Frelinghuysen University (Edward Goodwin House)
- Year
- 1906
- Style
- Queen Anne
- City
- Washington, DC
Built in 1906 as the Edward Goodwin House, this Queen Anne building at 1800 Vermont Avenue, NW, became the first permanent classroom building of Frelinghuysen University, a private university for African American adults that operated from 1906 to about 1960. Founded by activists Jesse and Rosetta Lawson, it was the first school in Washington to offer evening and extension courses to Black students, charging the lowest tuition it could manage and holding classes in homes and storefronts to cut down students' commuting time.
the building
A university for the working poor. Frelinghuysen offered everything from literacy instruction to a full high school curriculum and undergraduate and graduate coursework, aimed squarely at poor and working-class African Americans shut out of other schools. Jesse Lawson presided first, followed by the scholar Anna J. Cooper. The school took its name from Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, a New Jersey politician honored for backing African American causes.
the style
The building is a Queen Anne house, built in 1906 as a private residence — the Edward Goodwin House — before Frelinghuysen University adopted it as its first permanent classroom building.
More on Queen Annesignificance
Designated DC Historic Landmark #L_0395 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
nearby
- Whitelaw Hotel
- Lincoln Congregational Temple United Church of Christ
- Lincoln Theatre
- First African New Church (Church of the New Jerusalem)
- Woodson, Carter G. House
- The Lafayette