Bertha Grant Higgins, Prudence C.A. Higgins Irving, William Harvey Higgins

Bertha Grant Higgins:

Bertha Grant Higgins was born Bertha Grant Dillard, in Danville, Virginia, on November 18, 1872. She married Walker C. Thomas in 1887 and was widowed by 1897. She married Dr. William Harvey Higgins (from North Carolina) on September 28, 1898 in New York while he was completing his medical residency in Manhattan. She was a dressmaker and had experiences traveling abroad in London and Paris to learn about fashion. She purchased stock and bought her own car. After William H. Higgins completed his residency, they moved to Providence, Rhode Island in 1903, where her political activities began. They lived at 48 Woodman Street and later built a house at 50 Woodman Street. In 1906, she was elected as the president of the Women’s League of the Douglas Republican Association of Rhode Island. In 1913, she became guardian of the Twentieth Century Arts and Literary Club for young women in Providence. She helped organize concerts and performances, including a minstrel show advocating for women’s suffrage and a Roland Hayes concert. She wrote letters to local, state, and federal politicians advocating for women’s suffrage and joined suffragist groups. She helped found the Seventh Seventh Ward League of Women Voters in 1919 and the Rhode Island League of women voters. After the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, she encouraged voter registration and political engagement. In 1920, she founded the Julia Ward Howe Republican Women’s club. As president, she attended national Republican party conferences. She advocated for the 1922 Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill. She communicated with several notable figures of the time, including Mary Church Terrell, Margaret Murray Washington (wife of Booker T. Washington), Governor J. Howard McGrath, Senator Theodore Francis Greene, Mayor Dennis J. Roberts, Edward J. Flynn, U.S. President Warren G. Harding, and Daisy E. Lampkin, among others. There are letters from hospitals, the state welfare commission, and the red cross demonstrating that she cared about improving the quality of life. She advocated extensively for equal employment opportunities for African American youth, even personally writing to employers. In 1932, during the New Deal Party Realignment, she left the Republican party and founded the Colored Women’s Democratic (Civic) and Political League of Rhode Island. She died on December 30, 1944, in Providence at the age of 72.

Prudence C.A. Higgins Irving:

Prudence Camilla Amphetrite Higgins Irving is the daughter of Bertha G. Higgins and William H. Higgins and their only child. She was born and raised in Providence, RI. She was a passionate advocate for increasing the quality of life and referred to social work as her calling. In 1937, she became the first Black social worker in Rhode Island when she was hired by the Rhode Island Department of Public Welfare. She was a caseworker for the RI Old Age Assistance Program. She served as the executive director of the Rhode Island Commission on the Employment Problems of Negroes and on the Board of Directors of the Urban league. She was a member of the RI Chapter of National Social Workers, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., LINKS, the Providence YMCA, and the RI Heart Association. She married Army physician Richard Irving in 1943 and had no children. She died February 15, 1987, at the age of 74. Education: Prudence Higgins Irving attended Providence Public Schools and Classical High School in Providence, RI (1931). She received her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Howard University (1935) and her Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology from Simmons College (1936). She earned her master’s degree in Social Administration from the University of Pittsburgh (1942). She also received graduate certificates from the University of Oklahoma (RSA Management Training, 1971) and Boston University (Adult Education, 1972).

William Harvey Higgins:

William Harvey Higgins was born in Marion, North Carolina on December 14, 1873. He worked on the Biltmore estate in Asheville, before being funded by George Vanderbilt to attend Livingstone College, specializing in gynecology, and medical school at Leonard Medical School at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. While doing his medical residency in New York, he met Bertha G. Thomas and they married in September of 1898. He registered as a doctor in Providence on June 1, 1903. He had a general practice office at 144 Dexter Street, then 312 Cranston Street, and lastly 212 Union Street. He was chairman of the Winter Street A.M.E. Zion Church Board of Trustees, and a member of the Providence Medical Association and The Rhode Island Medical Society. He was also involved in the social and political life of Providence and Rhode Island. He died May 23, 1938, at the age of 64 years old.