Booker T. Washington Typed Letter Signed.

WASHINGTON, Booker T.

Item Number: 145418

New York:, May 19, 1904.

Typed letter signed by Booker T. Washington to banker and industrialist Benjamin P. Cheney, entreating him to donate for Institute expenses or invest in their endowment fund. One page on Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute stationary, square octavo, the letter reads in part “I am spending a few days in this city for the purpose of securing money with which to pay our current expenses, and for the further purpose of increasing our present endowment fund. I very much hope that you can see your way clear to help us in one or both of the directions named.” In very good condition with mail folds.

Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African American community and of the contemporary black elite. Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by disenfranchisement and the Jim Crow discriminatory laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Washington was a key proponent of African-American businesses and one of the founders of the National Negro Business League. His base was the Tuskegee Institute, a normal school, later a historically black college in Tuskegee, Alabama at which he served as principal. Washington had the ear of the powerful in the America of his day, including presidents. His mastery of the American political system in the later 19th century allowed him to manipulate the media, raise money, develop strategy, network, distribute funds, and reward a cadre of supporters.