In 1843, Caroline Van Vronker became the first Black student at Lowell High School, which thereby became the first integrated high school in the country. The oldest of four children, Caroline began high school at what was then called the “new building” between Kirk Street and Lucy Larcom Park. At the time, only students who passed an exam had the right to attend high school, and women were part of the “Female Department”-- “separated entirely from the males, entering the house from a different street, occupying a different room and not mingling at all in the same classes”-- that studied subjects from penmanship to natural philosophy. Caroline aspired to be a teacher but was unable to find a teaching job in Lowell due to “objections on account of her color.” Caroline Van Vronker married John Levy Lewis, a black hairdresser living and working in Lowell, on July 2, 1854. The last known record of Caroline Van Vronker Lewis, she was living in Lowell with her mother, Lucinda, and sisters, ...