Frelinghuysen University is a former university in Washington, D.C., "devoted in perpetuo to Education of Colored Adults". It "aim to meet some of the educational needs and demands of colored working folk who are past the age of public school advantages and unable for obvious reasons to meet the requirements of a full day-time college or university." Its classes met outside of business hours; it offered "part-time adult schooling". Freylinghuysen was in no way a university; the name was given because it was a collection of "schools". The level of education was not fixed; the majority of the instruction was at the high school level, and a "Collegiate" track prepared students for college. However, the school also awarded B.A. degrees. There was some discussion of whether it met the standards for a junior college.
History
The Washington branch of the Bible Educational Association was established in 1906 at the home of Jesse and Rosetta C. Lawson. Kelly Miller was chosen to be the president. At the same time they established the Inter-Denominational Bible College and named Jesse Lawson as its president. Frelinghuysen University was founded in 1917 when the two organizations combined. It was named for New Jersey senator Frederick T. Frelinghuysen. He, with Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, promoted civil rights during Reconstruction and was Secretary of State during the Chester A. Arthur administration. The school's mission was to provide academic, vocational, and religious education for African-American working-class adults. Its programs were held in private homes and businesses throughout Washington until 1921. The Goodwin House served as the University's first permanent building from 1921 to 1927. In 1927 it moved to a larger building at 601 M Street NW. The University found the mortgage payments to be unsustainable, and it moved to the home of its president, Anna J. Cooper, at 201 T Street NW. She donated her equity in her home, almost free of mortgage, to the University. The school was accredited starting in 1927 and conferred degrees from then until 1937. After that time Frelinghuysen lost its accreditation, and changed its name to the Frelinghuysen Group of Schools for Colored Working People. The school started to decline until it was dissolved in the 1950s.
Its first permanent building, the Edwin P. Goodwin House, also known as the Former Classroom Building, is a historic structure located in the Shaw neighborhood in the Northwest Quadrant of Washington, D.C. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. Diller B. Groff built the house in 1879. It was built for Edwin P. Goodwin, an insurance agent, and his family. The structure is a two-story brick Queen Anne style building. It follows a triangular plan with an octagonal corner tower. Other architectural features include corbelling, patterned slate roof and intricate iron finials. In 1992 its condition before renovation was described by real estate historian Paul K. Williams, who bought it for $90,000, as an "abandoned dump".
Archival material
holds Cooper's collection of Frelinghuysen memorabilia, which it has digitized: https://dh.howard.edu/ajc_freling/
