Jane Edna Hunter (1882-1971) was a professionally trained nurse who became a social worker after founding the Working Girls Home Association of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1911. Opened in 1913 as the Phillis Wheatley Association (PWA), the home for single African American women provided housing, employment, job training, social activities, and education. Hunter served as its executive director and executive secretary of its trustees until her retirement in 1946. The PWA became a model for clubs, homes, and employment services throughout the United States.
Born on the Woodburn Plantation near Pendleton, South Carolina, Jane Edna Harris was educated at Ferguson and Williams College, a secondary school in Abbeville, South Carolina. After a brief marriage to Edward Hunter, she attended the Canon Street Hospital and Training School for Nurses in Charleston, South Carolina and in two years moved to the Dixie Hospital and Training School at Hampton Institute, in Hampton, Virginia. Hunter migrated to Cleveland in 1905 and found employment opportunities and housing for African American women lacking. This issue led to her activism on the cause of single, migrant women. In 1911 she spearheaded the founding of the Working Girls Home. She secured funding to erect the eleven-story, half-million dollar residence and training facility of the Phillis Wheatley Association at East 46th Street and Central Avenue in 1927. In 1925 she completed law school at Baldwin Wallace College, passing the bar in 1926. Hunter served as state president and national vice president of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) during the 1930s to 1940s and edited its state newsletter, the Queen's Garden. She was a founding member of the board of the Negro Welfare Association of Cleveland, which later affiliated with the National Urban League; a founder of St. Mark's Presbyterian Church; trustee of Central State University; a director of the Empire Savings and Loan Company, possibly the first African American financial institution in Cleveland; and a director of the Union Realty Company. She was active with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Progressive Business Alliance. Hunter was the recipient of honorary degrees from Wilberforce, Fisk, Allen and Tuskegee Universities. Jane Edna Hunter was also a landlord and operated a number of rental units on Cleveland's east side. In the early 1960s she was judged to be mentally incompetent and her personal finances were handled by her attorney, Charles Hadley.
click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for Jane Edna Hunter
click here to view the Encylopedia of Cleveland History entry for the Phillis Wheatley Association