Jim Crowing Martha Washington: the Architecture of a Separate Black Public School in Philadelphia, 1881–1937

Scholarly consensus on the relevance of architecture in Philadelphia’s racially segregated schooling is lacking. I argue that to illustrate the role of architecture in segregated public education, the study of school buildings must extend beyond their original design to include maintenance, adaptation, evolution, and use over time. The case study of the Martha Washington School in northern West Philadelphia serves to investigate the incremental transition from an all-White facility in the 1870s to its official reclassification as a separate, all-Black school in 1920. Factors surrounding this transition included building design and conditions, neighborhood population growth and demographic change, segregation laws and customs, and community involvement. The Martha Washington schoolhouse was demolished and rebuilt as a modern, up-to-date school plant in 1929–1930. Examining themes of Black educational heritage and Jim Crow architecture, this article contributes to legibility of Philadelphia’s school building sites as historic resources whose interpretation should encompass change over time.