South Carolina Rosenwald Schools collection

Rosenwald School was an initiative spearheaded by the founder of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Booker T. Washington and wealthy entrepreneur, philanthropist and president of Sears, Roebuck and Co., Julius Rosenwald. The two met in Chicago, Illinois in 1911. Washington, who had been born into slavery and became one the most prominent African Americans in the United States, was looking for wealthy investors to contribute funds to Tuskegee (a Black teacher training school) as well as to contribute to the improvement of Black schools in general, which were overwhelming out of date, understaffed and under-resourced at the time. As a result, Washington invited Rosenwald to visit Tuskegee’s campus in Alabama and eventually Rosenwald agreed to serve on the school’s board of trustees. In 1912 Rosenwald pledged $25,000 to “extend a helping hand” to the Black schools that were “doing the same kind of work” as Tuskegee. Tuskegee’s curriculum was industrial style and combined basic literacy and math skills with home economics and vocational training. After spending most of the initial grants funds for African American Teacher training schools, Washington requested to use the remaining $2,800 to build six schools in rural areas of Alabama. Each school received a $300 grant and in 1913 the first Rosenwald School was built near Tuskegee for a total $942.50.

Washington insisted on certain criteria regarding schools built with Rosenwald grants. For example, Rosenwald Schools had to be built at the county level in various states across the South and the county in question could not rely solely on Rosenwald grants for the construction of the school. In 1914, Rosenwald donated an additional $30,000 to build 100 rural Black schools. Tuskegee’s staff architect Robert R. Taylor created building plans for the schools, which were published in 1915 in The Negro Rural School and Its Relation to the Community. Washington oversaw the administration of the Rosenwald grants (a maximum of $300 per school) until his death in November 1915. In 1917, in response to the increasing demand for Rosenwald Schools, the building program came under the Rosenwald Fund. With this change, came additional criteria for those school districts applying for grant fund, which included the need to hold a deed to at least two acres of land to build upon, local approval of a building plan and raising money to cover any balances no met by the grant funds. The grant increased from $300 to $500 for a single teacher school and $2,100 for a school with ten teachers or more.

In 1920, Professor Fletcher B. Dresslar, reported Rosenwald Schools needed improved lighting, ventilation, sanitation, building materials and felt some were not structurally sound due to deviating from approved building plans. This prompted the administration of the Rosenwald Fund to move administration of the building program to their Southern Office in Nashville where Dresslar and Samuel L. Smith developed the Community School Plans. These plans were utilized and improved upon through 1931 and many white schools used them to standardize the construction of their schools as well. Some of the features of the Community School Plans included “gabled roofs, one story structures…windows on only one side of the classroom…taller windows with narrower framing” and specific color schemes. “Blackboards were required on three of the walls” as well as modernized desks. The Rosenwald Fund also supported building accommodations for educators knowns as “teacherages” as well as shop buildings for vocational training.

By the time it was discontinued in 1932, the Rosenwald Fund contributed to the construction of 4,977 Rosenwald Schools, 217 teacherages and 163 shops. The total cost of Rosenwald Schools was $28.5 million, with $4.3 million coming directly from the Rosenwald Fund and another $4.7 million raised by local Black communities who often went without to raise money for local schools. About one third of all African American children across 15 states spent time in a Rosenwald School.

In South Carolina 481 schools, 11 shops and eight teacherages were built under the Rosenwald School Fund between 1917 and 1932. Rosenwald Schools were built in every county in South Carolina. Greenville County topped the list with 31 schools, followed by Newberry County with 26, Florence County with 25 and Spartanburg County with 24. In addition to providing a solid eighth grade industrial education in home economics in home economics, “carpentry, blacksmithing, furniture making, home building and tool repair,” Rosenwald Schools and teacher’s homes also served as community centers for African Americans. They were the site community clubs, “musicals, theatricals, pageants, and exhibits of industrial work…dances, Juneteenth celebrations, fundraisers, church services and political activism.” Rosenwald Schools and teacher’s homes quite often set the “standard for architecture, sanitation and maintenance” in their communities. The school building initiative spurred by the Rosenwald Fund became one the most important movements for Black education since Reconstruction.

Sources:

“History of Tuskegee University” Tuskegee University /www.tuskegee.edu/about-us/history-and-mission> accessed 8 April 2021

Hoffschwelle, Mary S., “Preserving Rosenwald Schools,” National Trust for Historic Preservation (2003) /forum.savingplaces.org/HigherLogic/System/DownloadDocumentFile.ashx?DocumentFileKey=693200ab-b3c9-7ee9-f177-6ed15bcd491b> accessed 20 November 2020

“Reinventing Rosenwalds,” National Trust for Historic Preservation /savingplaces.org/stories/reinventing-rosenwalds#.YG9tj-hKg2w> accessed 20 November 2020

“Rosenwald Schools,” South Carolina Department of Archives and History /scdah.sc.gov/historic-preservation/resources/african-american-heritage/rosenwald-schools> accessed 20 November 2020

Weathers, Lindsay C. M., “The Rosenwald School Building Program in South Carolina, 1917-1932,” National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, University of South Carolina Public History Program (2008) /www.nationalregister.sc.gov/MPS/MPS050.pdf> accessed 20 November 2020