1912 to 1932
Rosenwald Schools

Back to Structures that Transformed Education - 1724 to 1974

Beginning in 1912, the Rosenwald school building program, under the auspices of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University), began a major effort to improve the quality of public education for African Americans in the South. This effort led to the establishment of the Rosenwald Fund. By 1928 one in every five rural schools in the South was a Rosenwald school; these schools housed one third of the region’s rural black schoolchildren and teachers. At the program’s conclusion in 1932, it had produced 4,977 schools, 217 teachers’ homes, and 163 shop buildings that served 663,625 students in 15 states. Julius Rosenwald and the Rosenwald Fund contributed more than $4.3 million, and African American communities raised more than $4.7 million.

In 2022, my project Structures that Transformed Education was awarded an Artistic Innovations Grant, a program of Mid-America Arts Alliance. This project is generously funded by Mid-America Arts Alliance, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Arkansas Arts Council. The financial support from these organizations will support photographing and building architectural sculptures of schools that played a role in changing education in America. This grant also supported a forthcoming solo exhibition, an artist workshop, and a panel discussion, at the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub.