The Manassas Industrial School / Jennie Dean Memorial

The Manassas Industrial School, also, Jennie Dean Memorial. . , Welcome to Manassas Industrial School/Jennie Dean Memorial, part of The Manassas Museum System. This Memorial tells the story of an institution of learning that was unique in Northern Virginia and of the visionary African-American woman who was the guiding force behind its creation., Jane Serepta Dean (popularly known as Jennie) was born a slave in Prince William county about 1852. In the years after the Civil War she left her home to travel to Washington, DC, where she worked as a housekeeper. This experience aroused in Jennie Dean a spirit of determination to do whatever she could do to provide better vocational and academic training for people of color in Northern Virginia., Chartered in 1893, the Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth was dedicated on September 3, 1894. Among the dignitaries attending the ceremony were Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross; Eppa Hunton, former Confederate general and United States senator; and Frederick Douglass, the noted abolitionist orator, who delivered the dedicatory address., Starting as a private residential institution, the school evolved into a regional public high school for African-Americans. It ultimately became an integrated public school in Prince William County and later the City of Manassas. Education has thus remained an integral part of this site's history for more than a century.