When Booker Washington’s Up From Slavery appeared in 1901, its author was already known throughout the United States as an orator, educator, and prominent black leader. As founder and first president of Alabama’s Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, he had popularized a conservative stance on racial uplift that elicited the sympathetic approval of philanthropists and the white cultural majority. With the publication of his carefully crafted life story, Washington was recognized for a significant literary achievement as well -- a work that drew on familiar American success formulae to place his personal rise from slavery to celebrity firmly within the traditional “salvational autobiography” genre …
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Citation: Chura, Patrick, Alexa Lago. "Up from Slavery". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 August 2020 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8570, accessed 10 December 2024.]