Working With the Hands / Being a Sequel to "Up from Slavery," Covering the Author's Experiences in Industrial Training at Tuskegee

by Booker T. Washington

Now let me show their life in smaller towns: one containing between four and five thousand inhabitants. Some time ago Mr. Bedford, one of our trustees, made a personal investigation in Eufaula, Alabama. I quote directly from Mr. Bedford as to what he found:

"Sydney Murphy graduated in 1887. He went at once to Eufaula. For three years he taught and farmed in the country. He was then made principal of the coloured public schools of the city. He still holds this position, and is now serving his thirteenth year. He has a nice home in the city, three houses that he rents, and some vacant lots.

"John Jordan, 1901, a graduate in harness-making, opened a shop in Eufaula, September, 1901. He reached Eufaula with $16 and a very few tools. He paid $7 license, $3.50 in advance for a month's rent, and had $5.50 for board and other expenses. He curtained off a little space in his shop for a bedroom, and with an oilstove cooked his own meals. In this way he saved up $50, but lost it in the failure of the bank of Eufaula. He has gone right on with his business, and now has one of the best shops in the city. He has established the People's Library, which has more than 600 volumes in it. He has a reading-room and literary society over which he presides, and is superintendent of the A. M. E. Sunday-school."

After several years at the school, during which they worked upon the school farm, Frank and Dow L. Reid left Tuskegee at the completion of the B Middle Class. Frank, the older brother, left in the year 1888, and Dow in the year 1891. Before coming to Tuskegee, these young men had lived upon a rented farm with their father, but on returning home they decided to buy a farm of their own. They entered into an agreement to purchase a farm of 320 acres, four miles from the old homestead, and with little or no money, but with a determination to succeed, they began to cultivate the land. They agreed to pay $5.50 per acre for the place, and, regardless of the fact that they had little money at the time, they bought the farm, paying in a few years the whole amount, $1,760. In addition to this farm, the Reid brothers, as they are styled for miles around, have bought another farm of 225 acres at $10 per acre. This farm is about two miles away from the place first mentioned. When the final payment upon this last purchase is made in the fall, after crops have been gathered and marketed, a total of $4,010 will have been made and expended for land by these young men since the younger one left Tuskegee some twelve years ago.

The stock and farming implements on these farms are far superior to those seen upon most of the plantations. On the farm of 320 acres are seventeen fine horses and mules, all large and in good condition; there are thirty well-bred cows and fifty fine, healthy looking hogs, besides a large number of chickens and guineas, which furnish plenty of eggs for the families' use. The farming implements, including plows, mowers, rakes, harrows, etc., are of the latest patterns. The four double wagons, the single top-buggy, the road wagon and go-cart are all in good order, and are kept under cover when not in use. We often find farmers in the South who, when the crop is made, leave the plows, the mower, the rake, in fact, all the farming implements, standing out in the field, exposed to wind and weather all through the winter months. A visitor to the Reid brothers' plantation will find that each piece of machinery on this plantation has a place under a shed built for the purpose, and is kept there when not in use.

There are eight dwelling-houses—a four-room frame building in which the young men and their families live, and seven log cabins in which the farmhands live with their families. The first is rather old and uncomely in appearance from the outside, but the interior is more pleasing. The bedrooms are large and clean, with sufficient windows and doors to permit of necessary ventilation during the sleeping hours. The dining-room is well kept, and the whole interior of the house presents a neat, clean and attractive appearance. This house is to be replaced by a larger one, to be built during the winter.

A large cotton-gin, with an eighty-tooth saw, is owned and operated by these young men. Last year, besides ginning the 125 bales of cotton raised upon their own plantation, they ginned the cotton raised by nearly all the other farmers in the neighbourhood.

The post-office at Dawkins was formerly about four miles from its present location, but since the Reid brothers settled there and the community grew so rapidly the post-office was removed to their place, and the plantation was named Dawkins. The post-office is located in the general merchandise store of the Reids, and Mr. Frank Reid is postmaster. There was neither a church nor a schoolhouse in the community when these young men went to Dawkins. They purchased four acres of land nearby, and not only gave this land, but assisted in building a comfortable church, which has been used both as a church and a schoolhouse. Preaching services are held regularly in the church, and a flourishing school is taught from seven to nine months each year. Last year more than one hundred boys and girls were registered.

Mr. J. N. Calloway, who graduated from the Tuskegee Institute in 1892, is principal of the school, and has one assistant teacher. A new two-room schoolhouse is now being built through the efforts of Mr. Calloway, and will be completed at the time of the opening of the school the latter part of next October.

I am often asked to what extent we are able to supply domestic servants directly from this institution. I always answer, "Not to any large extent, notwithstanding the fact that women are trained here in everything relating to work in the home." When a woman finishes one of our courses, she is in demand at once at a salary three or four times as large as that paid in the average home. Aside from this, we are doing a larger service by sending out over a large extent of territory strong leaders who will go into local communities and teach the lessons of home-making than we could by trying to send a cook directly into each family who applies to us. The latter would be a never-ending process. Miss Annie Canty, for example, teaches cooking and other industries in the public schools of Columbus, Georgia. There is a little leaven that we hope will gradually help leaven the whole lump. Largely through the influence of our graduates, cooking and other industries are being taught in many of the public schools of the South. Another young woman, Miss Mary L. McCrary, is doing the same thing in the Industrial College for coloured people in Oklahoma.