Tuskegee Founded Timelines: Catto Postscript

Tuskegee is founded as a normal school to train teachers and Booker T. Washington is hired as principal. In 1891 Halle Tanner Dillion (Johnson), Benjamin Tanner’s eldest daughter, is hired as the school’s medical doctor and teacher, teaching two classes a day. She just finished her medical training at Women’s Medical College. During her tenure at Tuskegee, she was responsible for the health care of the school’s 450 students and 30 faculty and staff. She also established a training school for nurses and founded the Lafayette Dispensary to serve the health care needs of local residents, often mixing medicines herself for their use. Halle and Tuskegee are representative of the subsequent generations of African Americans and institutions that benefited from educational foundations built by Catto.