Histories

GREEN, VIRGINIA DARLINGTON (16 Aug. 1850-19 April 1929) was one of the first women elected to the board of education of the Cleveland public schools (1912-29).

She advocated a school board bond issue to fund public school playgrounds, helped establishthe first public kindergarten in connection with the Cleveland Day Nursery and Free Kindergarten Assn., Inc., and worked to increase teachers' salaries. Locally and before the Ohio legislature (supporting the Bohm bill in 1915-16), Green successfully lobbied to open schoolhouses for community uses and as polling places.

An avid suffragist, Green garnered about 30,000 votes in an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate (1922).

She was born in Zanesville, OH, to James and Margaret Elizabeth Bowman Darlington and educated at Putnam Female Seminary, Putnam, OH. She then spent 3 years travelling and studying abroad.

In 1912 she again travelled, this time promoting women's suffrage around Ohio with Judge Florence Ellinwood Allen.

Green also promoted world peace and opposed military training for children and youth in the public schools. She was a charter member of the Women's City Club, belonged to the Consumers League of Ohio, and served on the board of directors of the local Children's Fresh Air Camp. A lifelong Episcopalian, Green belonged to Trinity Cathedral.

On 15 Oct. 1876 Green married Arnold Green (d. 1909), clerk of the Ohio Supreme Court. They lived in Cleveland and had 2 sons, both of whom had died by 1927.

-- "Encyclopedia of Cleveland History," Case Western Reserve University