Pittman arrives at Drexel, 1897

William Sidney Pittman, Tuskegee Institute graduate and protégé of Booker T. Washington, arrived at the Drexel Institute in early November 1897. According to a letter written soon after his arrival, on entering the city he attempted to contact “Mr. Kealing of the A.M.E. Church Review,” a likely associate of Washington. When finding that Mr. Kealing was out of town, he proceeded immediately to Drexel where the school’s President James Macalister and Professor of Architecture Arthur Truscott greeted him “warmly and pleasantly.” MacAlister wrote a letter of introduction to a "Reverend Phillips" who secured Pittman a room in a boarding house for the “reasonable rate of $14 per month.”

Pittman entered Drexel prepared to use the opportunity given to him financially by Washington and the Tuskegee board of directors, who had provided the “loan” to further pursue his education. His choice of course at Drexel illustrates his desire for success. Pittman told Washington in his first letter from Philadelphia that “a very different but more extraordinary and a more elaborate course than usual was made in particular for me – something unusual indeed I assure.” The course chosen would allow Pittman to finish his course work at Drexel in three years and receive specialized training in Mechanical Arts and Architectural Drawing. In a letter in 1898, Pittman wrote that he had a hard time convincing the administration that he could take on such a course load and that “it was not easy to have them understand the idea but they don’t know what some Negroes can do.” 

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Documents and Images

Images of the Drexel Institute, 1892-1917

Transcription of Pittman's letter to Booker T. Washingon, November 1897

Pittman's entry from Architecture Department record book, 1897-1898

Profile of Professor Arthur Truscott

Article: Booker T. Washington, Sidney Pittman, and the Drexel Institute

Article: William Sidney Pittman (1875-1958) - Susan G. Pearl
Research/Architectural Historian - June/November 1994

Timeline

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