Jane Edna Hunter (December 13, 1882 – January 13, 1971), an African-American social worker, was born near Pendleton, South Carolina. In 1911 she established the Working Girls Association in Cleveland, Ohio, which later became the Phillis Wheatley Association of Cleveland. Life Her parents were wage earners on the Woodburn Plantation Farm. After her father died in 1892, she did housework for local families. She began school at the age of 14, attending the Ferguson and Williams Academy in Abbeville, South Carolina. She graduated with an eighth-grade education in 1900. She returned to work as a domestic. She was briefly married to Edward Hunter, who was about 40 years her senior. She moved to Charleston, South Carolina. She began nursing training at the Cannon Street Hospital and Training School for Nurses. In 1904, she completed one year of training at the Hampton Institute in Virginia. She moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1905. In 1911, she founded the Working Girls Association to offer shelter, assistance, and education to women. The Phillis Wheatley Home was opened in 1911 with 23 rooms; Hunter worked with white leaders to expand the size and service of the facility. In 1912, the Phillis Wheatley Home became the Phillis Wheatley Association of Cleveland, named in honor of the African-American poet Phillis Wheatley. In 1925, Hunter graduated from the Cleveland Law School, which was then affiliated with Baldwin-Wallace College. She was admitted to the Ohio Bar. Hunter oversaw the construction of an eleven-story residence for black women, completed in 1927, that had beauty school, dining facilities, a nursery school and the Booker T. Washington playground. She had invested in Cleveland real estate and was active in the National Association of Colored Women. She also served as a trustee of Ohio's Central State University. In 1937 Hunter was awarded the NAACP's Spingarn Medal. She served as executive director of the Phillis Wheatley Association of Cleveland until she retired in 1947. She wrote an autobiographical book entitled A Nickel and Prayer, which was published in 1940. She held honorary degrees from Allen University, Fisk University, Central State University and Tuskegee Institute. She was on the board of directors and was a vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Her health failed in the mid-1950s. She lived in a nursing home from the early 1960s until her death on January 13, 1971, in Cleveland. Legacy The Cuyahoga