By Rory Hooper, B.A.’26 & M.A.’27, History & Museum Studies
Nannie Helen Burroughs, an early 20th-century architect of the historic Black women’s labor movement, changed Washington’s landscape as an educator and leader. Raised by strong female figures, she recognized domestic workers as the backbone of Black communities and became a vocal champion for Black women in the workforce. Rutgers University Professor Danielle Phillips-Cunningham shares this history in her new book, Nannie Helen Burroughs: A Tower of Strength in the Labor World (Georgetown University Press, 2025), which she discussed in a D.C. Mondays program on May 5, 2025, organized by the Albert H. Small Center for National Capital Area Studies.
Recipient of the 2020 National Women’s Studies Association’s Sara A. Whaley Book Prize for her work on Irish immigrants and Southern Black domestic workers, Phillips-Cunningham once again dives into the history of women’s rights and labor organizations, this time through the life of Nannie Helen Burroughs. As a complex historical figure, Burroughs was both revered by her supporters and despised by those committed to maintaining the status quo. J. Edgar Hoover, the first FBI director, labeled her one of the most dangerous Black women in America for her part in the movement against racial, class and gender disparities in the workplace and beyond.
Burroughs sought to establish an educational initiative that redefined household employment as a profession for Black women. Founding the National Training School for Women and Girls in 1909, she served as its principal for over five decades. The school was built on a former plantation in Northeastern D.C. that historically depended on enslaved labor. Burroughs’s mixed and expansive curriculum educated students not only in domestic sciences and stenography, but also foreign languages, literature and co-operative management. The school’s motto, “We Specialize In The Wholly Impossible,” drew international attention, and women across the globe could attend. Using the few professions that allowed women of color to make a living, Burroughs taught life skills that were highly applicable to broader employment opportunities.
She also established labor organizations, advised policymakers and forged unconventional alliances to affect change. Burroughs founded the National Association of Wage Earners in 1921 and co-founded the International Council of Women of the Darker Races of the World in 1923. During the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover appointed her chairwoman of a committee tasked with identifying ways Black communities could “lift themselves up.” She boldly pointed to links between housing conditions and under-resourced schools, hospitals and the unequal pay scale people of color endured. When faced with misogyny within the National Baptist Convention, Burroughs gained support from Southern Baptist White women interested in helping keep her school afloat. She found that collaborative work and organizing better served her community and students.
Nannie Helen Burroughs used her strengths to uplift and defend Black domestic workers in DC, especially women — a fight she pursued for a lifetime. You can watch a video of this D.C. Mondays program below and browse upcoming talks on the museum’s website.
About the Author
Rory Hooper is an undergraduate at GW majoring in history and minoring in American studies. She is concurrently pursuing a master’s degree in museum studies and, this summer, exploring museum careers as an intern with the Albert H. Small Center for National Capital Area Studies.
Header image: Nannie Helen Burroughs, left, with two unidentified women, c. 1900-1910. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress.