Monday, February 06, 2012

Nonfiction Monday-- You Need a Schoolhouse

Deutsch, Stephanie. You Need a Schoolhouse: Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald, and the Building of Schools for the Segregated South

This book definitely comes under the heading of “Who knew?” Washington and Rosenwald, a well-to-do Jewish businessman who ran Sears, Roebuck for many years, built around 5,000 schools in the rural South for black students in the rural South. Their friendship in the early part of the 1900s was unusual for the time but extremely productive. Washington frequently approached businessmen who might help him with his various projects, and Rosenwald felt that black children were not being treated fairly and kept up with the school project even after Washington’s death in 1915.
Strengths: This book is incredibly well-researched and gives minute details on so many facets of this fascinating project. Pictures are included.
Weaknesses: This is a bit too much information for middle school. I would love to see a version done with more pictures, information on the times in general done in sidebars, and not quite as much detail. This would be excellent for high school collections where research projects are done on this topic.


Nonfiction Monday is administered by Anastasia Suen and is hosted today by Capstone Connect.

1 comment:

  1. Minorities who get along really warm my heart (maybe it's just my experience but here in Asia most minorities try to bring each other down to push themselves up, unfortunately). I would really be interested in those pictures.

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