[4] After Virginia seceded from the Union and the American Civil War began, Col. Cushing's sons joined the Confederate Army.

Earlier, the First Battle of Manassas was fought near their home, and the Dean family stayed in their cabin and hoped to avoid the artillery shelling and crossfire.

Afterward, on the master's instructions, her father and other enslaved men rescued wounded Confederate soldiers, and later buried many dead.

Dean sent most of her wages home, which not only helped her family buy the farm they wanted and cope with her father's death, but also allowed her sister Ella to attend the Wayland Seminary and become a teacher.

Dean could see many young African Americans leave farming (and the hopelessness of sharecropping for those unable to afford a down payment for land) and move to the nearby city.

[8] Meanwhile, Dean traveled around northern Virginia on weekends in a horse-drawn surrey and offered African-American youth instruction in what later would be called Victorian values, as well as in skilled trades.

She first sought employment and fundraising opportunities in Washington, D.C., and later with extended trips to New York City, and even in Boston, Massachusetts.

She made the acquaintance of Oswald Garrison Villard, publisher of the New York Evening Post, who published a favorable biography of Dean, made many donations to programs she advocated, and in 1905 became chairman of the board of Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth (although he criticized her management and ousted her as leader three years later).

In January 1893, Dean was invited to speak to a Women's Suffrage convention in Washington (after lobbying by her friend Orra Gray Langhorne of Lynchburg, Virginia).

Students could study liberal arts, as well as receive instruction in dressmaking, child care, blacksmithing, cooking, carpentry, shoemaking, and farming.

[15] The Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth continued for decades, and produced many teachers and other leaders of the African-American community.

After World War II, northern Virginia's population increased and localities built new schools for African-American students.

[19] A 6-foot, bronze statue depicting Jennie Dean was unveiled in October 2020 in Prince William County, Virginia on the site of the former Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth.