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Booker T. Washington Biography
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Biography: Life of
Booker T. Washington
Born 1856, Died 1915
Booker Taliaferro Washington was born a slave on April 5, 1856 in Franklin County, Virginia. After the Civil War his mother, Jane Ferguson, moved her family to Malden, West Virginia. While still a child, Booker T. Washington helped to support his family working in a salt furnace and later in a coal mine.
Booker T. Washington was both intelligent and curious and worked hard to obtain an education. Working during the day, he studied at night with a teacher from the local school for black children. He later attended the Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, where he worked as a janitor to pay his tuition and room and board. Booker T. Washington became a teacher. He taught first in his hometown of Malden and later at the Hampton Institute.
In 1881 Booker T. Washington was selected to be the first head of the newly chartered Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. The school began with 30 students and at first he was the only teacher. Booker T. Washington began by teaching the students to earn more to support themselves and to become useful citizens. The students learned to farm, make bricks and clothing, to wash, iron and to cook. Booker T. Washington linked these skills to their academic work by having the students write about what they were learning in English class and by using building problems to teach them math.
Booker T. Washington traveled extensively using his ability as a speaker to solicit funds to further his work. He became a well-known speaker and was an advisor to several presidents on black matters. Both Harvard and Dartmouth awarded him honorary degrees.
When Booker T. Washington died on November 14, 1915, Tuskegee Institute had grown to become a major institution for the teaching and training of blacks in various trades, skills, and professions.
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