- Title
- North Carolina Rosenwald school survey project
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-
- Date
- 2002
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-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
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North Carolina Rosenwald school survey project
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North Carolina Historic Preservation Office
Department of Cultural Resources
Supervisor: Ann Swallow, National Register Coordinator
Kate Phillips, Volunteer Intern
NORTH CAROLINA ROSENWALD SCHOOL SURVEY PROJECT
In late May, 2002, 1 started researching Julius Rosenwald and the system he created to
fund black education in the early twentieth century South. Thomas Hanchett’s 1988 article, “The
Rosenwald Schools and Black Education in North Carolina,” proved especially helpful in this
process. Hanchett includes an index of Rosenwald funded schools built in North Carolina in his
article, which I referred to throughout my research process.
Next, I set out to do a current inventory of Rosenwald schools in the 75 central and
eastern North Carolina counties I had access to in the Raleigh Historic Preservation Office. The
indexed counties were queried for the word “school” and approximately 650 files were located.
Comparing the list of schools in the system to the list in Hanchett’s article, about 135 matches
were made and, by June, I was pulling the files on these matched schools to see if they were, in
fact, funded by Rosenwald. A total of 49 possible Rosenwald schools were found in the 49
indexed counties. As for the 16 counties not indexed, it was a more difficult process to find
Rosenwald files. By either looking for schools named in Hanchett’s index or simply thumbing
through the files, I found approximately 25 additional schools.
Some schools have documentation to prove their connection to the Rosenwald fund,
including the 13 on the National Register of Historic Places or the 9 I found on the North
Carolina Study List. Yet, the remaining 52 schools hold less definitive evidence of a Rosenwald
Fund connection. In order to organize the information found in the survey files, I entered all 74
possible Rosenwald funded schools into a standard form in Microsoft Word. In trying to assess
whether or not Rosenwald funded the schools, I used six possible Rosenwald Documentation
Criteria for each file. If the file proved so, I noted if the school was attended by African
Americans, built between 1917-1932 or included on Thomas Hanchett’s index of Rosenwald
schools built in North Carolina. I also made note if the school matched with architectural plans
developed by the Rosenwald Fund, had a direct record of Rosenwald monies, or was linked to
the Rosenwald Fund through oral history. The more criteria a school can meet, the more likely it
is to be a Rosenwald funded school. The survey forms for the schools are made to be recreated or
modified as new schools are found or as information changes.
There are many schools on Hanchett’s index that were not located in the files and,
possibly, have yet to be surveyed. Julius Rosenwald funded 813 North Carolina schools, and it
is not easy to know how many are left today. My research is the first step in compiling the
existing survey information, locating, and preserving the Rosenwald funded schools in North
Carolina.
Over the summer, I have also attended a meeting for those interested in surveying certain
counties for Rosenwald schools and put together information packets for these volunteers. On
June 13, 1 was privileged enough to attend the National Register Committee Meeting and, in
doing so, I developed a greater understanding of Historic Preservation in North Carolina. On
July 30, my supervisor, Ann Swallow, and I did field work in Edgecombe County, visiting the
several Rosenwald Schools still standing.
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