Janie Porter Barrett (9 August 1865 – 27 August 1948) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 social reformer

Reform movement

A reform movement is a kind of social movement that aims to make gradual change, or change in certain aspects of society, rather than rapid or fundamental changes...

, educator

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

 and welfare worker

Social work

Social Work is a professional and academic discipline that seeks to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of an individual, group, or community by intervening through research, policy, community organizing, direct practice, and teaching on behalf of those afflicted with poverty or any real or...

. She established the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls, a pioneering rehabilitation center

Rehabilitation (penology)

Rehabilitation means; To restore to useful life, as through therapy and education or To restore to good condition, operation, or capacity....

 for African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 female delinquents. She was also the founder of the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs.

Early life

Barrett was born in Athens

Athens, Georgia

Athens-Clarke County is a consolidated city–county in U.S. state of Georgia, in the northeastern part of the state, comprising the former City of Athens proper and Clarke County. The University of Georgia is located in this college town and is responsible for the initial growth of the city...

, Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

 on 9 August 1865. Her mother Julia was a former slave

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

. Her father's name is unknown, but because of Barrett's fair skin it is thought that he was Caucasian

Caucasian race

The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...

.

Barrett's mother worked as a live-in housekeeper

Housekeeper (servant)

A housekeeper is an individual responsible for the cleaning and maintenance of the interior of a residence, including direction of subordinate maids...

 and seamstress

Sewing

Sewing is the craft of fastening or attaching objects using stitches made with a needle and thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the textile arts, arising in the Paleolithic era...

 for the Skinners, a cultured Caucasian family. The Skinners pampered Barrett and educated her along with their own children. Along with an education in literature and mathematics, Barrett was exposed to privileged and refined people. Her childhood was atypical of the African-American community of the time.

Barrett's mother married a railway worker and lived with him while still working for the Skinners, but Barrett continued to live with the Skinners. Mrs. Skinner wanted to become her legal guardian

Legal guardian

A legal guardian is a person who has the legal authority to care for the personal and property interests of another person, called a ward. Usually, a person has the status of guardian because the ward is incapable of caring for his or her own interests due to infancy, incapacity, or disability...

 so that she could send Barrett to a school in the northern U.S.A. where Barrett could live as a white person. Julia vetoed this plan and sent Barrett to the Hampton Institute

Hampton University

Hampton University is a historically black university located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. It was founded by black and white leaders of the American Missionary Association after the American Civil War to provide education to freedmen.-History:...

 in Hampton

Hampton, Virginia

Hampton is an independent city that is not part of any county in Southeast Virginia. Its population is 137,436. As one of the seven major cities that compose the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, it is on the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula. Located on the Hampton Roads Beltway, it hosts...

, Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

, where she would live as a black person in a black environment.

Barrett had never lived among African-Americans before attending the Hampton Institute. She also had to do manual labour for the first time at the Institute. Hampton emphasized vocational education

Vocational education

Vocational education or vocational education and training is an education that prepares trainees for jobs that are based on manual or practical activities, traditionally non-academic, and totally related to a specific trade, occupation, or vocation...

, and women were trained in morality

Morality

Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...

 and housekeeping in preparation for careers as wives or domestics. Barrett gradually adapted to the system at the Institute and she was especially influenced by a novel about a cultured and advantaged woman similar to herself who devoted her life to social service. While at Hampton, she began to volunteer for community projects that helped people. Barrett trained as an elementary school

Primary education

A primary school is an institution in which children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as primary or elementary education. Primary school is the preferred term in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth Nations, and in most publications of the United Nations Educational,...

 teacher at the Institute. The Institute taught her lessons "in love of race, love of fellow-men, and love of country," inculcating her with altruistic and patriotic values, and a sense of duty towards her race.

Career

Barrett graduated from the Hampton Institute in 1885. She worked as a teacher in a rural school in Dawson, Georgia and then at Lucy Craft Laney's Haines Normal and Industrial Institute in Augusta

Augusta, Georgia

Augusta is a consolidated city in the U.S. state of Georgia, located along the Savannah River. As of the 2010 census, the Augusta–Richmond County population was 195,844 not counting the unconsolidated cities of Hephzibah and Blythe.Augusta is the principal city of the Augusta-Richmond County...

, Georgia. She taught night school classes in the Hampton Institute from 1896 to 1899. In 1899 she married Harris Barrett, the Institute's cashier

Cashier

Cashier is an occupation focused on the handling of cash money.- Retail :In a shop, a cashier is a person who scans the goods through a machine called a cash register that the consumer wishes to purchase at the retail store. After all of the goods have been scanned, the cashier then collects...

 and bookkeeper

Bookkeeping

Bookkeeping is the recording of financial transactions. Transactions include sales, purchases, income, receipts and payments by an individual or organization. Bookkeeping is usually performed by a bookkeeper. Bookkeeping should not be confused with accounting. The accounting process is usually...

. They had four children.

Locust Street Social Settlement

Soon after she married, Barrett began holding an informal day care

Day care

Child care or day care is care of a child during the day by a person other than the child's legal guardians, typically performed by someone outside the child's immediate family...

 and sewing class at her home in Hampton. The class grew rapidly into a club that tried to improve both home and community life. It was formally organized as the Locust Street Social Settlement in October 1890. It was the first settlement organization

Settlement movement

The settlement movement was a reformist social movement, beginning in the 1880s and peaking around the 1920s in England and the US, with a goal of getting the rich and poor in society to live more closely together in an interdependent community...

 for African-Americans in the U.S.A.

In 1902 the Barretts built a separate structure on their property to house the Settlement's numerous activities, which included clubs, recreation, and classes in domestic skills. They received assistance from Hampton Institute students and faculty, who also found several philanthropists — who were mostly from the northern U.S.A. — to fund the settlement. By 1909 the settlement had clubs for children, women, and senior citizens. Committees supervised these clubs and Barrett concentrated her efforts on large-scale annual events.

Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls

In 1908 Barrett helped to organize, and was the first president of, the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. The Federation engaged in a wide range of social services. It helped in the provision of environments that were appropriate for children, rather than their being placed in institutions like jails and almshouses.

For several years after 1911, the Federation gradually raised money for the establishment of a residential industrial school for the large number of young African-American girls that were being sent to jail. They planned to pay in full for land after five years of fundraising. However in 1914, Barrett read in a newspaper that an eight year old girl had been sentenced to six months in jail and she immediately appealed to the judge in Newport News

Newport News, Virginia

Newport News is an independent city located in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of Virginia. It is at the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula, on the north shore of the James River extending southeast from Skiffe's Creek along many miles of waterfront to the river's mouth at Newport News...

, Virginia to send the girl to the Weaver Orphan Home in Hampton, where Barrett was living at the time. The judge reluctantly released the child into her care. The Federation quickly raised $5,300 and bought a 147 acre (0.59488842 km²) farm in Hanover County, Virginia

Hanover County, Virginia

As of the census of 2000, there were 86,320 people, 31,121 households, and 24,461 families residing in the county. The population density was 183 people per square mile . There were 32,196 housing units at an average density of 68 per square mile...

 and chartered their center.

The center was a rehabilitation center for African-American female juvenile delinquents and was called the Industrial Home for Wayward Girls. It opened in January 1915 with 28 students. After several name changes the center became known as the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls. With advice from many prominent social workers and especially from the Russell Sage Foundation, the school developed a program that stressed self-reliance and self-discipline. The school had academic and vocational instruction, visible rewards, "big-sister" guidance, and close attention to individual needs.

In 1915 and 1916 the Virginia Assembly appropriated more funds for the school, and Barrett was named secretary of the board of trustees. Harris Barrett died at about this time. Barrett also turned down a job offer as dean of women at Tuskegee Institute

Tuskegee University

Tuskegee University is a private, historically black university located in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States. It is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund...

. She became superintendent

Superintendent (education)

In education in the United States, a superintendent is an individual who has executive oversight and administration rights, usually within an educational entity or organization....

 at the Industrial School.

Barrett was deeply involved in every aspect of the Industrial School's program. She personally managed the parole system by which girls who demonstrated sufficient responsibility were placed in carefully selected foster homes. These girls also were given jobs and were supported by follow-up services such as ministerial guidance, a newsletter called The Booster and personal letters. The school operated on an honor system and did not use corporal punishment. A special feature of Barrett's work was that each resident had their own bank account, so that upon discharge each resident had some money to take with them.

Barrett excelled in her role at the school. Her childhood had equipped her to deal with the socially important white women who controlled the trustee board and who were able to influence state legislators to appropriate funds for the school. She said: "You know we cannot do the best social welfare work unless, as in this school, the two races undertake it together." She was held in such a high regard that she could demand that the future Caucasian employers of her students treated them humanely.

While the Industrial School was under Barrett's supervision in the early 1920s, the Russell Sage Foundation rated the it as one of the five best schools of its kind in the U.S.A. At the time its enrolment was about 100. The school became a model of its type, with many successful rehabilitations of young women who were able to find employment and get married after being released. The school was known especially for its cultivation of character and morals.

In 1920 the state of Virginia assumed financial responsibility for the school. The state and the Federation shared the supervision of the school until 1942, when it was became supervised by the Virginia Department of Welfare and Institutions alone.

Further achievements

In 1929 Barrett received the William E. Harmon Award for Distinguished Achievement among Negroes. In 1930 she took part in the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection. She served as the president of the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs for twenty-five years. She chaired the executive board of the National Association of Colored Women

National Association of Colored Women

The National Association of Colored Women Clubs was established in Washington, D.C., USA, by the merger in 1896 of the National Federation of Afro-American Women, the Women's Era Club of Boston, and the National League of Colored Women of Washington, DC, as well as smaller organizations that had...

 for four years.

Barrett retired in 1940. She died in Hampton on 27 August 1948.

In 1950 Barrett's training school was renamed the Janie Porter Barrett School for Girls. It became racially integrated

Racial integration

Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...

in 1965. The Virginia Industrial School exists today as the Barrett Learning Center.

External links

• Janie Porter Barrett at the Virginia Historical Society.