.-aïSL _ 71-27,548 ROMERO, Patricia Watkins, 1935- CARTER G. WOODSON: A BIOGRAPHY. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1971 History, general I University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan ! “Copyright by Patricia Watkins Romero 1971 THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED CARTER G. WOODSON: A BIOGRAPHY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Patricia Watkins Romero, B.A., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1971 Approved by V v e t n , Adviser Department of History ACKNOWLEDGMENT S I wish to express my thanks to the many people who have aided me in my quest for information on the life of Carter G. Woodson. Especially I would like to thank Charles H. Wesley for the loan of his personal papers that include correspondence with Woodson over a period of more than thirty years. I am obligated to many librarians for their kindness and help and particularly to Dan Williams of Tuskegee Institute. To Mrs. Callie Barnett of Huntington, West Virginia who supplied much of the background material regarding Woodson's family and his youth I am grateful. To the other family members with whom I talked and corre­ sponded, Nelson Bickley, Belva Clark, Nelson Barnett and Carl Barnett I also wish to extend my appreciation. A further note of thanks is due to those friends and associ­ ates of Woodson's who granted me personal interviews and who wrote to me concerning their personal relationships with him. IX VITA July 28, 1935 . Born - Columbus, Ohio 1964 ............ B.A., Central State University, Wilberforce, Ohio 1964-1965... ..... Instructor, American History, Central State University, Wilberforce, Ohio 1965 ............ M.A., Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 1965-1968... ..... Research Associate and Associate Editor, Negro History Bulletin, Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Wai^ington, D. C. 1969 ............ Visiting Lecturer in Black Studies, Findlay College, Findlay, Ohio 1969-1970 .... Editor-in-Chief, United Publishing Company, Washington, D. C. PUBLICATIONS Negro Americans in the Civil War (with Charles H. Wesley) Washington, D. C.: Publishers Company, 1967. I, too. Am America (ed.) Washington, D. C.: Publishers Company, 1968. In Black America (ed.) Washington, D. C.: United Publishing Company, 1969. Ill "Williard Saxby Townsend and the International Brotherhood of Redcaps, " Negro History Bulletin XXX (May, 1966), 79-84. "Martin Luther King and His Relationship to White America, " Negro History Bulletin XXXII (May, 1968), 81-85. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: The Old South and Slavery Colonial Latin America. Professor Stephen Stoan American Colonies and the Revolution. Professor Paul Bowers Jeffersonian-Jacksonian America. Professor Bradley Chapin IV TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................. VITA ........................................... iii INTRODUCTION................................... 1 Chapter I. IN THE BEGINNING........................ 9 II. IN THE VINEÎARDS OF THE L O R D ............ 30 III. STUDENT AND SCHOOLMASTER................ 52 IV. THE BIRTH OF BLACK P R I D E................ 82 V. PROGRESS AND PROSPERITY................ 114 VI. RECOGNITION AND ADVANCEMENT ............ 148 VII. THE CONTROVERSIAL Y E A R S ................ 174 VIII. EDITOR, HISTORXMJ, POLEMICIST.......... 216 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................... 264 INTBODÜCTICN The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the life and work of Carter Godwin Woodson. It is designed to give insight into the life of the man who initiated the scientific stu<^ of Negro contributions to American life and history. The story of this "Father of Scientific Negro History," as he is called, is needed in an era where there is so much uncertainty about the goals of Negro life. It is more than a biography. It is a picture of the evolution of a man, his struggles, his adjustments, his successes and failures as he laid the foundation for a kind of revolution in American education. It also is the story of the spread of history among Negro-Americans when they were in need of it. Since he left no autobiography and no writings about his life, it has been a great challenge to complete this task. It is said there is no more interesting literature than biography with its blending of heredity and environment, of capacity and opportunity, of achievement and defeat and of expression in books, letters, and public services. An effort was made to explore every available source for Woodson's personal life. These have been re­ searched, described, and explained. No biographical study can be complete without the interweaving with the narrative of the words, spoken and written, of the subject. This has been my goal, as far as the sources would permit. Carter G. Woodson had a varied career extending over his life span from coal miner and student to teacher, author, historian, scholar, editor, organizer, and public speaker. The rich tapestry that is presented in this dis­ sertation shows the wide sweep of his interests and activ­ ities. They reveal that he did the work of more than one man. Among the scholars of the late nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century, few are more de­ serving of recognition than he. As time has passed, the content of his life and work has become more recognized by the general public. The time is overdue when there should be a biography of the man. He was the pioneer of a move­ ment that has concerned masses of people who might otherwise have been neglected by historians. Because he undertook this endeavor and made it his goal, this biography was undertaken. The effort has been to write of him and the unusual services he rendered to Americans of all races. While he especially addressed black Americans, he never failed to note that he expected to have whites and blacks as his readers. In this, he was attempting to in­ fluence and persuade his readers to see the truth about black America, as he had studied it. At first he did not plan to deal with Negro subjects. There is no record at either the University of Chicago or at Harvard University to suggest otherwise. His selected subjects for research were historical in the main and he treated them as others would do. According to those vdio knew him he had little interest in Negro subjects in these preparatory years as an undergraduate or a graduate student. One searches in vain for papers written by him in this area of history. His doctor's thesis at Harvard was The Disruption of Virginia, completed and submitted in 1912. It described the debates over the slavery question as they arose in the legislatures, but little notice was taken of the Negro people. When Charles H. Ambler, Professor of History at the University of West Virginia, published his Sectionalism in Virginia from 1776 to 1861, Woodson abandoned the idea of eventually publishing his thesis. Woodson's education to 1912 was that which any American student would have been required to pursue for the degrees awarded to him. It does not appear in any of his records, letters, or papers that he was following a single- minded purpose of directing a new start in American history or fulfilling any selected special goals with reference to black people. This is one of the emphases of this disser­ tation. Unlike the great man in history who sets a goal in early life and attains it, Woodson was a scholar who evolved. But once having found his subj ect he concentrated on it single-mindedly. His first book, published prior to the organization of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, was The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861. He had been researching this book for about two years, particularly at the Library of Congress. He had found no book on the sub­ ject other than the reports of the United States Commis- r sioner of Education. He saw the emptiness in this field and decided to fill the vacuum with his work. He did not believe, as noted in his preface, that his work was either "comprehensive or thorough," and he hoped that he could interest "some young master-mind in this large task" of esdiausting the subject. The reception and acclaim that this volume received account for Woodson's decision to dedicate himself to the cause of Negro history, to organize it and publish it for the people, both white and bls^k. It has not been the purpose of this author to write a history of the Negro history movement, as important as such a history might seem to seme readers. The effort has been to concentrate on Woodson with the purpose of reveal­ ing that he was the moving spirit behind and within the movement. The central theme here is the man as historian and author, and accordingly it is a study in American historiography. There is no other book on Carter G. Woodson and none on the Negro history movement. This manuscript then ploughs a new furrow. The personal papers Woodson offers are few, carefully selected by him, and placed in the Li­ brary of Congress. There are over 5,000 items in this collection at the library, but most of these do not relate to Woodson. Much of his correspondence has disappeared from the Association's office. These are among the reasons why no published biography has appeared. Only a few arti­ cles have been written about him, and most of these are written in general terms and not from documentary sources. The main sources are the fifty-four volumes of the Journal of Negro History and the reports available at the head­ quarters of the Association. It has been necessary to gather fragments of biographical information from widely scattered places and from individuals who worked with him.