There's actually no record of which school Lyda Newman attended, although we do know that it was in New York.
Although she was born in Ohio, her family moved to New York when she was quite young, and it is there that she patented her first invention - a revolutionary hairbrush which could be taken apart for cleaning.
What's astonishing is that she was just 14 years of age when she registered that invention, so you can see why people what to find out what school she attended, it must have been a great institution to be able to produce 14 year old inventors.
Lyda and her family lived in Manhattan. Back then, it wasn't an affluent area as it is now, and many black families lived there.
So one idea would be to look up schools in Manhattan that have been around since the 1890s. This would likely return a short list of schools that Lyda could have attended.
Unfortuantle though, it's also possible that Lyda didn't even attend school in New York.
Education was still considered a privilege, and public schools were still segregated (if they accepted black students at all...)
In terms of our research, it's difficult to tell what Lyda's life was like at all, because there simply wasn't that much documentation when it came to African American women of the time.
Nevertheless, we do know that Lyda had a great impact.
Not only through her creativity and invention, but also as an outstanding individual who stood up for women and African American rights, and was able to affect change and command respect in her community.
