[Fanny Jackson Coppin]

Your Mirror: Portraits from the ICP Collection
Section: Identification
This tag featuring Fanny Jackson Coppin (1837–1913) was given to supporters of a charity in Virginia. The image of Coppin, a pioneering educator and activist, appeared as the frontispiece of her book Reminiscences of School Life, and Hints on Teaching (1913).
Coppin was born into slavery in Washington, DC, but released after her aunt paid $125 for her freedom. In 1860 she enrolled at Oberlin College, and after graduating she moved to Philadelphia to teach Latin, Greek, and mathematics at the Institute for Colored Youth, a Quaker school. Four years later she became head principal, the first African American woman to assume the role in the United States. Coppin later moved to Cape Town, South Africa, where her husband, Levi Jenkins Coppin, was a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She returned to Philadelphia in her later years, and Coppin State
University in Baltimore is named in her honor.
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This object, or tag, featuring Fanny Jackson Coppin (1837–1913), was given to contributors who donated money on Tag Day. The charity was probably Virginia C.B.M.M.S, possibly in Norfolk, Virginia, where president Jennie E. Day and Josephine M. Norcom lived.