Martha S. Putney, 92
Author, Professor
Martha S. Putney died Dec. 11, 2008 at the Community Hospice of Washington.
A long-time resident of the area, she was born in Norristown, Pa., and attended the local public school systems there. She earned a bachelor’s and master’s from Howard University and a doctorate in philosophy and history from the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Putney taught at Morgan State College and Bowie State College, where she was a professor of history and chair of the Department of History and Geography. After her retirement from the Maryland state college system, she was a senior lecturer in the department of history at Howard University.
She was author of Black Sailors: Afro-American Merchant Seamen and Whalemen Prior to the Civil War, When the Nation Was In Need: Blacks in the Women’s Army Corps During World War II, Blacks in the United States Army: Portraits Through History, and some two dozen scholarly articles which have appeared in the Maryland Historical Magazine, Journal of Negro History, Negro History Bulletin, and the Journal of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. She was also a frequent contributor to the community paper, the Northeast News.
She served as an officer in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II. Her husband, William M. Putney, a former federal government worker, died in 1965.
She is survived by a son, William M. Putney Jr.; nephews Kermit Briscoe, Stanley Settle, Stacey Settle, William E. Settle, Stewart Settle; nieces Beryl Sutton, Sandra Roy, Stephanie Battaglio, Sharon Stevens, Iris Settle; grand-nieces Ethel Marie Hooper-Jackson, Joyce Briscoe, Shelley Briscoe and grand-nephew Donald Harvey.
She was the daughter of Ida and Oliver Settle and the last surviving sibling of brothers Stanley, William and Robert and sisters Ethel, Catherine, Sarah and Virginia.