Virginia State from 1936 until 1948. In 1958, a dormitory at the school was named Whiting Hall in her honor. In 1945, she received an honorary doctorate from Virginia Union University, at a commencement ceremony where

W. E. B. DuBois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian Sociology, sociologist, Socialism, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanism, Pan-Africanist Civil and political civil rights activist. Bor ...

was the speaker. She was chair of the Hartshorn Memorial College Alumni Association from 1935 to 1947.

Personal life

Whiting died in 1958, aged 79 years. A small collection of her papers are archived at Virginia Union University. Her brother Gregory W. Whiting also found a career in college administration, at Bluefield State College in West Virginia. Their sister Beatrice was a high school teacher.Papers of Beatrice Jeanette Whiting
Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whiting, Tossie 1958 deaths 20th-century African-American academics 20th-century American academics American educators American women educators University of Chicago alumni People from Richmond, Virginia 1879 births 20th-century African-American women