Booker T. Washington and Culinary Self-Sufficiency Part 2
Tuskegee Students Pruning Peach Trees 1906. Courtesy of The New York Public Library
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) spent a lot of his time as the president of Tuskegee Institute fund raising. But his efforts in advancing black agency, particularly black culinary self-sufficiency has not received attention outside of the work of Historian Jennifer Jensen Wallach. Tuskegee’s campus farm had 2,300 acres. However, several problems prevented it from meeting the school’s subsistence needs nor revenue-producing cash crops. First, George Washington Carver, Dean of the school's agricultural programs had no training in managing a working farm. He had been exclusively a scientist Washington hired to conduct agricultural experiments which he had done exceedingly well during his tenure at Tuskegee. Second, the majority of students and staff at no interest in farming. In fact, they came to Tuskegee to escape the hard labor they grow up performing as the children of farmers.
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