University of Virginia Press to Publish a Digital Edition of “The Booker T. Washington Papers”

From the University of Virginia/UVA Today:

Booker T. Washington, who emerged from slavery to become one of the leading African American intellectuals around the turn of the 20th century, had ties to Charlottesville that eventually led to a city park being named after him.

A new connection between Washington and this area will be forged virtually via the University of Virginia Press’ electronic imprint, Rotunda, which has acquired “The Booker T. Washington Papers” to create a digital edition.

Washington – an author, pioneer in higher education, adviser to presidents and business leaders, and a pillar in the emerging Black elite and middle class – helped conceive a future for an educated, prosperous Black society in the wake of emancipation and Reconstruction. His views and ideas were not without controversy, however.

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This digital edition is based on the landmark 14-volume print series of Washington’s papers, originally published by the University of Illinois Press between 1970 to 1989. It is considered one of the great documentary editions in American scholarship – “a major enterprise in Black historiography,” according to the Times Literary Supplement.

The online archive, expected to be available in spring 2021, will collect the complete contents of the print edition; it will be fully searchable and interoperable with other titles in Rotunda’s American History Collection.

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