Prudence Crandall,(September 3, 1803-1890) a schoolteacher raised as a Quaker, stirred controversy with her education of African-American girls in Canterbury, Connecticut. Her private school opened in January 1832, was boycotted when she admitted a 20-year old African-American female student in the autumn of 1833; creating what is generally regarded as the first integrated classroom in the United States. Parents of the white children mostly withdrew their daughters, leading Crandall to found a school for "Young ladies and Misses of color".

Prudence Crandall was born September 3, 1803 to a Quaker family in the Hope Valley area in the town of Hopkinton, Rhode Island. The house of her maternal grandfather, where she was born, still stands, although her childhood home no longer exists. She was a direct descendant of (Elder) John Crandall, early settler of Westerly and Newport, Rhode Island.

When she was young, her father decided to move the family to the small town of Canterbury, Connecticut. She attended the Friends' Boarding School in Providence, Rhode Island, and later taught in a school for girls in Canterbury. In 1831 she returned to Canterbury to run the newly established Canterbury Female Boarding School.