Charles W. Chesnutt to Booker T. Washington, 10 November 1905
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CHAS. W. CHESNUTT
1005 WILLIAMSON BUILDING
CLEVELAND, O.
November 10, 1905.
Dr. Booker T. Washington,
Tuskegee, Ala.
My dear Dr. Washington:-
When you were in Cleveland, at my house,1 I called your attention to a photograph of Abraham Lincoln, and asked if you would care to have a copy of it.2 I send you one under another cover. It is, I think, one of the best photographs of Lincoln that I have seen.
Yours sincerely, Chas. W. Chesnutt. Thanked himFurther answer
not necessary
11/14 J.F.A.3
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 president 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. After relocating to Cleveland in 1884, Chesnutt's family lived in a series of rental houses (on Wilcutt Avenue, Ashland Avenue, and Florence Street), and then built a home to Chesnutt's plans at 64 Brenton Street, where they lived from May 1889 until May 1904. At that time, he purchased the house at 9719 Lamont Avenue, which continued to be owned by the Chesnutt family after his death in 1932 (see Helen Chesnutt, Charles Waddell Chesnutt: Pioneer of the Color Line [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952], 37–39, 48 and 184–185). [back]
2. While there are many different photographic representations of President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), it is very likely that the photograph in question is the profile of a beardless Lincoln taken by Alexander Hesler in June of 1860 that can be seen in a 1905 photograph of Chesnutt in his study in his house at 9719 Lamont Ave. [back]
3. Jeremiah Frank Armstrong (1877–1946), known by his middle name, was the first Black student to graduate from Cornell College 1900. He was chief assistant to Emmett J. Scott (1873–1957), Booker T. Washington's personal secretary and main advisor, from 1903 to 1908. He left to attend medical school and in 1912 began to practice as a physician in Chicago. [back]
