TUSKEGEE UNIVERSITY

private, coeducational institution of higher education in Tuskegee, Ala., U.S. Its establishment as a school for training black teachers was approved by the Alabama state legislature in 1880, and the school still serves a predominantly black student body. The black educator Booker T. Washington (q.v.) founded the school in 1881 and served as its principal until his death in 1915. The Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute inculcated Washington's principles of providing practical training for blacks and helping them develop economic self-reliance through the mastery of manual trades and agricultural skills. In the 1920s Tuskegee shifted from vocational education to academic higher education and became an accredited, degree-granting institute. It was renamed Tuskegee Institute in 1937 and began offering graduate-level instruction in 1943. The institute was renamed Tuskegee University in 1985. The renowned agricultural chemist George Washington Carver, who headed the school's agriculture department, conducted most of his research at Tuskegee from 1896 until his death in 1943. The school's third president, Frederick D. Patterson (served 193553), was the founder of the United Negro College Fund (1944). On the campus is the George Washington Carver Museum, which includes the laboratory used by Carver for his work on the peanut (groundnut) and sweet potato. The university's library contains a notable collection of books pertaining to black Americans. The Booker T. Washington Monument on campus shows the institute's founder lifting a veil of ignorance from the head of a freed black. A section of the campus was declared a national historic site in 1974. The university had an enrollment of about 3,300 students in the late 20th century.