Della Irving Hayden

Della I. Hayden was an educator born into slavery in North Carolina who moved to Virginia with her mother after the Civil War. She attended a Freedmen's Bureau school and graduated from the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, later Hampton University, in 1877. She then served as a teacher and principal in Franklin and, for more than a decade, was lady principal of what is now Virginia State University. In 1904, Hayden founded the Franklin Normal and Industrial Institute to provide academic, agricultural, and industrial training to African American students. The school, renamed Hayden High School in her honor, moved into a new brick building here in 1953.

Franklin, Virginia · United States