Academic Career
Making use of the G.I. Bill, she enrolled in the doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania and in 1955 received her PhD in European History. After brief stints at Morgan State University and Prairie View A&M University, she joined Bowie State College's history and geography department, which she chaired until 1974. She then returned to her alma mater, Howard University, where she held the position of Senior Lecturer until 1983.
Interviewed by Tom Brokaw for his book The Greatest Generation, Howard professor Dr. Clifford Muse, Jr., described Dr. Putney's approach to teaching: "She worked me to death. I really learned from her. She tried to prepare you for discrimination in the sense you had to be very good to be accepted." Most of the students at both Howard and Bowie State were black, and former student William Missouri noted that Dr. Putney would ask unprepared students, "How can you be an African American and not want to learn African-American history?"
Read more about this topic: Martha Settle Putney
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