Biography
Monroe and Florence Work
Who Was Monroe Work?
Monroe Nathan Work featured in The National Cyclopedia of the Colored Race, Vol. 1
Monroe Nathan Work was born August 15, 1866, to formerly enslaved parents in Iredell County, North Carolina. Having lost his mother at a young age, he spent much of his youth working on the family farm and didn’t begin high school until he was 23. Despite this background, Work graduated at the top of his class and became a teacher and preacher—promising career paths for African Americans during the early 20th century.
In 1895, Work enrolled at the Chicago Theological Seminary but soon discovered that preaching was not his calling. By 1898, he transferred to the University of Chicago's newly established Department of Sociology. Chicago’s sociology program was the first in the world, and Work was among the first African Americans to graduate from the institution. After graduation, he conducted research on Chicago-area African American communities.
Fighting Eugenics with Research
Title page from “Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro."
In 1900, Work published “Crime Among the Negroes of Chicago: A Social Study” in the American Journal of Sociology—the journal’s first publication by an African American scholar. Work’s article demonstrated his methodical usage of statistical data, ethnography, and archival research. His research helped refute eugenics studies like Frederick Hoffman’s Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro. Hoffman was a scholar who promoted eugenics as “race science.”
A pseudoscientific series of beliefs that emerged in the late 1800s, eugenics argued that certain groups were racially inferior and should have their populations limited, while allegedly superior racial groups were encouraged to increase their populations. Work used sociological research methods to refute eugenics and provide a rich, nuanced account of African American life.
Facts will help eradicate prejudice and misunderstanding . . . . for facts are the truth and the truth shall set us free.
Monroe Work
Who Was Florence Work?
Florence (right) and her sister Constance Hendrickson
Florence Hendrickson was born in 1877 in Savannah, Georgia. Her father George, a porter, and mother Harriet, a dressmaker, were both Savannah natives. While young, Florence played piano duets with her sister Constance at weddings and other social events. Hendrickson was working as a schoolteacher when she married Monroe Work in 1904. Work moved to Savannah in 1903 to teach at the Georgia State Industrial College of Colored Youth.
Working with W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois
Letter from Monroe Work to W. E. B. Du Bois, 1906
During his time in Savannah, Georgia, Monroe Work was a faculty member at Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth (now Savannah State University). While there, he began working with fellow sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois, who was then teaching at Atlanta University. Their work helped advance the anti-segregation activism of the Niagara Movement.
The Works’ time in Savannah was short-lived, as Work received an offer from Booker T. Washington to continue his research at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University).
The Works Go to Tuskegee
Industrial Work of Tuskegee Graduates and Former Students During the Year 1910 by Monroe Work, 1911
In 1908, Booker T. Washington appointed Monroe Work to serve as Tuskegee Institute’s first director of the Department of Records and Research. Work was commissioned to supply data on African American life that supported Washington’s speeches and writings. He was also tasked with collecting information on the first generation of Tuskegee Institute’s students and alumni, an effort published as Industrial Work of Tuskegee Graduates and Former Students During the Year 1910.
Documenting Lynching
Sensitive Content
The image includes graphic and violent imagery.
“Paris Burn Fest Most Horrible Atrocity in Annals of Texas: Leading Citizens Were There,” Houston Informer, July 26, 1920
Building on Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s lynching reports, the Works began producing lynching reports in 1910 that were published in the Chicago Herald. The Works’ lynching data was widely disseminated, and today Tuskegee University maintains one of the most comprehensive archives of lynchings in the United States.
Creating the Negro Year Book
As Monroe Work’s scholarship advanced, Florence Work became more involved in compiling data and reviewing articles. In 1912 alone, the couple published nine separate editions of the Negro Year Book—a periodical of facts, events, and institutions related to African American life. Tuskegee University Archives has digitized several editions of the Negro Year Book.
National Negro Health Week
Data collected for the Negro Year Book and other projects by Tuskegee scientists shaped programs like Booker T. Washington’s National Negro Health Week. This annual campaign urged African Americans to embrace healthy lifestyles.
1929 National Negro Health Week flyer
The Legacy of Monroe and Florence Work
Monroe and Florence Work
Monroe Work died in Tuskegee, Alabama, on May 2, 1945. Florence died ten years later on June 27, 1955. Both are buried in the Tuskegee campus cemetery. Throughout their time at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Monroe and Florence Work published 70 articles and pamphlets, 66 lynching reports, and nine editions of the Negro Year Book. The Works developed a renowned department of research on African American life that continues to shape scholarship today.
Related Stories
George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver was a scientist, inventor, and artist. Learn how his research at Tuskegee University improved the lives of Black farmers.
Homer G. Phillips Hospital and School of Nursing
Homer G. Phillips Hospital served as the preeminent training facility for African American nurses and physicians during segregation.
The First African American Physician
James McCune Smith, the first African American to hold a medical degree, fought against the false scientific claims of Black inferiority.