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Top among Ruth Bennett’s lasting achievements was the founding of a home to provide accommodations and safety for newly arrived Black women and children. In 1917, she launched a campaign to raise funds to purchase a three-story, nine-bedroom building at Second and Reaney Streets to be named the Ruth L. Bennett Home for Colored Women and Girls .
Ruth L. Bennett (June 21, 1866 – February 24, 1947) was an American social reformer, women's club founder and the first president of the Chester, Pennsylvania branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She founded the Ruth L. Bennett Improvement Club, the Ruth L. Bennett Community House for Colored Women ...
- February 24, 1947 (aged 80)
- June 21, 1866, Alabama, U.S.
Oct 4, 2006 · Home > Civic/Social & Religious Organizations > Ruth L. Bennett Improvement Club. Old Chester, PA: Ruth L. Bennett Improvement Club Organized 1914. Photo © August 2006, John A. Bullock III. The Ruth L. Bennett Home for Women and Girls (right) The Wilson Memorial Nursery (left) (Approach to the Commodore Barry Bridge in the background)
For many, their first safe haven was the Ruth L. Bennett Home in Chester, Pennsylvania. Her life of service is explored through first-person accounts, archival photos, and historical documentation.
When World War II brought a new wave of southerners to Chester, the Bennett House and nursery redoubled their efforts. “Bennett girls,” as they were known, also became welders in the Sun Shipyards. President of the Chester Improvement Club for more than 30 years, Ruth Bennett died in 1947. The Great Migration Project explores the historic ...
Apr 4, 2016 · In Chester, there are two places named after her: the Ruth L. Bennett House and the Ruth L. Bennett Homes. The Ruth L. Bennett House is the original house where Bennett took in African Americans looking for shelter during the Great Migration. It will soon be turned into a museum.
Ruth L. Bennett’s vision and hard work supported the needs of young women and families in the early 1900s during the great migration of blacks to the north. The now historic 1880-era Queen Anne house, founded by the “Ruth L. Bennett Improvement Club” in 1918, and the adjacent Wilson Memorial Nursery in 1929, was from its inception a safe ...
