Historic 1851 normal school for African-American women teachers, pioneering educator training in Washington, D.C.
Normal School for Colored Girls was established on December 3, 1851, by educator Myrtilla Miner to train African-American women as teachers. Despite fierce local opposition, the school grew from 6 initial pupils to 40+ within two months, supported by Quaker philanthropists and abolitionists including Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe. The school emphasized rigorous academics, hygiene, and nature study. By 1858, six former students were teaching in their own schools. After closure during the Civil War, it was rechartered in 1863 and became part of the D.C. public school system in 1879 as Miner Normal School.
In 1929, Congress accredited the institution as Miner Teachers College, a four-year degree-granting college. From the 1890s through the 1950s, Miner held a virtual monopoly on teaching positions in D.C.'s segregated Black public schools and supplied hundreds of educators to Black school districts throughout the South. The school's innovative partnership with the D.C. public school system—whereby the school used private funding for faculty salaries in exchange for hiring preference for graduates—lasted until the mid-1930s and ensured Miner's prominence in Black education.
In 1955, Miner Teachers College merged with Wilson Teachers College (a school for white students) to form the District of Columbia Teachers College. This merged institution subsequently combined with two other schools in 1976 to become the University of the District of Columbia. The historic 1913 building, designed in Colonial Revival and Georgian Revival styles by architects Leon E. Dessez and Snowden Ashford, remained in continuous use for teacher training and community education. In 2023, Howard University announced plans to renovate the building for its School of Education and Middle School of Mathematics and Science.