Dedication Ceremony for the Industrial Home School for Colored Girls

A brass band and American flags celebrate the 1915 dedication ceremony for the newly created Industrial Home School for Colored Girls, later the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls, located in Hanover County. The school was created to help foster a nurturing environment for Black girls who had been sentenced to prison for either being delinquent or for being dependent upon the state for their welfare. (At that time there were no foster homes available for African American girls.) The school opened with twenty-eight girls, many of whom are visible on the second floor balcony. The accompanying text, part of an annual report about the school, notes that these girls from troubled backgrounds had never learned how to play, that a schoolroom was being set up to educate them, and that the first books received for the school were bibles.

Citation: Annual Report of the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls 1916. LC2853 .V8 A2. Special Collections, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA