Charles W. Chesnutt to Booker T. Washington, 1 August 1907
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Hotel Belleclaire1
BROADWAY AND 77TH ST.
NEW YORK
ALBERT R KEEN
New York, Aug 1/07
My dear Dr. Washington—
Permit me to thank you for your hospitality in putting me up over night at your beautiful place.2 I enjoyed my brief visit immensely.
While there I meant to speak to you about Mr Brascher,3 and before I left I asked Mr. Cox4 to say to you that Brascher is a very worthy fellow, who would be grateful & appreciative of anything you could do for him. He has a great deal of self-respect but is not at all
conceited or vain. I hope to mention him when I see you again—I promised to speak to you about him & it is on my conscience.
Shall be here all day Friday & probably Saturday, and shall be glad to talk with you further about your book—or any other subject.5
Yours cordially, Chas. W. Chesnutt— Dr. B. T. Washington Huntington N.Y.Correspondent: Booker T. Washington (1856–1913), one of the most well-known Black activists of the early 20th century, was born into slavery in Virginia; in 1881, he became the principal of what would become the Tuskegee Institute, advocating widely as a speaker and writer for technical education for Blacks, whose entry into American industry and business leadership he believed to be the road to equality. His political power was significant, but because he frequently argued for compromise with White Southerners, including on voting rights, he was also criticized by other Black activists, especially by W. E. B. Du Bois.
1. The Belleclaire was a 10-story luxury apartment hotel that opened in 1903 at Broadway and 77th St in Manhattan, designed by architect Emery Roth (1871-1948) in Art Nouveau style.[back]
2. Huntington, New York, is a town on the north shore of Long Island, 40 miles from Manhattan. From 1907 to 1910, Booker T. Washington rented the Van Wyck farm as a summer home for himself and his family. He then purchased a home nearby for the summers of 1911–1914. Chesnutt's visit in July of 1907 seems to have been the only time he saw Washington at his summer residence.[back]
3. Nahum Daniel Brascher (1880–1945) was a Black journalist and activist in Cleveland, originally from Indiana. With two fellow Black Republicans, Welcome T. Blue (1867–1930) and Thomas Wallace Fleming (1874–1948), Brascher founded the Cleveland Journal in 1903. In 1907, he sought help from Booker T. Washington to get a position at the Congressional Library, but did not get the appointment. When Fleming became the first Black city council member in Cleveland, Brascher served as city storekeeper (1909 to 1911) and worked as a publicity manager for a Black-owned realty company. In 1918, he moved to Chicago, where he had a successful career in public relations and journalism; he helped found the Associated Negro Press in 1919 and also wrote editorials for the Chicago Defender.[back]
4. Julius Robert Cox (1867-1907) was born in Louisville, Kentucky, became a bookkeeper and postal employee in Indianapolis, and eventually worked as Booker T. Washington's traveling secretary from 1904 until his sudden death from appendicitis on November 9, 1907. His wife, Gertrude L. Caldwell Cox, taught fifth grade at the Tuskegee Institute.[back]
5. It is not clear which book Chesnutt references. Booker T. Washington had published his Frederick Douglass biography in February, and he had published completed The Negro in Business (Boston and Chicago: Hertel, Jenkins, and Co., 1907) in June. His next work, the 2-volume Story of the Negro, was not published until 1909 (New York: Doubleday, Page & Co.), but it was in progress.[back]
