Designing a Campus for African-American Females

The campus of the National Training School for Women and Girls in Lincoln Heights, Washington, D.C., was the physical manifestation of a new ideology in technical and higher education for African American women. The National Training School was founded by Nannie Helen Burroughs in conjunction with the Baptist Women's Convention. Burroughs was also a member of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) and headed a Commission studying housing for African Americans in D.C. at the request of President Hoover. The National Training School opened in 1909 and operated until 1964. It is significant for being the first school for African American females to open outside of the Deep South, for being single-sex, relying on African American benefactors for most of its funding, and extending its curriculum beyond technical training to include the Liberal Arts and a Department of Negro History. This monograph examines how the campus evolved throughout the school¿s lifetime (using Baist and Sanborn maps and pictures in the Library of Congress) and relates changes in the campus plan to the evolution of women¿s education in general and education for African Americans specifically.