Washington Graded School | |
Location | 267 Piedmont Avenue, Washington, Virginia |
---|---|
Coordinates | 38°42′47″N78°9′53″W / 38.71306°N 78.16472°W |
Area | 2 acres (0.81 ha) |
Built | 1923 |
Architect | Samuel Smith |
Architectural style | Bungalow/craftsman |
MPS | Rosenwald Schools in Virginia MPS |
NRHP reference No. | 100003349 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | January 24, 2019 [1] |
Designated VLR | June 21, 2018 |
Washington Graded School is a historic school located in Rappahannock County, Virginia. It was constructed around 1923 as a two-teacher school. The building is a "Rosenwald School." Rosenwald schools refer to those buildings constructed for the education of African-American students, with financial support and plans provided by the Rosenwald Fund. [2] Julius Rosenwald, a Chicago philanthropist and president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, along with Booker T. Washington, the principal of Tuskegee Institute, worked with Black communities across the south to build more than 5,000 schools for Black children. [3] Built in 79 localities in Virginia, about half shared the Washington School two-teacher design. The Washington School, which closed in 1963, retains the early look and feel of its rural setting, and exhibits historic integrity of design, workmanship, and materials.
Washington School was built in 1924 after the Parents’ Civic League, a local African-American organization, donated land to the school district. Financial contributions to construct the two-teacher school came from the Black community ($1,200), the county ($1,600), and the Julius Rosenwald Fund ($700), which also supplied the building plans, according to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. [4]
The school has been designated as a Virginia Historic Landmark and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in January 2019. [5] [6]
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, and orator. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the primary leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite.
Tuskegee University is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on July 4th in 1881 by the Alabama Legislature.
Julius Rosenwald was an American businessman and philanthropist. He is best known as a part-owner and leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and for establishing the Rosenwald Fund, which donated millions in matching funds to promote vocational or technical education. In 1919 he was appointed to the Chicago Commission on Race Relations. He was also the principal founder and backer for the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, to which he gave more than $5 million and served as president from 1927 to 1932.
The Rosenwald School project built more than 5,000 schools, shops, and teacher homes in the United States primarily for the education of African-American children in the South during the early 20th century. The project was the product of the partnership of Julius Rosenwald, a Jewish-American clothier who became part-owner and president of Sears, Roebuck and Company and the African-American leader, educator, and philanthropist Booker T. Washington, who was president of the Tuskegee Institute.
The Rosenwald Fund was established in 1917 by Julius Rosenwald and his family for "the well-being of mankind." Rosenwald became part-owner of Sears, Roebuck and Company in 1895, serving as its president from 1908 to 1922, and chairman of its board of directors until his death in 1932.
Cairo Rosenwald School is a former school for African-American children located in the unincorporated community of Cairo, Sumner County, Tennessee. It was one of seven Rosenwald schools built in the county.
San Domingo School, also known as Sharptown Colored School and Prince Hall Masons Unity Lodge No. 73, is a historic Rosenwald School building located at Sharptown, Wicomico County, Maryland. It was built in 1919, and is a two-story, rectangular frame building with a hipped roof. It is one of four surviving Rosenwald schools in Wicomico County. The school had only four teachers and remained in use as a school until 1957.
The Beauregard Parish Training School in DeRidder, Louisiana, was a school for black students and black teachers in training. The two school buildings, located on the original property at the corner of Martin Luther King Drive and Alexandria Street, were the first African-American related structures in southwestern Louisiana to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places, on March 1, 1996.
Walker–Grant School is a historic school in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The school was built in 1938 and was the first publicly supported black high school in Fredericksburg. The school was named for Joseph Walker and Jason Grant (1861–1951) who worked to establish the school. The Art Deco designed school was added to the National Register of Historic Places in October 1998.
The Second Union School is a historic Rosenwald school building for African-American children located near Fife, in western Goochland County, Virginia. It was built in 1918, as a two-teacher school, near Second Union Baptist Church, which had been founded in 1865 as an independent black congregation.
The Mt. Olive Rosenwald School, on Bradley Rd. 45 in Mt. Olive, Bradley County, Arkansas is a wood frame Colonial Revival schoolhouse built in 1927. It is one of five buildings in the county that was funded by The Rosenwald Fund, established by philanthropist Julius Rosenwald to further the education of rural African Americans. It is not known when the building ceased to be used as a school, but classes were offered as late as 1949.
Cadentown School in Lexington, Kentucky was a primary public school for black children in the segregated Fayette County Public Schools from about 1879 to 1922. The building that originally housed Cadentown School, located at 705 Caden Lane, is no longer extant. However, the Rosenwald Fund School is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Fayette County.
Greensville County Training School, also known as the Greensville County Learning Center, is a historic Rosenwald school building located at Emporia, Virginia. It was built in 1929, and is a single-story, U-shaped brick building. It consists of a front hyphen that connects two wings containing classrooms, while an auditorium, office space, and a library form the interior central space. A classroom addition was constructed in 1934. It was constructed for the education of African-American students, and closed in the 1960s following desegregation of the public schools.
Rosenwald Junior College, located in Panama City, Florida, opened its doors in 1958. It was one of eleven black junior colleges founded in the late 1950s at the initiative of the Florida Legislature. Since racial integration in schools was prohibited by the Florida Constitution of 1885 then in effect, the Legislature wished to avoid the integration mandated in the unanimous Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954 by demonstrating that a "separate but equal" higher education system existed in Florida for African Americans.
Cocoa Junior High School is a historic school building in Cocoa, Florida. Built in 1923-24, it is one of the oldest remaining Rosenwald Schools in Florida. After the school closed in 1954, the building served as a community center and later as an African-American history museum.
Eleanor Roosevelt School, also known as the Eleanor Roosevelt Vocational School for Colored Youth, Warm Springs Negro School, and the Eleanor Roosevelt Rosenwald School, which operated as a school from March 18, 1937 until 1972, was a historical Black community school located at 350 Parham Street at Leverette Hill Road in Warm Springs, Georgia. As of May 3, 2010, the school is listed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Meriwether County, Georgia.
Lincoln Heights School was a historic six-teacher Rosenwald School. Built-in 1924, the buildings of the school are now listed with National Register of Historic Places for its significance in education of African American children across Wilkes County, North Carolina.
Okahumpka Rosenwald School is a historic Rosenwald School building in rural Okahumpka, Florida, United States. It was built in 1929 and was used as a school for African American children in the community. It is one of the two remaining Rosenwald Schools in Lake County Florida.
The Concord School, currently called the Concord Community Center, is a historic Rosenwald School located at 645 Walter Grissom Road between Kittrell and Franklinton in northwestern Franklin County, North Carolina. Built in 1922 and primarily financed by the Julius Rosenwald Foundation, the school is a single story, hip-roofed frame building which consisted of three classrooms, a three-bay industrial room and a cloakroom. The Concord School served African-American students within the local community until it closed in 1955. Students were then moved to the B.F. Person School in nearby Franklinton.