Ella (or Ellen) D. Barrier was born in Brockport, New York, the daughter of Anthony J.

[2] Ella Barrier was hired in 1875 to teach in the segregated schools of Washington, D.C. She stayed in Washington for more than forty years, working as a teacher, school principal, and clubwoman.

Barrier helped develop the Washington branch of the YWCA.

In 1891, she taught in Toronto, as part of a teacher exchange project.

[3] In 1900 she and her sister traveled as African-American representatives at the Paris Exposition,[4] and to the First Pan-African Conference in London, in a delegation that included Anna Julia Cooper and W. E. B.