Nannie Helen Burroughs School

The Nannie Helen Burroughs School, formerly known as National Training School for Women and Girls, was a private coeducational elementary school at 601 50th Street NE in Washington, D.C. The school was founded in 1909 by Nannie Helen Burroughs as The National Trade and Professional School for Women and Girls, Inc. and was the first school in the nation to provide vocational training for African-American females, who did not otherwise have many educational opportunities available to them. The 1928 Trades Hall building, the oldest building on the campus, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1991. The property now houses the headquarters of the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the Monroe School, a private junior-senior high school that continues Burroughs' legacy.Description and historyThe former Nannie Helen Burroughs School property consists of 6acre at the southeast corner of 50th Street NE and Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue NE. There are four buildings on the hilly campus, of which the 1928 Trades Hall is the furthest east. The largest building in the group is a school building built in 1971 that now houses the Monroe School. The Trades Hall now houses the offices of the Progressive Baptist National Conference. It is a two-story brick building, set into the hillside so that it presents two stories in front and one in the rear. It is finished in light brick trimmed with dark brick. A stringcourse of soldier bricks separates the floors. The building was constructed in 1927-28, and Mary McLeod Bethune was the featured speaker at its dedication.