Compiled by Angela McMillian, Digital Reference Specialist
The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain
a wide variety of material associated with Booker T. Washington,
including manuscripts, photographs, and books.
This guide compiles links to digital materials related
to Booker T. Washington that are available throughout the
Library of Congress Web site. In addition, it provides links
to external Web sites focusing on Booker T. Washington and
a bibliography containing selected works for both general
and younger readers.
Library of Congress Web Site | External
Web Sites | Selected Bibliography
American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A. P. Murray
The collection presents a panoramic and eclectic review
of African-American history and culture, spanning almost
one hundred years from the early nineteenth through the
early twentieth centuries, with the bulk of the material
published between 1875 and 1900. Among the authors represented
are Frederick Douglass, Booker
T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W. Arnett,
Alexander Crummell, and Emanuel Love. The collection contains
the full text of Washington's
Atlanta Address. The special presentation Progress
of a People includes a biography
of Booker T. Washington.
Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed
The collection comprises 28,000 primary source items dating
from the seventeenth century to the present and encompassing
key events and eras in American history. Search
the full-text option to find items related to Booker T.
Booker T. Washington by R. V. Randolph.
in America: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American
Engineering Record, 1933-Present
The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the
Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) collections
document achievements in architecture, engineering, and
design in the United States through a comprehensive range
of building types and engineering technologies.
Slavery to Freedom: The African-American Pamphlet Collection,
The collection consists of 397 pamphlets, published from
1824 through 1909, by African-American authors and others
who wrote about slavery, African colonization, Emancipation,
Reconstruction, and related topics. The materials range
from personal accounts and public orations to organizational
reports and legislative speeches. Among the authors represented
are Frederick Douglass, Kelly Miller, Charles Sumner, Mary
Church Terrell, and Booker T. Washington.
Nineteenth Century in Print: Periodicals
This collection comprises periodicals published in the
United States during the nineteenth century, primarily during
the second half of the century. Search the bibliographic
records and full-text
option on Booker T. Washington to locate items, including
Will Solve the Race Problem. A Reply" from the
North American Review.
and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929
This collection assembles a wide array of Library of Congress
source materials from the 1920s that document the widespread
prosperity of the Coolidge years, the nation's transition
to a mass consumer economy, and the role of government in
this transition. The collection contains fifteen items that
document the National
Negro Business League founded by Booker. T. Washington.
Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit
Publishing Company, 1880-1920
The collection includes over 25,000 glass negatives and
transparencies as well as about 300 color photolithograph
prints, mostly of the eastern United States. The collection
contains an image of Booker
T. Washington's residence at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
Culture: Circuit Chautauqua in the Twentieth Century
This collection presents 7,949 publicity brochures, promotional
advertisements, and talent circulars for some 4,546 performers
who were part of the Chautauqua circuit. The collection
Institute Band Orchestra and Glee Club.
and Deeds in American History: Selected Documents Celebrating
the Manuscript Division's First 100 Years
In honor of the Manuscript Division's centennial, its
staff selected approximately ninety representative documents
for online display spanning the fifteenth century to the
mid-twentieth century. The collection includes the draft
of Langston Hughes' poem "Ballad
of Booker T."
Explore the States
Jump Back in Time
Laurence Dunbar Was Born, June 27, 1872
[Dunbar wrote a letter
to Booker T. Washington on June 23, 1902]
T. Washington Speaks at the Cotton States and International
September 18, 1895
Meet Amazing Americans
[Andrew Carnegie is pictured
with Booker T. Washington and others at Tuskegee Institute]
[Carver taught agriculture at Tuskegee
Hughes, Man of the People
[Hughes wrote the poem "Ballad
of Booker T."]
African-American Mosaic: African-American Culture and History
This exhibit marks the publication of The African-American
Mosaic: A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study
of Black History and Culture. Covering the nearly
500 years of the black experience in the Western hemisphere,
this resource surveys the full range, size, and variety
of the Library's collections, including books, periodicals,
prints, photographs, music, film, and recorded sound.
section of the exhibit includes a photograph
pertaining to the Booker T. Washington Institute at Kakata,
Liberia, that was founded in honor of Booker T. Washington.
Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship
This exhibition showcases the incomparable African American
collections of the Library of Congress. It displays more
than 240 items, including books, government documents,
manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings.
It includes a section on the Booker
T. Washington Era.
Division Finding Aids Online
Access the finding aid for the papers of Booker
T. Washington in the Library of Congress Manuscript
Topics in Chronicling America
Chronicling America provides free access to millions of historic American newspaper pages. The Serial & Government Publications Division has created topic guides to newspapers in Chronicling America. Included on the topics page is a guide for Booker T. Washington.
Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey
These collections document achievements in architecture, engineering, and design in the United States through a comprehensive range of building types and engineering technologies.
and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC)
Search PPOC using the subject heading Washington,
Booker T., 1856-1915 to find digital images related
American History Month Portal
In celebration of African-American History Month, this
Web site highlights the many resources on African-American
history and culture available from our extensive online
Features and Activities
Slavery to Civil Rights: A Timeline of African-American
Use this interactive timeline-based activity to introduce
the topic of African-American history through primary
African American Identity in the Gilded Age: Two Unreconciled Strivings
Students examine the tension experienced by African Americans
as they struggled to establish a vibrant and meaningful
identity based on the promises of liberty and equality
in the midst of a society that was ambivalent towards
them and sought to impose an inferior definition upon
Segregation: From Jim Crow To Linda Brown
Students explore the era of legalized segregation. This lesson provides a foundation for a more meaningful understanding of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
Late in the afternoon of March 5, 1770, British sentries
guarding the Boston
Customs House shot into a crowd of civilians killing
three and injuring eight others, two of them mortally.
Surrounded by jeering Bostonians slinging hard-packed
snowballs, the small group of soldiers lost control when
one of their number was struck. They fired despite explicit
orders to the contrary.
In the nineteenth century, Crispus Attucks served as
an important symbol of the patriotism and military valor
of the African-American people. "When in 1776 the
Negro was asked to decide between British oppression and
American independence," renowned educator Booker
T. Washington observed in an
1898 address, "we find him choosing the better
part and Crispus Attucks, a Negro, was the first to shed
his blood on State street, Boston, that the white American
might enjoy liberty forever, though his race remained
Paul Laurence Dunbar was born on June 27, 1872, in Dayton,
Ohio. Although he died when he was only thirty-three,
Dunbar had achieved international acclaim as a poet, short
story writer, novelist, dramatist, and lyricist.
In 1902, Booker T. Washington commissioned Dunbar to
write the school song for the Tuskegee Institute. Dunbar
wrote lyrics to the tune of "Fair Harvard."
Washington was not pleased with the "Tuskegee
Song." He objected to Dunbar's emphasis on "the
industrial idea," and the exclusion of biblical references.
In this letter to Washington, Dunbar defends his work.
On September 18, 1895, Booker T. Washington delivered
his famous "Atlanta Compromise" speech at the
opening of the Cotton States and International Exhibition
in Atlanta, Georgia. Washington, the founder and president
of the Tuskegee
Normal and Industrial Institute, was the first African-American
man ever to address a racially-mixed Southern audience.
Poet and writer Langston Hughes, famous for his elucidations
of black American life in his poems, stories, autobiographies,
and histories, was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February
and Deeds in American History features drafts
of Langston Hughes's poem, "The Ballad of Booker
T." In this 1941 poem Hughes writes sympathetically
Booker T. Washington, whose reputation remains a subject
of controversy and debate.
Web Guides produced by the Digital Reference Section
of the Library of Congress
Sites in the Digital Collections
This guide highlights contributions by African Americans
to the arts, education, industry, literature, politics
and much more as represented in the vast online collections
of the Library. Booker T. Washington is included in the
Progressive Era to the New Era section.
Rights Resource Guide
This guide compiles links to civil rights resources
throughout the Library of Congress Web site and beyond.
The African-American Experience in Ohio: Selections from the Ohio Historical Society
This selection of manuscript and printed text and images illuminates the history of black Ohio from 1850 to 1920 a story of slavery and freedom, segregation and integration, religion and politics, migrations and restrictions, harmony and discord, and struggles and successes.
African-American Sheet Music, from Brown University Library Center for Digital Scholarship
The sheet music in this digital collection has been selected from the Sheet Music Collection at the John Hay Library at Brown University. The full collection consists of approximately 500,000 items, of which perhaps 250,000 are currently available for use.
Booker T. Washington National
Monument, from the National Park Service
The Booker T. Washington National Monument commemorates
the birthplace of America's most prominent African-American
educator and orator of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
the American South, from the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill
Documenting the American South (DocSouth) is a digital
publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts,
images, and audio files related to southern history, literature,
and culture. The collection includes several titles
by Booker T. Washington, including An
Autobiography: The Story of My Life and Work.
Voices, from the Vincent Voice Library
The site includes images of Booker T. Washington, a brief
biography of Washington, and an audio recording of the Atlanta
of Tuskegee: Booker T. Washington, George W. Carver, and the
Tuskegee Airmen Web Exhibit, from the National Park Service
Museum Management Program
This three-part Web exhibit highlights the achievements
of Washington, Carver, and the Tuskegee Airmen. It features
collections at Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site
and Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site located in Tuskegee,
Alabama, and selected items from the Booker T. Washington
National Monument in Hardy, Virginia, and the George Washington
Carver National Monument in Diamond, Missouri.
Acquisitions in African-American History Exhibition, from
the University of Virginia Library
section of the exhibition includes two
letters from Booker T. Washington to D. H. Greer.
Andrews, William L., ed. Up from Slavery. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1995.
LC Call Number: E185.97.W4 A3 1995 [Catalog
Harlan, Louis R., ed. The Booker T. Washington Papers.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972.
LC Call Number: E185.97 .W274 [Catalog
Hwang, Hae-sung. Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du
Bois: A Study in Race Leadership, 1895-1915. Seoul: American
Studies Institute, Seoul National University, 1992.
LC Call Number: E185.61 .H99 1992 [Catalog
Moore, Jacqueline M. Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du
Bois, and the Struggle for Racial Uplift. Wilmington,
N.C.: Scholarly Resources, 2003.
LC Call Number: E185.97.W4 M66 2003 [Catalog
Neyland, James. Booker T. Washington. Los Angeles:
Melrose Square, 1992.
LC Call Number: E185.97.W4 N49 1992 [Catalog
Perry, John. Unshakable Faith: Booker T. Washington &
George Washington Carver: A Biography. Sisters, Ore.:
Frost, Helen. Let's Meet Booker T. Washington. Philadelphia:
Chelsea Clubhouse, 2004.
LC Call Number: E185.96 .P378 1999 [Catalog
LC Call Number: E185.97.W4 F76 2004 [Catalog
McKissack, Pat. Booker T. Washington: Leader and Educator.
Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow, 2001.
LC Call Number: E185.97.W4 M33 2001 [Catalog
McLoone, Margo. Booker T. Washington: A Photo-Illustrated
Biography. Mankato, Minn.: Bridgestone Press, 1997.
LC Call Number: E185.97.W4 M35 1997 [Catalog
Roberts, Jack L. Booker T. Washington: Educator and Leader.
Brookfield, Conn.: Millbrook Press, 1995.
LC Call Number: E185.97.W4 R63 1995 [Catalog
Taylor-Butler, Christine. Booker T. Washington.
New York: Children's Press, 2007.
LC Call Number: E185.97.W4 T395 2007 [Catalog
Thoennes Keller, Kristin. Booker T. Washington: Innovative
Educator. Minneapolis, Minn.: Compass Point Books, 2007.
LC Call Number: E185.97.W4 T47 2007 [Catalog