The Archway to Excellence: Nannie Helen Burroughs and Early Womynist Thought, 1900-1961

• In Event: How Historians Think: Researching African American Education, Thought, and Activism

Abstract

Objectives & Purpose
This paper explores the methods and theories used to explicate the early educational thought of African American educator Nannie Helen Burroughs. This paper demonstrates how deep historical contextualization in early twentieth century women’s history and life can be successfully employed to illuminate Burroughs’ conceptualization of an early form of “womynist” theory. The methods and concepts in this paper also help reveal Burroughs’ commitment to rigor and excellence as well as the uplift and self-preservation of African American women and their communities.

Perspectives/Theoretical Framework
Using Black feminist theory, critical race feminism and womynist theory, this paper will discuss practices and achievements of Burroughs at the National Trade and Professional School for Women and Girls, Incorporated. Johnson speaks clearly to Burroughs’ work within this paradigm. Burroughs’ beliefs and practices defied and confronted “the western Anglo hegemonic regime of truth, feminist theories, the masculinist hegemony of Black studies; and also scholarship in the realm of educational theory, thereby questioning which ideologies, knowledge and truths are legitimate and valid.”[3] Further evident in Burroughs’ work is what Maparyan refers to as the three recognitions.[4]

Methods, Techniques or Modes of Inquiry
Through archival research,[5] primary documents will be used to tell the story of excellence and preparation for womanhood found at the National Trade and Professional School for Women and Girls, Inc.

Data Sources, Evidence, Objects or Materials
Reviewing student records and oral histories will provide first hand evidence of the non-traditional manner in which the school’s five-fold objectives were met and exceeded.

Substantiated Conclusions
For over half a century Burroughs prepared women and girls from all walks of life to re-enter and serve their communities as leaders. They were trained to know that excellence was the only option. Burroughs stood at the helm as exemplar. The teachers, college graduates, were held to the highest level of expectation and performance. Although her curriculum had a strong domestic science component, Burroughs was not satisfied with merely training women and girls to be domestic servants, to marry and depend on a spouse or to rely on benefactors. Her curriculum was developed and predicated on the assumption that women would be independent and have their own occupations.

Scholarly Significance
For decades, the National Training School did not have a counterpart north of Virginia. With limited resources, Burroughs stood against sexism and racism, in the face of destruction and despair to ensure a quality education for African American women and she did so without any initial funds coming from white philanthropists. This was uncommon among African American school founders of her time. It was her faith in God, which allowed her to find a way and to accomplish what many deem to be impossible.

Author

• Traki Taylor-Webb, Bowie State University