Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery

Patrick Chura (University of Akron); Alexa Lago (University of Akron)

Ed. by Patrick Chura, University of Akron
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.5: African American Writing and Culture of the United States.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Philathia Bolton (University of Akron), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), A Yemisi Jimoh (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University)

Domains

Political Science

Dates

First circulation or publication 1901

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Autobiography (any)
Essays/ Lectures (any)
Non-fictional prose

Resources

When Booker Washington’s Up From Slavery appeared in 1901, its author was already known throughout the United States as an orator, educator, and prominent black leader. As founder and first president of Alabama’s Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, he had popularized a conservative stance on racial uplift that elicited the sympathetic approval of philanthropists and the white cultural majority. With the publication of his carefully crafted life story, Washington was recognized for a significant literary achievement as well -- a work that drew on familiar American success formulae to place his personal rise from slavery to celebrity firmly within the traditional “salvational autobiography” genre that had begun over a century earlier with The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. In Up From Slavery, Washington’s self-portrait of black aspiration both re-inscribed and broadened the meaning of mythic upward...

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2505 words

Citation: Chura, Patrick, Alexa Lago. "Up from Slavery". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 August 2020 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8570, accessed 09 June 2026.]