Teaching domestic labor as dignified business was central to Burroughs’s educational program

Evidence

However, Burroughs distinguished her school from other black schools because of its strong identification with the training of domestics. When the training school was still in the planning stage, she told the Woman’s Convention: “We need an institution that is going to make domestic and manual training a business and not a side issue in its educational scheme.” The domestic science department became the school’s most extensive and well-funded program. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 971