In 1871, Hampton Institute graduated its first class comprised of five women and fourteen men. Between 1871 and 1887 the sizes of the graduating classes at Hampton continued to grow. Listed here are the names of the students at Hampton during the 1886-87 school year. Help us transcribe this yearbook and learn more about the faculty, students, and the types of courses students enrolled in during the late nineteenth century.
Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (now Hampton University) was founded in 1868 in Hampton, Virginia, by General Samuel Chapman Armstrong with the support of the American Missionary Association. In its early days, Hampton trained African American educators and also emphasized self-improvement and job training to enable students to become gainfully employed and self-supporting as craftsmen and industrial workers. Among the school’s famous alumni is Booker T. Washington, an educator, who later founded Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.