William Monroe Trotter House
| William Monroe Trotter House | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| National Register of Historic Places | |||
| National Historic Landmark | |||
 The house in 2012 |
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| location | Boston , Massachusetts , United States | ||
| Coordinates | 42 ° 18 '45.7 " N , 71 ° 3' 44.6" W | ||
| Built | circa 1880s / 1890s | ||
| NRHP number | 76002003 | ||
| Data | |||
| The NRHP added | May 11, 1976 | ||
| Declared as an NHL | May 11, 1976 | ||
The former home of the African American journalist William Monroe Trotter is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the William Monroe Trotter House . It is in the district of Dorchester in Boston in the state of Massachusetts of the United States and was established in 1976 as a National Historic Landmark recognized.
architecture
The house has a rectangular plan and was in the late 1880s or 1890s in timber frame construction ( balloon frame built). It stands on a foundation made of granite gravel and has a gable roof covered with asphalt shingles . The southern end of the gable forms the front of the building, which has a one-story high porch across its entire width.
Historical meaning
The importance of the house goes back to William Monroe Trotter , who lived there with his family from 1899 to 1909. Trotter grew up in the black elite society of Boston and studied at Harvard University with George Herbert Palmer , George Santayana , William James and Albert Bushnell Hart, among others . He was the first African American to join the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity. In 1895 he received his degree magna cum laude .
At the end of the 19th century there was increasing unrest between blacks and whites after the United States Supreme Court ruled in the Plessy v. Ferguson had declared blacks second class Americans. In 1901 Trotter was a co-founder of the Boston Literary and Historical Association , which served as a forum for militant political opinions, for example from WEB Du Bois or Charles W. Chesnutt . He also joined the more politically oriented Massachusetts Racial Protective Association .
Trotter's greatest contribution to black protests was his 1901 co- founding of the weekly Boston Guardian with friend George W. Forbes . Together with WEB Du Bois in Atlanta , he formed a counterpoint to the statements made by Booker T. Washington .
After being arrested while giving a speech by Washington in Boston and jailed for 30 days, he founded the Boston Suffrage League , which grew into the New England Suffrage League . As its president, he campaigned against lynching and was able to raise $ 120 million annually for schools in southern states until 1925. He also campaigned for the abolition of racial segregation among airlines and for the enforcement of the 5th Amendment to the United States Constitution .
As he became more and more committed to the interests of blacks and less and less for his profession, he gradually lost his wealth and had to give up his house in Boston. Nevertheless, he continued his fight against segregation and inequality until his death in 1934.
See also
- List of entries on the National Register of Historic Places in southern Boston
- List of National Historic Landmarks in Boston
literature
- Lynne Gomez Graves: William Monroe Trotter House. (PDF) National Park Service , United States Department of the Interior , February 3, 1976, accessed September 9, 2018 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Massachusetts. National Park Service , accessed August 13, 2019.
- ↑ cf. Graves, p. 2.
- ↑ a b c cf. Graves, p. 3.
- ↑ a b cf. Graves, p. 7.