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Charles W. Chesnutt to Emmett J. Scott, 4 September 1901

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  758 Rose Building1 Cleveland, O. Emmet[sic] J. Scott, Esq. Tuskegee.2 My dear Mr. Scott:-

My daughter, Miss Chesnutt, will leave here at 8 A.M for Tuskegee, via Cincinnati & Montgomery Ala., She will arrive at Montgomery at 11 30 Friday A.M, and take the train Northward at 1 30 P.M., arriving at Chehaw at 2 54 P.M. If you get this in time, will you kindly see that she gets over to Tuskegee, and oblige,

Yours sincerely, Chas. W. Chesnutt.



Correspondent: Emmett Jay Scott (1873-1957), a Black journalist from Texas, became Booker T. Washington's personal secretary in 1897 and was his influential advisor until Washington's death in 1913. He served at the Tuskegee Institute until 1917, and later at Howard University (1919-1939). During World War I, he was Special Assistant for Negro Affairs under Secretary of War Newton D. Baker (1871-1937). His notes on Chesnutt's letters often steered Washington's attention to specific letters; his direct correspondence with Chesnutt spanned over three decades.



1. The Rose Building is a 10-story office building in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, at E. 9th St. and Prospect Ave., designed by Cleveland architect George Horatio Smith (1848–1924) and completed in 1900. Chesnutt had an office in this building for less than a year (about May 1901 to October 1901).[back]

2. The Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), in Tuskegee, Alabama, evolved from the Tuskegee Normal School for Colored Teachers, founded in 1881, with Booker T. Washington as its principal. It became a leading educational institution for Blacks in the South, emphasizing teacher training and industrial education. Chesnutt, who had himself been the principal of a Black normal school in the early 1880s, first visited Tuskegee in February 1901, and remained well-informed about and personally connected with the institution all his life.[back]