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Worthy Ambition
LeDroit Park/Bloomingdale Heritage Trail
4 Government Girls
To your right is Lucy Diggs Slowe Hall, a Howard University dormitory. It opened in 1942 as U.S. government housing for African American women who came to DC to take new war-related jobs or fill in for men who left to join the military during World War II (1941-1945). These women and their white counterparts were known as "government girls." Housing was tight, so the few government-built residences were in great demand. Following local custom, they were segregated.
Slowe Hall honors a celebrated Howard University women's dean, tennis champion, and co-founder of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first national sorority for African Americans. In addition to housing young women, Slowe Hall offered meeting spaces that brought notables to the neighborhood. Constance Allen, who grew up nearby, recalled greeting Eleanor Roosevelt in 1943 when the first lady met here with Mary McLeod Bethune, a member of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Black Cabinet."
Charles E. Fairman, curator of the U.S. Capitol's art collection, lived at 325 U Street with his wife Mary from 1887 until the 1940s. Their neighbor across the street at 320 was Julia West Hamilton, founder and longtime president of the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA and mother of Col. West Alexander Hamilton. In 1941, Mathilde Smith Gray opened the LeDroit Park Nursery School one block west at 404 U Street.
On your way to Sign 5, you will pass original McGill Victorian style houses and some replacements that mimic them. The nonprofit Manna, Inc., built 319-325 U STreet in 1997. Turn left on U Street to reach Sign 5. |