Up from Slavery

Booker T. Washington

OUP Oxford, Sep 11, 2008 - Biography & Autobiography - 240 pages

`My life had its beginning in the midst of the most miserable, desolate, and discouraging surroundings.' For half a century from its publication in 1901 Up from Slavery was the best known book written by an African American. The life of ex-slave Booker T Washington embodied the legendary rise of the American self-made man, and his autobiography gave prominence for the first time to the voice of a group which had to pull itself up from extreme adversity. Washington attributes his success to his belief in many of the virtues celebrated by Benjamin Franklin: selflessness, industry, pragmatism, and optimism. But from behind the mask of the humble, plainspoken schoolmaster come hints that reveal Washington the ambitious and tough-minded analyst of power who had to balance the demands of blacks with the constraints imposed on him by whites. To read Up from Slavery is to explore the means by which Washington rose to become the most influential and powerful black American of his time. How far he compromised African American rights in order to achieve his aims remains a matter of controversy. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Contents

• A Slave among Slaves: 1
• Boyhood Days: 14
• The Struggle for an Education: 25

About the author

William L. Andrews was born in 1946. He earned his B.A. from Davidson College in 1968. He received his M.A. in 1970 and Ph.D. in 1973, respectively, from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he is currently the E. Maynard Adams Professor of English. His first book, The Literary Career of Charles W. Chesnutt, published in 1980, deals with a seminal figure in the development of African American and Southern American prose fiction. While researching To Tell a Free Story, a history of African American autobiography up to 1865, Andrews became greatly interested in autobiography studies. Since 1988 he has been the general editor of a book series, titled Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography, which is published by the University of Wisconsin Press. Since the mid-1980's he has done a considerable amount of editing of African American and southern literature and criticism. The fruition of this work has been The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, published in 1997, The Oxford Companion to African American Literature, also published in 1997, and The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology, three big collaborative projects that Andrews has co-edited. He went on to be the series editor of North American Slave Narratives, Beginnings to 1920, a complete digitized library of autobiographies and biographies of North American slaves and ex-slaves, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ameritech, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Up from Slavery; Oxford World's Classics
• Author: Booker T. Washington
• Editor: William L. Andrews
• Edition: reprint, reissue
• Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2008
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Jul 19, 2010
• ISBN: 0199552398, 9780199552399
• Length: 240 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / General; Political Science / Civil Rights; Social Science / Black Studies (Global); Social Science / Slavery