---
title: "Nannie Helen Burroughs — AP African American Studies Guide"
description: "Nannie Helen Burroughs was a Black educator, suffragist, and churchwoman who founded the National Training School for Women and Girls. Key to Topic 3.8 uplift."
canonical: "https://fiveable.me/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/nannie-helen-burroughs"
type: "key-term"
subject: "AP African American Studies"
unit: "Unit 3"
---

# Nannie Helen Burroughs — AP African American Studies Guide

## Definition

Nannie Helen Burroughs was an African American educator, suffragist, and church leader who helped build the National Association of Colored Women and founded the National Training School for Women and Girls in Washington, D.C., adapting racial uplift and industrial education specifically for Black women.

## What It Is

Nannie Helen Burroughs was a turn-of-the-twentieth-century educator, suffragist, and Baptist churchwoman, and the daughter of [formerly enslaved people](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-3/2-reuniting-black-families-and-the-freedmens-bureau/study-guide/aEAVbWLFZtuR367M "fv-autolink"). In 1909 she founded the National Training School for Women and Girls in Washington, D.C., a school that trained Black women in practical job skills, religious instruction, and [self-respect](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/self-respect "fv-autolink"). She also helped establish the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) and pushed for Black women's voting rights during the suffrage movement.

Here's the move that makes her matter for AP [Afro-American](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-2/10-black-pride-identity-and-the-question-of-naming/study-guide/sCMCOOHW7DRtM6jH "fv-autolink") Studies: Burroughs took the industrial education model associated with Booker T. Washington and rebuilt it around the people that model mostly ignored, Black women. Her school answered a real problem. Black women were entering the workforce in large numbers to support their families, often in domestic and service jobs, and Burroughs wanted them trained, paid fairly, and treated with dignity. That blend of education, faith, labor, and women's rights is exactly what the CED means by Black women's leadership in racial uplift.

## Why It Matters

Burroughs lives in **[Topic 3.8](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-3/8-uplift-ideologies-and-black-womens-rights-and-leadership/study-guide/vD4cMW522VxPRn4w "fv-autolink"), Lifting as We Climb: Uplift Ideologies and Black Women's Rights and Leadership**, in [Unit 3](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-3 "fv-autolink") (The Practice of Freedom). She supports both learning objectives there. For **3.8.A**, she's an example of an educator proposing a strategy for racial uplift at the turn of the twentieth century, one that extends the industrial education debate beyond Washington and Du Bois. For **3.8.B**, she checks nearly every box of the essential knowledge: she advocated for Black women in the suffrage movement (EK 3.8.B.1), she addressed Black women's labor and fair treatment (EK 3.8.B.2), and as a churchwoman she built organizations that countered race and gender stereotypes by putting Black women's dignity and capability on display (EK 3.8.B.3). If the exam asks how Black women promoted African American advancement, Burroughs is one of your strongest named examples.

## Connections

### [Booker T. Washington (Unit 3)](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/booker-t-washington)

Burroughs' National Training School is essentially Washington's industrial education model rewritten for Black women. Same logic of practical training for economic independence, but aimed at workers Washington's vision largely overlooked.

### [National Association of Colored Women (Unit 3)](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/national-association-of-colored-women)

Burroughs helped build the NACW, the organizational home of the 'Lifting as We Climb' motto. She's a face you can attach to the club movement when an FRQ asks for a specific person, not just an organization.

### [Black women's clubs (Unit 3)](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/black-womens-clubs)

Her career shows what the club movement actually did on the ground. Clubs and church networks pooled money, founded schools, and fought [stereotypes](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-2/21-legacies-of-resistance-in-african-american-art-and-photography/study-guide/i6dgSRQeJckJJ4Qe "fv-autolink"), and Burroughs' school is a concrete product of that infrastructure.

### [The Atlanta Exposition Address (Unit 3)](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/the-atlanta-exposition-address)

The Washington-Du Bois debate sparked by this 1895 speech frames Topic 3.8, but Burroughs complicates the binary. She used industrial education like Washington while also demanding political rights like suffrage, which Washington told Black southerners to postpone.

## On the AP Exam

Burroughs appeared as a stimulus on the 2025 exam's first short-answer question, so this is not an obscure name. Multiple-choice questions tend to test two things about her. First, context: why her background as the daughter of formerly enslaved people shaped her approach to educating Black women. Second, comparison: how her National Training School for Women and Girls evolved Washington's industrial education model by centering gender. For SAQs, be ready to describe one strategy she used (founding a school, organizing through the church and the NACW, advocating suffrage) and explain how it responded to the early twentieth-century climate of segregation and limited job options for Black women. The skill being tested is using her as specific evidence for LO 3.8.B, not just recognizing her name.

## Nannie Helen Burroughs vs Booker T. Washington

Both championed practical, industrial-style education for economic advancement, so it's easy to file Burroughs as 'Washington for women.' Don't. Washington's Atlanta Exposition Address told African Americans to prioritize economic skills before political rights, while Burroughs paired vocational training with active suffrage advocacy and women's leadership in the church. She borrowed his educational model but rejected the wait-on-politics part, and she designed her school around Black women's specific needs, which his model didn't address.

## Key Takeaways

- Nannie Helen Burroughs founded the National Training School for Women and Girls in Washington, D.C. in 1909, adapting industrial education specifically for Black women.
- She helped establish the National Association of Colored Women and fought for Black women's voting rights during the suffrage movement.
- As a Baptist churchwoman, she used religious networks to build institutions that countered race and gender stereotypes, which is exactly what EK 3.8.B.3 describes.
- Her background as the daughter of formerly enslaved people shaped her focus on dignity, fair labor, and self-sufficiency for working Black women.
- On the exam, use Burroughs to show that uplift strategies weren't just a two-man Washington versus Du Bois debate; Black women like her blended education, labor advocacy, and political rights into one strategy.

## FAQs

### Who was Nannie Helen Burroughs and what did she do?

Burroughs was an African American educator, suffragist, and church leader who founded the National Training School for Women and Girls in Washington, D.C. in 1909 and helped establish the [National Association of Colored Women](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/national-association-of-colored-women "fv-autolink"). She's a core example of Black women's uplift leadership in Topic 3.8.

### Did Nannie Helen Burroughs just copy Booker T. Washington's ideas?

No. She used his industrial education model but redesigned it for Black women, who were entering the workforce in large numbers, and unlike Washington she actively pushed for political rights like women's suffrage instead of postponing them.

### How is Nannie Helen Burroughs different from W.E.B. Du Bois?

Du Bois promoted [liberal arts education](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-3/10-hbcu-black-greek-letter-organizations-and-black-education/study-guide/kP0Y57GAauhTajQD "fv-autolink") and a civil rights agenda, while Burroughs focused on practical vocational training. But she shared his insistence on political rights, which is why she doesn't fit neatly on either side of the Washington-Du Bois debate.

### Is Nannie Helen Burroughs on the AP African American Studies exam?

Yes. She maps to Topic 3.8 in Unit 3 and supports learning objectives 3.8.A and 3.8.B, and she appeared as a stimulus on the 2025 exam's first short-answer question.

### Why did Burroughs open a school just for women and girls?

In the early 1900s, Black women were working to support their families, often in domestic and service jobs, with almost no institutions training them. Her school gave them job skills, religious grounding, and a public demonstration of Black women's capability, directly countering race and gender stereotypes.

## Related Study Guides

- [3.8 Lifting as We Climb: Uplift Ideologies and Black Women's Rights and Leadership](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-3/8-uplift-ideologies-and-black-womens-rights-and-leadership/study-guide/vD4cMW522VxPRn4w)

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