Reframing the “talented tenth” ideal: Nannie Helen Burroughs and the remodeling of black womanhood at the National Training School for Woman and Girls
CHPA Research Forum – April 30, 2013
Dr. Angela Hornsby-Gutting, Associate Professor
History Department
12:15pm – 1:15pm, Strong 250
For more than 5 decades, Nannie Helen Burroughs ran the National Training School for Women and Girls in Washington, D.C. In that pursuit, she revised existing race ideologies that sought to propel African Americans forward. One of these dictates, the “talented tenth” ideal as first articulated by W.E.B. DuBois, stressed higher education as necessary to develop the leadership capacity among the most able 10 percent of black Americans. Burroughs, who never achieved a college education, marshaled her intellect and personal history to fashion a unique pedagogy designed to produce a “womanhood glorified.” This pedagogy recast contemporary ideas about African-American education by stressing both classical and industrial training.