Hortense Parker Gilliam, born Hortense Parker (1859–1938), was the first known African-American and person of color graduate of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, in 1883. She taught music and piano at elementary school in Kansas City, Missouri from 1906 to 1913. That year she married James Marcus Gilliam, and moved with him to St. Louis, where she taught music and lived the rest of her life.