Janie Porter Barrett

Background

She was born on August 9, 1865, in Athens, Georgia. Much of her childhood was spent living in the Macon, home of a wealthy white family named Skinner, where her mother, Julia Porter, was employed as a housemaid and seamstress.

Education

When Janie reached her teens, her mother and stepfather, a railroad shop worker, insisted that she attend a school for blacks rather than go north to a white school with the Skinner children, as Mrs. Skinner had suggested. She enrolled at Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, graduating in 1884.

Career

Janie Porter then taught in the small rural community of Dawson in southwest Georgia for two terms before returning to Hampton Institute in 1886-1887 to teach domestic science. She next taught at Haines Normal and Industrial School in Augusta for two terms.

Janie Porter then taught in the small rural community of Dawson in southwest Georgia for two terms before returning to Hampton Institute in 1886-1887 to teach domestic science. She next taught at Haines Normal and Industrial School in Augusta for two terms. Shortly after her marriage Janie Barrett began an informal day care center for the children in her Hampton neighborhood. Money saved for improvements on the Barrett's home was spent on a neighborhood clubhouse, and in 1890 the Locust Street Social Settlement was founded, the first of its type for blacks. There Barrett taught young girls laundering and sewing. As financial support and cooperation came from teachers and students at Hampton, the settlement's activities spread to encompass entire families and neighborhoods. An 1895 picnic held at Bay Shore, a local beach resort, attracted over 800 children and their parents. At the settlement, mothers were taught child care, and their experience was broadened through health clubs and reading clubs and classes in sewing, flower care, general homemaking, and poultry-raising. Further financial support for the endeavor came from white philanthropists who became acquainted with the project through contacts Barrett made as she traveled with the Hampton Quartette. Neighborhood activities included annual family outings, Easter egg hunts, and musical contests. Barrett involved students and local clubwomen in her search to improve community life for the people. Shocked by the number of children and adolescents in the local jail, Barrett organized a committee to assist in her campaign to get every child out of jail and into a home. She gave vigorous support to the juvenile court movement by promoting petitions for such a facility to the Newport News City Council.

In 1908 Barrett was the prime force in organizing the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. As president she traveled throughout the state collecting an initial $10 pledge from each club to finance a home for delinquent girls. The federation raised $5, 300 in three years. The Negro Organization Society held a tag day in 1913 that alone netted $600 for the project. Barrett studied the information she could find on setting up an industrial home school, seeking advice from the child welfare department of the Russell Sage Foundation and visiting the Slayton Farm near Philadelphia. A 140-acre farm was finally purchased at Peake (also known as Peaks Turnout), Virginia, eighteen miles from Richmond. The Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls opened on January 19, 1915. From an initial enrollment of twenty-eight girls between the ages of eleven and eighteen, the school grew to house an average of 100 girls a year. Emphasis was placed on cleanliness, hard work, discipline, and respect for oneself and one another. Upon entering, a girl was assigned a "big sister, " a place in a cottage, and membership in a small group suitable to her temperament and interests. A series of small rewards of graded clubs and uniforms of different colors earned by exemplary behavior were intended to be outward signs of inward growth of character. Each resident was expected to stay a minimum of two years at the school. When the honor level was maintained for a full year, with its privileges of wearing a white dress and enjoying special eating and sleeping accommodations, a student was eligible for parole. Parolees were placed in selected black or white homes where protection and supervision were promised and paid employment provided. Each girl was referred to a local minister to help with the aftercare seen as an important part of the school's training. Follow-up letters and The Booster, a newspaper edited by the students, were sent to former students. A savings account at the school held part of a parolee's earnings until she reached her twenty-first birthday. Personal responsibility was encouraged, and the severest punishment was consignment to the "thinking room" to meditate on one's behavior. The girls themselves handled much of the discipline on lower levels through the club structure and a demerit system.

In 1915, after her husband's death, Barrett took her own three daughters to Peake and became superintendent of the school. Matching state and federal grants and privately raised funds aided in enlarging the school and in providing additional facilities for the girls. In 1920 the State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs accepted the state's offer to assume financial responsibility for the school, but shared control until 1942 when it was placed under the state Department of Welfare and Institutions. Under Barrett's direction, the school became a model of its type; the Russell Sage Foundation rated it among the top five institutions of its kind.

She served on the executive board of the Richmond Urban League and was a member of the Virginia Commission on Interracial Cooperation and the Southern Commission on Interracial Cooperation. In 1940 Barrett retired and returned to her home at Hampton where she lived until her death of diabetes mellitus. She was buried at Elmerton Cemetery in Hampton. In 1950 the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls was renamed the Janie Porter Barrett School for Girls.

Achievements

• Barrett established the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls, a pioneering rehabilitation center for African-American female delinquents. She was also the founder of the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. She received the William E. Harmon Award for Distinguished Achievement among Negroes in 1929.

Connections

On October 31, 1889, she married Harris Barrett, a former Hampton schoolmate, who was a cashier and bookkeeper at the institute. They had four children: May Porter, Harris, Julia Louise, and Catherine.

Mother:

Julia Porter

Daughter:

May Porter Barrett

Daughter:

Julia Louise Barrett

Daughter:

Catherine Barrett

Son:

Harris Barrett

husband:

Harris Barrett

References

• Women Builders: Tales My Father Told Pen Pictures of Pioneers of Wilberforce (AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS, 1910-1940)
• In the Vanguard of a Race (Classic Reprint)