Author Gladys Turner Finney

Gladys Turner Finney is a long-time resident of the Dayton area spanning more than five decades.

She was born in a rural farming community of southeast Arkansas during the middle of the Great Depression. FDR was president. She graduated from J C Corbin High School in Pine Bluff (1953), AM&N College (1957), and Atlanta University (MSW) in 1959.

She is a social worker by profession having held positions in medical and mental health facilities. She has a passion for family and historical research.

Among her works are Autobiography of Tammy (1978) and Papa Babe's Stamp Collection, 1983. Papa Babe's Stamp Collection is a fictionalized account of a young boy who discovers his grandfather's African-American postage stamp collection on a snowy day home from school.

In 2016, Turner Finney edited and published Call to the Land of Promise by Frederick M. Finney, her late husband. This is an insightful local history account of African-Americans migration to Dayton, Ohio, the challenges of de-facto segregation, the evolution of the Dayton Model Cities Program.

Gladys Turner Finney's new book, Joseph Carter Corbin: Educator Extrarordinaire and Founder of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff  (April 3, 2017) is a biography of the founder of Turner-Finney's land grant and historically black university.

Born in Chillicothe, Ohio in 1833, Professor Corbin, the son of former Virginia slaves, was one of Ohio University 's  most distinguished graduates of the mid 19th century. Corbin was the second African American to earn a bachelor's degree from Ohio University in 1850 and later two master's degrees 1856 and 1889.

During Reconstruction of the American South following the Civil War Corbin migrated to Little Rock, Arkansas. There he was elected the first African American State Superintendent of Public Education and founded the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.

Joseph Carter Corbin: Educator Extraordinaire and Founder of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff is a Butler Studies Book, $19.95, is available at uapress.com and amazon.com