Best regards, Andrew Stewart
Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: March 3, 2021 at 4:13:41 PM EST > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-SAWH]: Soares on Nieves, 'An Architecture of > Education: African American Women Design the New South' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Angel David Nieves. An Architecture of Education: African American > Women Design the New South. Gender and Race in American History > Series. Rochester University of Rochester Press, 2018. > Illustrations. 256 pp. $49.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-58046-909-8. > > Reviewed by Leigh Soares (Mississippi State University) > Published on H-SAWH (March, 2021) > Commissioned by Katherine E. Rohrer > > In the post-Civil War South, as white Americans sought to shape > national memory of the war and slavery, Black Americans promoted a > counternarrative that acknowledged the trauma of enslavement and the > ongoing struggle for full equality. _An Architecture of Education_, > by Angel David Nieves, explores how they inscribed that > counternarrative onto the southern landscape by designing Black > institutions. Nieves focuses on two Black industrial schools, > Voorhees College in South Carolina and Manassas Industrial School in > Virginia, established by Black women in the late nineteenth century. > He spotlights the respective founders, Elizabeth Evelyn Wright and > Jennie Dean, sharing how we might "read" the material culture of > their campuses for clues about their race uplift goals. In doing so, > Nieves asserts that the institutions themselves became monuments to > the intellectual and spatial activism of African American women. > > _An Architecture of Education _showcases how interdisciplinary > methodologies can help scholars overcome the silencing of African > American women in traditional documentary archives. Written accounts > of Black working-class women's activities in the post-Civil War South > are scarce, especially considering the "borderline" literacy of > formerly enslaved women like Dean (p. 85). Nieves argues that > studying the built environment, therefore, is central to > understanding how Black women participated in a larger civic > discourse around racialized landscapes in the South. As the author > writes, "African American women were purposefully invested in the > physical design of their many community-based institutions for racial > uplift" (p. 5). Though Wright and Dean lacked architectural training, > Nieves casts them as early designers of Black nationalist reform. > > The first three chapters of the book lay the theoretical groundwork > for the central case studies. Nieves demonstrates that Black > Americans, who had seen race and design comingle in the public sphere > during campaigns to build Civil War monuments and the 1893 Columbian > Exposition, understood the power of shaping the built environment. > Nieves argues that Black Americans appropriated dominant > architectural styles when building institutions to challenge > prevailing Lost Cause narratives and inscribe their own contributions > onto the southern landscape. > > Within these early chapters, Nieves effectively links institution > building to Black nationalist reform. He differentiates between the > "public transcript" and "hidden transcript" produced by Black > institutions interested in advancing Black economic and political > self-determination (p. 28). Chapter 3 applies this framework to the > example of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Based on his analysis of > how Booker T. Washington designed the curriculum, main campus, and > adjacent planned community, Nieves argues that underneath the > institution's façade of assimilation lay "a formal challenge to the > accepted social norms of segregation, racism, and mass public > lynchings" (p. 63). The book therefore adds to scholarship that > reinterprets Washington and industrial education not as > accommodationist but rather as embedded in Black political activism. > > Chapter 4 introduces the two women at the center of this story. > Wright and Dean represent how Black women helped reshape the southern > landscape and uplift Black communities through institution building. > Wright, an alumnus of Tuskegee herself, benefited from formal > education and a relationship with the Washington family that helped > open doors for her when she set out to build Voorhees. By contrast, > Dean, a formerly enslaved woman, was less literate and had fewer > professional connections. Nieves creatively speculates about how we > might fill in some of the gaps in her personal story. Then, he uses > the spare written records that do exist to show that the curriculum > at Dean's school cultivated racial pride among its Black students in > the early Jim Crow era. That Manassas Industrial School emphasized > teaching Black history and Black literature in addition to mechanical > trades reinforces the author's claim that Black Americans believed > industrial schools were an important part of nation making. > > The book reaches its crescendo in chapter 5, where it examines > specific design elements of Tuskegee, Voorhees College, and Manassas > Industrial School. The analysis is supported by an extensive inset of > photographs, drawings, and architectural descriptions. Nieves argues > that the campuses reveal their founders' vision for independent Black > communities. Here Nieves effectively situates Wright and Dean in a > network of architects, designers, and donors. Wright, in particular, > drew on her Tuskegee connections to collaborate with Black > architects, including Robert Taylor, William Sidney Pittman, and > William Wilson Cooke, as well as the students who applied skills > learned in their industrial classes to help construct campus > buildings. The chapter succeeds in feeling like the culmination of a > compelling story about how we can understand these institutions as > "living monuments" to their founders and to Black uplift (p. 105). > > Some questions, however, remain unanswered. Unlike Voorhees, Manassas > underwent a kind of top-down design from a northern white architect. > How might that have affected Dean's ability to direct the campus > design? Given the sex-segregated industrial classes that were typical > for institutions of the era, to what extent can we imagine Voorhees > and Manassas reflected the design vision of not just their respective > founders but also women on the faculty or among the student body? The > subtitle of _An Architecture of Education_ may provoke expectations > to see Black women in action throughout the book, but readers will be > more satisfied if they know the book is primarily concerned with how > Black institutions contain a hidden transcript of Black nationalist > reform. > > With _An Architecture of Education_, Nieves adds to conversations > taking place in academic and public spaces about how the history of > slavery and its afterlives is implicated in monument making and > institution building, especially on school campuses. Nieves inserts > historically Black institutions and their founders into the > discourse, revealing how late nineteenth-century Black reformers > inscribed their own narratives onto the built environment. Readers > interested in African American intellectual history, educational > history, and the history of architecture will welcome this concise > analysis of the contest over racialized landscapes in the "New > South." > > Citation: Leigh Soares. Review of Nieves, Angel David, _An > Architecture of Education: African American Women Design the New > South_. H-SAWH, H-Net Reviews. March, 2021. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55763 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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