Tuskegee Library and Carnegie

One of the most interesting things about the library at Tuskegee is the fact that it was built almost wholly by the labor of the colored students. Moreover, the $20,000 given Tuskegee. by Mr. Carnegie provided not only the building but the furniture as well - and that was made entirely by students. The brick structure is in colonial style. Four Ionic columns at the front of the building support a well-designed pediment which forms a porch and lends to the whole an imposing appearance. 

On each side of the central portion are wings, 30 by 40 feet. In its greatest dimension, the building is 50 by I 10 feet and two stories high. In good arrangement the first floor provides a reading room, magazine and newspaper room, librarian's office, stack room and janitor's room. The second floor contains an assembly room, three study rooms, a museum and a stack room. The building is heated by steam and lighted by electricity.

Mr. R. R. Taylor, Director of Industries of Tuskegee Institute, and the first colored graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the architect who drew the plan of the library, which has received much praise from various parts of the country. The library is open from 7 A. M. to 10 P. M., and is at all times under the supervision of a competent librarian. Free access to the shelves is allowed, and liberal privileges are permitted to both teachers and students in taking out books for use in their rooms. An effort has been put forth to make Tuskegee a center of information regarding negro literature, and to that end living negro authors are asked to contribute their works, and pamphlets and books of every description written by negroes are obtained whenever possible.

In the periodical reading room all popular magazines are to be found, a special feature of this room being that it contains all current matter pertaining to the negro.

"It has been my good fortune," said President Taft, at the dedication of the Carnegie Library of Howard University, "to stand with Mr. Carnegie and to speak with him from the same platform at Tuskegee, at Hampton, and here, and to hear his accents of encouragement to the colored race and his wise advice to them as to the necessity for education on their part, and as to the obligation of each individual of the race to remember that in all his conduct he is a representative, and on trial. Mr. Carnegie was absent a year ago when we founded this library. I was glad, on the occasion of the laying of the cornerstone, for the moment to officiate in his place and to feel as a great millionaire benefactor feels. 

"We do not envy Mr. Carnegie his money and the fortune that has attended his efforts, but what we do envy him is the happiness that it must give him to be able to do so much good to his fellowmen as he is doing every month in the year. I am bound to say that he has increased the burdens of the President of the United States in the necessity that the Chief Executive feels in attending every function of this kind which registers a large donation from Andrew Carnegie."

Source: Theodore Wesley Koch. A Book of Carnegie Libraries. Publisher: The H. W. Wilson Company / White Plains, NY / 1917  and From 'Tech' to Tuskegee: The Life of Robert Robinson Tayor, 1868-1942 by Clarence G. Williams

Robinson Robert Taylor (1868-1942) -- a MIT graduate in 1892 --worked as an architect and educator at Tuskegee Institute from nearly the time of his graduation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology until the end of his career, except for a short period (1899-1902) in which he worked for a Cleveland architectural firm. Some believe he had a falling out with the autocratic style of Booker T. Washington. Though he could have been better employed elsewhere, Taylor was faithful to the race and thought he could best serve it at Tuskegee, where he was responsible for designing many of its buildings including the library and the chapel. It was in this chapel that Taylor collapsed and died in 1942. He retired from Tuskegee in 1935.

Born in Wilmington, North Carolina, Taylor came from a relatively privilege background. His father Henry Taylor was the son of a black mother and his white slaveowning master. Before the Civil War Henry was allowed to go in business for himself and developed a prosperous career as a contractor and builder. R.R. Taylor was educated in Wilmington at the Williston School and later at the American missionary Association's Gregory Institute, a school for blacks.

Taylor entered MIT in 1888 and seemingly the first black student to enroll in MIT. His master's thesis was the design of a retirement home for Civil war veterans. After graduation he was recruited by Booker T. Washington. In his lifetime, Taylor was well-respected. He received an honorary doctorate from Lincoln University and he delivered a paper at his former alma mater in 1911 entitled "The Scientific Development of the Negro." The Tuskegee Alumni Bulletin hailed Taylor as one who "occupies in the Negro Race in architecture the position which Tanner holds in painting and Dunbar attained unto in poetry."