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Eloise Alma Flagg

African American school principal

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ110297893 ↗
Source-derived summary

Eloise Alma Williams Flagg (September 16, 1918 – March 10, 2018) was the first African-American woman to be a school principal in Newark, New Jersey and the first African-American principal in a racially integrated school in Newark. Alma Flagg Elementary School in Newark is named in her honor.

Early life

Flagg was born as Eloise Alma Williams on September 16, 1918 in Virginia to Hannibal and Caroline Williams. She lived most of her life in Newark, New Jersey. She attended East Side High School and graduated in January 1935. She graduated Newark State College (since renamed as Kean University) with a Bachelor's, Montclair State University with a Master's, and Teachers College, Columbia University with a doctorate in education. In 1942 she married J. Thomas Flagg and in 1943 became one of sixteen black teachers employed by Newark.

Appointment as principal

There had been no African American principal in Newark since James M. Baxter who was principal of the "Colored School", and retired in 1909. In 1958-1959, exams were conducted for vacant vice principalship positions. Four African American teachers including Dr.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Eloise Alma Flagg” as african American school principal. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Eloise, Alma and Flagg.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1918, 2018, 1935, 1942—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1918-09-26. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Eloise, Alma and Flagg providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Eloise Alma Flagg”, the useful work is to connect “african American school principal” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q110297893. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1918, 2018, 1935 and 1942.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Eloise Alma Flagg”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Eloise Alma Flagg primary sources, Eloise Alma Flagg archive and Eloise research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Eloise Alma Flagg” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.