Washington Conservatory of Music and School of Expression

902 T Street NW: Former home of the Washington Conservatory of Music and School of Expression

A rarity at the time of its founding in 1903, the Washington Conservatory of Music was a privately owned, Black founded, and Black run arts institution, specifically created for Black adults and children. The Conservatory educated students about African American musical heritage, and also trained them to play, producing top musicians for decades, until closing in 1960.

Black residents in post-civil war DC set out to cultivate their own musical, economic, and educational institutions due to being locked out of the city’s established all-white institutions. The Conservatory is a crucial part of that story and was a major contributor to the “Black Broadway” era of DC history, centered on nearby U Street NW.

Mary Church Terrell’s remarks at the dedication of the Conservatory | Library of Congress

Harriet Gibbs | Oberlin College Archives.

The founder of the Washington Conservatory was Harriet Gibbs. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia to American parents but educated in Ohio including at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Gibbs landed in the District of Columbia by 1900. By the time she arrived, she had already traveled the world while studying and performing, and was considered an accomplished pianist with over a decade of experience as a music educator.

Gibbs initially ran the Washington Conservatory of Music from studios inside True Reformer Hall at 1200 U Street NW, just blocks away. By 1904, the institution grew and moved into 902 T Street NW, a stunning and beautiful building donated to the Conservatory by Gibbs’ father.

In addition to musical history, with an emphasis on Black musical history, students at the Conservatory received instruction in strings, piano, voice, pipe organ, and wind instruments, among others. Instruction was a true combination of both Western/European music traditions and African American musical traditions. After a new program was added for rhetorical skills and public speaking, the name of the institution was changed to the Washington Conservatory of Music and School of Expression.

The Conservatory helped consolidate funding for the concert music scene for Black artists in Washington. Previously performances, training, and schooling were sponsored by various institutions including Black churches as well as Howard University.

Advertisement in the Washington Bee, 1910 | Library of Congress.

In the Conservatory’s first years, Gibbs and the other founding faculty tried to strike a balance between student recitals and hosting better known, traveling artists and orators, all while maintaining financial stability as a privately run school. The faculty worked as tirelessly as Gibbs herself.

Early faculty member Emma Azalia Hackley made the long commute from Philadelphia to teach for a full academic year; an assignment she considered a privilege. At the pinnacle of its existence, the Conservatory would host up to 175 students with fourteen faculty members operating out of the T Street building.

One of the early directors of the Conservatory was Mary (aka Mamie) Burrill.

In 1906, Harriet Gibbs married Napoleon Bonaparte Marshall, a famed Harvard graduate, lawyer, and eventual World War I veteran and diplomat. They moved to New York City soon after. Post war, the Marshalls moved to Haiti (1922-1928) when Napoleon received assignment from President Harding. Ever the educator, Harriet Gibbs Marshall founded a school in Port-au-Prince and in 1930, and even authored a book on the history of Haiti, titled The Story of Haiti. She returned her full focus to the Washington Conservatory of Music after her husband’s death n 1933.

In Gibbs Marshall’s absence Burrill, another lifelong educator, ran the school from 1907 through 1911. The first commencement of the Conservatory happened under her tenure in 1910. The ceremony was held at Metropolitan A.M.E. church to an audience of nearly 2,000 people. After serving at the Conservatory, Burrill was likely best known for being a playwright. In 1919, They That Sit in Darkness was first published, landing in Margaret Sanger's Birth Control Review. The one act play is considered to be one of the earliest explicitly feminist plays by a Black playwright. The Conservatory’s success was largely due to the undeniable attraction of talented artists from around the nation, not just as students, but faculty and administration.

I am planning another separate post on Mary Burrill (left) and her partner Lucy Diggs Slowe. Pictured here at their home in Brookland, DC

Capt. Napoleon Bonaparte Marshall. Lawyer, war veteran, athlete, diplomat, and husband of Harriet Gibbs | The American Negro in the World War

In 1941 Gibbs, then known as Harriet Gibbs Marshall, died aged 73 years. While the Conservatory continued under the leadership of her cousin, Josephine Muse, it ultimately closed in 1960 after Muse passed away. The Conservatory’s records and materials live on at Howard University’s Moorland-Springarn Research Center. Both Harriet and Napoleon were laid to rest just a few miles from the old Conservatory at Arlington National Cemetery, Section 4.

The Washington Conservatory of Music and School Expression is not to be confused with the modern (c. 1984) non-profit organization Washington Conservatory of Music located in Bethesda, MD

For more weekly DC history posts, photos, inside access to tour development, and more, support us on Patreon. Plans start at just $3/mo.

Advertisement listed in The Crisis, May 1913

902 T Street NW, former home of the Washington Conservatory of Music and School of Expression.

Read more:
The Washington Conservatory of Music and School of Expression | JSTOR
Cultivating Music in America: Women Patrons and Activists | Univ. of California Press
Harriette Gibbs Marshall | Oberlin College Library
Washington Conservatory of Music | Howard Moorland-Spingarn Research Center
Burrill, Mary P. ( Mamie Burrill) | Oxford African American Studies Center
A reading of Burrill's They That Sit in Darkness. | Triad Stage (Wilmington, NC).

9th Street NW

True Reformers: From Alabama to U Street

View fullsize

Even before Industrial Bank or Southern Aid Society provided capital, financial services, and insurance plans for Black businesses on U Street, a fraternal organization by the name of True Reformers arrived from Richmond, Virginia to help lay the foundation of what would become Black Broadway.

By the time this building at 1200 U Street NW was dedicated in 1903, the Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers was already one of the most successful Black owned enterprises in the United States.

The origins of the Three Reformers date back to temperance and William Washington Browne. Browne born as an enslaved person in Georgia. During the Civil War, he fought for the Union and after the war became a teacher. He grew to believe that alcohol was the great hindrance to Black wealth and vitality. Not surprisingly, even temperance organizations were segregated. Browne attempted to join the all white Alabama temperance society, Good Templars in 1874. They refused, but helped Browne charter Black chapters across the state under the name Grand Fountain. Browne became the leader of Grand Fountain and grew the chapters throughout and then beyond Alabama, fairly quickly.

Browne was invited to start a similar group in Richmond, Virginia in 1876. There, the mission evolved and expanded. By 1880, the Reformers group in Richmond had become much more than a temperance society. It had evolved into a self-help and mutual benefit organization with the goal of enabling Black members to live without help from the White community. That meant creating Black-focused services such as banking, insurance, and others restricted, segregated industries.

The Savings Bank of the Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers opened in 1888 and was the first Black owned and Black operated financial institution to be chartered in the nation. It was so successful that during the Panic of 1893, they were the only Richmond bank that continued to honor checks. From there, Grand Fountain expanded their financial services offerings over the next quarter century to become arguably the most influential institution for Black commerce nationwide. Browne passed away of cancer in 1897, but by then the True Reformers was a self-sustaining organization with membership in the thousands.

In 1903 the True Reformers’ newly opened structure in Washington at 1200 U Street NW was America’s first to be solely owned by, financed by, designed by, and constructed by African Americans since Reconstruction. They offered a multitude of amenities and services to Black people in DC. Conference rooms, leased office space, a performance hall, and street level retail were all part of the vast offerings beyond financial services.

One of the first businesses to lease space on the ground level was Fountain Pharmacy, opening in 1905. For 12 years, the Fountain was operated by Dr. Amanda Gray who started her own business after graduating from Howard University and working as a pharmacist at the Woman’s Clinic, a care facility located, at the time, near 13th and T Streets NW.

View fullsize

Medical directory produced by Fountain Pharmacy. (Library of Congress)

View fullsize

Article about Dr. Gray in Pharmaceutical Era journal c. 1912. (Library of Congress)

Dr. Gray is thought to have been the first Black woman to own and operate a pharmacy in the city. Her store in the True Reformer building offered additional services such as laundry, mail, and even housed a telegraph office. Dr. Gray also produced a directory of emergency medical services in the city. Dr. Gray ran the Fountain Pharmacy until the death of her husband and fellow pharmacist Arthur in 1917.

During the fledgling first few years of what would become the “Black Broadway” era on U Street, the True Reformer building became known for hosting jazz concerts popular with both youth and adults.

In 1916 a young Duke Ellington played some of his first shows for money inside the rooms of True Reformer Hall, as it was colloquially known, thereby making him a professional musician. Just a year later in 1917, the True Reformers sold the building to the Knights of Pythias, who officially renamed it Pythias Hall, but the old name persists to this day.

Somewhat fittingly, the building is now home to the Public Welfare Foundation, a grant-making organization focused on social justice issues in the United States.

For more weekly DC history posts, photos, inside access to tour development, and more, support us on Patreon. Plans start at just $3/mo.

View fullsize

True Reformer building c. 1990s with its sole tenant, a Duron Paints store. (Library of Congress)

Busy U Street in late 2019.

Read more:
William Washington Browne and the True Reformers of Richmond, Virginia | JSTOR
A Family of Pharmacists | Library of Congress
William Washington Browne | Library of Virginia
Public Welfare Foundation | Public Welfare Foundation

Little Ethiopia Officially Finds a Place in DC

In 2005, Ethiopian-American business owners partnered with the Ethiopian American Constituency Foundation to petition the DC government to designate a portion of 9th Street NW as “Little Ethiopia.” At the time, the proposal had some community support and fledgling support of Ward 1 Council Member Jim Graham. However, the proposal never progressed beyond that and the designation was not followed up on in any substantial way. Fifteen years later, in somewhat of a surprise, the Council of the District of Columbia approved a Ceremonial Resolution declaring the area around 9th and U Streets NW as Little Ethiopia. A press conference was held at the intersection of 9th and U NW in late December 2020 to mark the occasion.

The Ethiopian-U.S. relationship is over a century old, kicking off with officials meetings during the Theadore Roosevelt administration. In the mid-century period, Emperor Haile Selassie was friendly with President Dwight Eisenhower’s administration and he became the first Ethiopian Emperor to visit the White House. Selassie was also friendly with Kennedy and was the only head of state from an African nation to attend JFK’s funeral.

Strengthening diplomatic ties and growing cultural influences, including U.S. music and pop culture, led many Ethiopian study abroad students to attend university in the states. DC was a popular destination because it was a prominent majority Black city, it was home to the Ethiopian Embassy, and Howard University was highly regarded as a top historically Black university.

Another interesting factor was related to DC itself being the capital of the United States. In Ethiopia, students from outer provinces looking to further their education, training, and job opportunities chose to relocate to Addis Ababa, the national capital. The idea that the capital was home to more opportunity was transferred to the U.S. capital. Most students never intended to stay, but the 1974 Ethiopian Revolution and civil war increased permanent immigration form Ethiopia, and later Eritrea.

In DC, the community settled around Columbia Heights and 18th Street in Adams Morgan, later moving south to 9th Street NW between T and U Streets. This neighborhood is adjacent to the historically Black Shaw neighborhood and the area formerly known as Black Broadway. Most visitors associate the Ethiopian presence in DC with restaurants, night clubs, or other retail markers. There are some markers remaining, just not as many. In the late 90s, there were upwards of a dozen Ethiopian restaurants on or around 9th St NW between T and U, not counting others on 18th Street in Adams Morgan. Since the introduction of the Metro/subway in this neighborhood (1991 & 1999), the Ethiopian and Eritrean communities have shifted to the suburbs, specifically Silver Spring, MD and Arlington, VA.

More recently the U.S. Census put the 2017 DC metro area Ethiopian population at 37,924, while a 2014 Migration Policy Institute put the number at 35,000.

The 2020 Resolution does designate the area as “Little Ethiopia,” as in the present tense, but it also documents the historic nature of the relationship between the Ethiopia and the U.S. offering a broader scope to the designation beyond a few street signs. Read the full Resolution here and see the signage at the northwest corner of 9th and U NW, near the Nellie’s sports bar.

Fewest Laws Passed in a Generation

This Congress, the 116th, will have presided over the fewest new laws of any Congress in a generation. With legislative activity nearly concluded for the year, and therefore for this Congressional session, just 226 bills, or 1.36% of the 16,557 bills introduced, eventually became enacted law.

That 1.36% and 226 bills total is the lowest percentage and lowest total number of introduced bills to become law since the 93rd Congress (1974, the oldest data set available on GovTrack). However, GovTrack notes that the total number of words in all bills passed has remained consistent, suggesting that there are less bills passed, but they tend to be much larger (longer) now than, say, 50 years ago.

As of this writing the President has not signed H.R. 133 (aka Coronavirus Stimulus Act) into law although he is expected to do so soon. That would bring the total bills passed to 227, still the fewest in a generation.

Since the 93rd Congress (January 1973 - December 1974), the most prolific Congressional sessions were:

95th [Jan 4, 1977 -Oct 15, 1978] with 804 bills becoming law, 3.6% of the 22,313 introduced.

100th [Jan 6, 1987 -Oct 22, 1988] with 761 bills becoming law, 6.7% of just 11,278 introduced.

101st [Jan 3, 1989 -Oct 28, 1990] with 665 bills becoming law, 5.6 % of 11, 787 bills introduced.

Source:
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics