Mary "Minnie" Derryberry
Central High School (Chattanooga, TN) Yearbook, 1958. Head of Art Department. Ancestry.com
Courtesy of Western Regional Archives
FOCUS
Art/ Design/ Craft
ROLE
Student
ATTENDANCE
1944 - 1944
BIRTH
1901-11-24
Murfreesboro, TN
DEATH
1981-08-20
Greenville, SC
Mary Lou attended BMC for the 1944 Summer Session, where she took courses with A Albers, J Albers, and Charlot. Faculty notes from the institute shared, "Interesting picture of vultures - Charlot; Slow in understanding - Albers; In weaving - undecided - made bigger plans than she was equipped to execute."
She attended Tennessee College for Women in 1926, the University of Georgia, and the Peabody College for Teachers, 1935. At the time of application, she was the Head of the Art Department (and only teacher, she noted) at Central High School in Chattanooga, TN.
Author
Amanda Hartman
Amanda Hartman is the creator of BMC Yearbook, serving as the lead director, engineer, and researcher. She holds a MLIS in archive/ collections management, MA in art/ museum education, and BA in design. After working in museums and archives for a decade, she made the transition to tech and is now a software developer specializing in applications for museums, archives, and higher education.
Her interest in Black Mountain College began while working as a digital archivist with the Asheville Art Museum's BMC archive collection. She transcribed and digitized over 1500 documents created by the college. While working closely with these archives, she began independent research on the interracial program and Negro Week activities BMC, writing biographies of lesser known students and staff members. That research transformed into this BMC Yearbook project.
