On Oct. 5, 2020, the Slowe-Burrill House was put on the National Register for Historic Places for its association with Lucy Diggs Slowe, most recognized for her work as the first Dean of Women at Howard University, where she served from 1922 until her death in 1937. 

Even before her appointment at Howard, she boasted an extraordinary vitae. As an undergraduate at Howard, she was a founding member of the first sorority for African-American women. After graduating valedictorian of her class, and earning her master’s at Columbia University, Slowe took a position teaching at the Armstrong Manual High School in D.C., where she so impressed the school board that they appointed her to found the first-ever junior high school for African Americans in the national capital region.  

As Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant describes in her book-length study of Slowe’s deanship, “To Live More Abundantly,” Slowe’s tenure at Howard was defined by her advocacy for what she called the “New Howard Woman” in her inaugural address to the students, a woman who was “of extreme culture and refinement.” She worked tirelessly, often at odds with the administration, to encourage the women of Howard to pursue the social sciences, not just the liberal arts thought to befit future mothers, and to explore careers outside of teaching, which was, as Slowe described, “the only occupation which is open to them with few handicaps.” Slowe was unsatisfied with the absence of women’s housing on campus, which she argued was necessary as a “laboratory for practical education in human relationships,” and orchestrated funding from Congress to build three new dormitories for a Women’s Campus. Slowe was so successful in her projects that, as one student reported, “we spoke among ourselves of our dean, not as Dean Slowe but as Dean Swift.”

Given Slowe’s remarkable life, and the National Park Service’s registration of her house as a historic site in recognition of that life, one would be forgiven for wondering why the site is titled the “Slowe-Burrill House” after both Slowe and her life partner, Mary Burrill. While the National Register nods to Burrill’s career as a teacher and playwright, it makes clear her historical significance is primarily as Slowe’s partner. The title of the site is less in recognition of Burrill herself than of Slowe and Burrill’s same-sex relationship at a time in which it would have been especially risky for a public figure like Slowe. While Slowe and Burrill were able to frame their partnership within 19th century ideals of romantic friendship, those ideals were coming under increasing scrutiny by the 20th century, which saw the pathologizing of women’s intimate relationships in the growing medical discourse around sexuality.

Now the Slowe-Burrill House is up for nomination as a National Landmark at the next meeting of the National Historic Landmark Committee this spring. Dr. Susan Ferentinos, a specialist in LGBTQ public history, was contacted by the National Park Service back in 2016 to help identify potential landmarks related to LGBTQ history. Ferentinos noticed there was a particular absence of LGBTQ landmarks in D.C., and put together a shortlist of sites including the Slowe-Burrill House. Ferentinos has been working through that list since, most recently preparing a national landmark nomination for the Furies Collective, which the Blade reported on in November.

But the bar for a National Historic Landmark is far higher than for the National Register of Historic Places. Only 3% of items on the National Register earn a further designation as a National Historic Landmark, and the priority for federal funding that goes with it. Will the Slowe-Burrill House meet that higher bar?

One way a site gets approved is by association with a nationally significant figure, and Lucy Diggs Slowe certainly has the national standing required. As Dean of Women, her work extended far beyond the campus of Howard University. Slowe established the National Association of College Women, an alumnae organization for Black women college graduates across the country. Under her leadership, the organization raised money to help young Black women attend college, worked to institutionalize gender equity in higher education, and led initiatives to foster interracial understanding with white college alumnae. Slowe was the first Black member of the National Association of Deans of Women, where she endlessly fielded her white peers’ concerns with racial matters on campus. And Slowe served on the national board of Young Women’s Christian Association, which gave her the connections she needed to go on a cross-country tour of colleges to talk about race relations among college women.

But if Slowe’s impact on women’s and African-American history on a national level is undoubtable, things are less clear when it comes to her mark on LGBTQ history. Slowe’s relationship with Burrill was a private matter, and not one she sought to advertise on the national stage. If Slowe’s house becomes a national landmark, will it still be as the Slowe-Burrill House? Or just the Slowe House?

That question arose early in Ferentinos’s work with Kathryn Smith, the National Historic Landmarks Coordinator for the Capital Region. On an early draft for the nomination, Dr. Ferentinos got the feedback that perhaps Slowe wasn’t really a national figure in LGBTQ history, and that they should be focusing on other criteria of national significance. But Ferentinos, who made it clear she does not speak for the National Park Service, vehemently disagreed. “I said to [Kathryn Smith], I feel so strongly that this property is significant to LGBTQ history. What this feedback is telling me is that I haven’t done a good enough job yet. I’m willing to do a couple extra rounds of revision … in order to do this right because it is really important.”

As Dr. Ferentinos sees it, LGBTQ history is often simply figured as a history of political activism, which excludes the huge number of folks who managed to carve out a professional life while leading a life as LGBTQ, however private it may have been. And if she’s ever going to get a chance to nominate someone who represents this broader vision of LGBTQ history, it’s Slowe.

It is well known that at the end of her career, Slowe had a protracted fight with the president of Howard University, Mordecai Johnson. Despite having arranged in her contract to live off-campus, as all male deans did, Johnson was intent on forcing Slowe to live on campus, so that she could better supervise the students — and from a shanty next to the college dump. Slowe fought Johnson to defend her contract right up until her death. While Slowe was dying from pneumonia in her bed, instead of appointing an interim dean, Johnson issued her an ultimatum: report to work or be replaced. Burrill refused to answer the demand, and a replacement was named. Slowe died a month later, on Oct. 21, 1937.

As Beauboeuf-Lafontant describes it in her book, this story is yet another example of Slowe’s fight for gender equality, to have the rights and privileges afforded to male deans. But while Beauboeuf-Lafontant makes no mention of the role Slowe’s relationship with Burrill played in this tale, Ferentinos thinks it was a central factor. “There are memos that could seem very innocent [to] a historian who is not trained  in LGBTQ history,” Ferentinos explained. There would be a memo, for instance, asking Slowe to give an account of the financial hardship the move would cause her. “It could seem like a bureaucratic crossing of Ts,” Ferentinos said. “Or it could be read as calling her bluff. It wouldn’t cause her a financial hardship, it would cause her partner a financial hardship.”

Kathryn Smith reported being satisfied with Ferentinos’s revisions of the nomination, but was cautious about predicting whether or not they would succeed. “We are supportive of the arguments she’s making, but it will ultimately be up to the NHL [National Historic Landmark] committee to determine and to make the recommendation as to whether this argument will stand.” At stake here is more than just Slowe. Is LGBTQ history just the history of figures who publicly advocated the rights of queer people? Or is it also the history of those who worked to build whatever life they could, no matter how private they kept it?

(CJ Higgins is a postdoctoral fellow with the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute at Johns Hopkins University.)