Charlotte Crawford Watkins was born in New Haven in 1913 to attorney George Crawford (Yale Law School class of 1903) and Sadella M. Donaldson Crawford. Her family attended Dixwell Congregational Church. A graduate of Wellesley College, she continued her education at Yale, completing a PhD in English in 1937.
After completing her degree at Yale, Watkins taught at Dillard University, Lincoln University, and Morgan State University before joining the Howard University faculty in 1948. In 1951, she married linguist, anthropologist, and fellow Howard professor Mark Hanna Watkins.
A scholar of 19th century British literature, Watkins continued teaching at Howard until her retirement in 1978. Charlotte Crawford Watkins died in 1997 and is buried at New Haven’s Evergreen Cemetery.
Image citation: Wellesley College Legenda yearbook, 1933, from the Wellesley College Archives.