Career
In 1896, Burroughs helped establish the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). In 1897, Burroughs started work as an associate editor at the Christian Banner in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1902 she studied business and received an honorary A.M. degree from Eckstein-Norton University in Kentucky in 1907.
From the period of 1898 to 1909 Burroughs moved to Louisville, Kentucky, to work as a bookkeeper and editorial secretary for the Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Convention. This was the national association of black Baptist churches. After the American Civil War, black congregations quickly withdrew from white-dominated churches to create churches independent of white supervision. They had a few at that time, but soon had many more. Within several years, they were setting up state Baptist associations and, by the end of the 19th century, national associations. This is still the largest black Baptist denomination.
In 1901, Burroughs founded the National Training School for Women and Girls in Washington, D.C. After her death, in 1934 it was renamed the Nannie Helen Burroughs School in her honor, and has been designated a National Historic Landmark. The school emphasized preparing students for employment. Burroughs offered courses in domestic science and secretarial skills, but also in unconventional occupations such as shoe repair, barbering, and gardening. Burroughs created a creed of racial self-help through her program of the three Bs: the Bible, the bath, and the broom. The Bible, the bath, and the broom stood for a clean life, a clean body, and a clean house.
Burroughs believed domestic work should be professionalized and vocational. She trained her students to be become self sufficient wage earners & expert homemakers. She emphasized the importance of being proud black women to all students, by teaching African-American history and culture through a required course in the Department of Negro History. She became active in the National League of Republican Colored Women, and the National Association of Wage Earners, working to influence legislation related to wages for domestic workers and other positions held by women.
In 1928, the Herbert Hoover administration appointed her as committee chairwomen concerning Negro Housing, for his White House Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership. This was in the early years of the Great Depression.
Burroughs died in Washington, D.C., on May 20, 1961, of natural causes. The funeral was held at the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington D. C.
Read more about this topic: Nannie Helen Burroughs
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“In time your relatives will come to accept the idea that a career is as important to you as your family. Of course, in time the polar ice cap will melt.”
—Barbara Dale (b. 1940)
“A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“The 19-year-old Diana ... decided to make her career that of wife. Today that can be a very, very iffy line of work.... And what sometimes happens to the women who pursue it is the best argument imaginable for teaching girls that they should always be able to take care of themselves.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)