Booker T. Washington to Charles W. Chesnutt, 27 July 1910
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Huntington, N.Y.1 July 27, 1910
Mr. Charles W. Chesnutt,
1105 Williamson Bldg., Cleveland, Ohio.
My dear Mr. Chesnutt:-
We are all very glad to know that you are improving.2 We have thought much about you.
I am sure that we are as much indebted to your children as you are to us. All of them have common sense and know how to make themselves useful and agreable.3
If you are in the East, please see us at Huntington this summer.
Mrs. Washington4 begs to be remembered to you.
Yours very truly,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. 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]
2. Chesnutt suffered a stroke in early June 1910 and was hospitalized for several weeks (see Helen Chesnutt, Charles Waddell Chesnutt: Pioneer of the Color Line [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952], 238). [back]
3. Helen, Ethel and Edwin Chesnutt all spent time at the Tuskegee Institute in the summer months of 1910. In May, Helen was a visitor to Booker T. Washington's household while recovering from a recent illness. Ethel, whose home was in Washington, DC, had spent the summer teaching at Tuskegee. Edwin had accepted a position as a stenographer for Booker T. Washington, and remained at Tuskegee until 1912. [back]
4. Margaret Murray Washington (ca. 1865–1925) was an educator and social reformer. She earned her teaching degree at Fisk University, served as the Lady Principal of the Tuskegee Institute and helped expand Tuskegee programs. She became Booker T. Washington's wife after the death of his second wife and often accompanied him on his lecture tours. She helped found the organization that was to become the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC) in 1896 and became its president in 1914. [back]
