This essay examines the college lives of two generations of Iowa's black college women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It focuses on the experiences of black women at Iowa's private colleges and the University of Iowa (UI) from 1878 to 1928. The experiences of black women in Iowa's colleges and universities are important for a number of reasons, but two in particular stand out. The first is that in 1900, Iowa Wesleyan College (IWC) had more black women graduates than any other Predominantly White Institution (PWI) in the North, Midwest, or West excluding Oberlin College. The second reason is that by 1910 famed sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois had singled out PWIs in Iowa, along with Oberlin College in Ohio and the University of Kansas, as exceptional in their contribution to the college-bred Negro American during this era. What is more, between 1878 and 1928, two generations of black women collegians in Iowa (1878-99) and (1900-28), tested the state's racial and gender progressiveness in higher education. The historical record reveals that black women of the first generation and one half faced much less white student resistance to their involvement in campus social activities than their second-generation counterparts, at the publicly supported University of Iowa. (Contains 79 footnotes.)