Robert R. Taylor and Tuskegee: An African American Architect Designs for Booker T. Washington by Ellen Weiss (review)

BOOK REVIEWS ROBERTR. TAYLORand -1\r~c·nn.\~!if Ellen Weiss. Robert R. Taylor and Tuskegee: An African American Architect Designs for Booker T. Washington. Montgomery, AL: New South Books, 2011, 279 pp., black-and-white photographs, hardcover, $45.00, ISBN 978-1-58838-248-1. Robert R. Taylor (1868-1942) has long been known to scholars as the first academically trained African American architect in the United States. Taylor's association with Tuskegee Institute is frequently noted in tandem with his "first" status in both traditional architectural surveys and thematic accounts. Architectural historian Ellen Weiss's book, Robert R. Taylor and Tuskegee: An African American Architect Designs for Booker T. Washington, constitutes a long overdue full-length study of Taylor's life and career, with particular reference to Taylor's years at Tuskegee. ARRIS 70 § Volume 23 § 2012 Weiss's ten-chapter narrative is orga · d n1ze according to a geographical and occupational structure that documents the whole of Taylor's long and productive career. From his origins in the building trades of postbellum North Carolina through his studies at the Massachusetts Institute 0~ Technology, and, most importantly, his career as an instructor, designer, and administrator at Tuskeg ee, the book provides a comprehensive examination of the influences affecting Taylor's built work. Weiss's structural schema, highlighting the importance of place and position, allows the reader to trace and appreciate Taylor's contributions and experiences for the very first time. Chapter one examines Taylor's childhood and early adult years in Wilmington, North Carolina. Building on the research ofCatherine Bishir and others, Weiss's account ofTaylor's childhood provides a glimpse into the conditions affecting earlier generations of African American craftsmen, includingTaylor's father, who was a freed slave and a builder. She explains how those early experiences in the realities of design and construction provided a literal and figural foundation for his later career. Chapter two delves into Taylor's studies at the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology, an educational experience that resulted in his hire at Tuskegee. Chapters three through eight focus on Tuskegee. After providing accounts of Booker T. Washington's founding of the school and the construction of the campus's early buildings, Weiss examines the impact of Washington's philosophies on Taylor and the latter's consequent shaping of the campus. Chapter nine highlights one of the most interesting facets of Taylor's career, his association with efforts to found a Tuskegee-derived program of study in Liberia. In the tenth and final chapter, Weiss looks at Taylor's retirement in the town of his birth. Like Taylor, the reader comes full circle. The book concludes with a catalogue of the buildings and landscapes comprising the university. Weiss's account is more than an architectural monograph or campus guide. Not only does the author render a vivid account ofTaylor's upbringing, education, and works, but she also examines Taylor's absorption of Booker T. Washington's approach to African American advancement. Tuskegee was the stage for that vision, one characterized by a moderate and gradual integration of African Americans into the nation's economic and political life. Given that rnost of Taylor's career was spent at Tuskegee and that rnost of his buildings are located on the campus, the contributions of the former cannot be divorced from rhe development of the latter. Weiss successfully interweaves Robert R. Taylor's story, Booker T. Washington's vision, and the Tuskegee experience into an engaging narrative. Weiss left no stone unturned in her examination ofprimary and contemporary sources. A reader gains insight into the funding, design, and construction of the Tuskegee campus, as well as the education of several generations of architects and craftsmen. As a contribution to the history of African American architects and builders, the book becomes a study of African American professionalism in general. It also provides a broader picture of southern architecture and building from the 1890s to the 1920s, closing a crucial gap in the numerous studies examining th~ colonial and antebellum periods and the modernist wave. Going beyond Allen R. Durough's recent study of fellow Tuskegee instructor and architect Wallace Rayfield (TheArchitecturalLegacyojWallaceA. Rayfield: Pioneer Black Architect ofBirmingham, University of Alabama...