Last updated: September 27, 2023
Place
Miner Normal School
Photograph by Leon Garley, courtesy of the District of Columbia Historic Preservation Office
Quick Facts
Location:
2565 Georgia Ave., NW., Washington, D.C.
Significance:
Architecture, Black, Education
Designation:
Listed in the National Register - Reference number 91001490
MANAGED BY:
Miner Normal School, on the campus of Howard University, an HBCU, in Washington, D.C., was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. The building is historically significant for the role it played in establishing early teacher-training programs for Black teachers nationally, and as the primary source of Black educators for Washington, D.C.'s segregated public education system.
While the Miner Normal School building opened in 1913 or 1914, it had its roots in the School for Colored Girls, which was opened in D.C. in 1851 by Myrtilla Miner. Miner's school was met with both prominent support and aggressive suspicion - while the school was praised by abolitionists like Harriet Beecher Stowe and Reverend William Henry Channing, others feared that it would entice free Black people to migrate to D.C.
After Miner's retirement and death in the 1860s, the school was briefly affiliated with Howard University's normal department. Afterward, it developed an innovative agreement with the D.C. public school system. In exchange for using private funding to pay faculty salaries, graduates from the Miner School received preference in the hiring process at D.C.'s Black public schools. This arrangement lasted until the mid-1930s, and ensured that the Miner School remained a prominent component of the District's public school system for Black students. From 1900 until the end of school segregation in the 1950s, the school also provided hundreds of teachers and administrators to segregated schools throughout the South.
Congress approved the erection of a new building for the Miner School in 1913. The building, which was located on Georgia Avenue, helped usher in a period of expansion and professionalization for the school. In 1929, the school became a degree-granting four-year institution, and was renamed the Miner Teachers College. In 1955, after the integration of public schools, Miner merged with the District's white normal school to become the D.C. Teachers College. Over twenty years later, the school and building were consolidated into the University of the District of Columbia (UDC).
While UDC was created after the passage of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which would usually prevent the school from achieving HBCU status, the school is designated as an HBCU because it absorbed the successor to the original Miner school. The Miner Normal School building was later sold to Howard University, another HBCU.
While the Miner Normal School building opened in 1913 or 1914, it had its roots in the School for Colored Girls, which was opened in D.C. in 1851 by Myrtilla Miner. Miner's school was met with both prominent support and aggressive suspicion - while the school was praised by abolitionists like Harriet Beecher Stowe and Reverend William Henry Channing, others feared that it would entice free Black people to migrate to D.C.
After Miner's retirement and death in the 1860s, the school was briefly affiliated with Howard University's normal department. Afterward, it developed an innovative agreement with the D.C. public school system. In exchange for using private funding to pay faculty salaries, graduates from the Miner School received preference in the hiring process at D.C.'s Black public schools. This arrangement lasted until the mid-1930s, and ensured that the Miner School remained a prominent component of the District's public school system for Black students. From 1900 until the end of school segregation in the 1950s, the school also provided hundreds of teachers and administrators to segregated schools throughout the South.
Congress approved the erection of a new building for the Miner School in 1913. The building, which was located on Georgia Avenue, helped usher in a period of expansion and professionalization for the school. In 1929, the school became a degree-granting four-year institution, and was renamed the Miner Teachers College. In 1955, after the integration of public schools, Miner merged with the District's white normal school to become the D.C. Teachers College. Over twenty years later, the school and building were consolidated into the University of the District of Columbia (UDC).
While UDC was created after the passage of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which would usually prevent the school from achieving HBCU status, the school is designated as an HBCU because it absorbed the successor to the original Miner school. The Miner Normal School building was later sold to Howard University, another HBCU.