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REFLECTIONS ON AFRICAN AMERICAN ROLES
IN EARLY EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY AND LIBRARIES
By Rebecca P. Butler
It was with great delight that I accepted the guest editor’s invitation to write conclusive notes for this special issue
of the Black History Bulletin, focusing on the historical tie-ins between African Americans, educational technologies, and
librarianship. Of the six article authors, four have been graduate students of mine (including one whose dissertation,
focusing on the Tuskegee Movable School, I am directing) and the other two are professional colleagues. My familiarity
with their work and the subject areas has made reading and commenting on this issue, the articles, and the lesson plans
a fascinating experience.
While African Americans were active in technology as early as the beginnings of the nineteenth century1 and
librarianship by the early 1900s,2 they have been an underrepresented and under-recognized group in many educational
technology and library histories, as can be seen by the lack of or very brief mention in a wide variety of chronicles of
these fields.3 This is not a conscious choice by historians, but the effect of a societal view which has often portrayed all
who were not White and male as helpmates or underlings, subsuming their work and achievements into that of the dominant group. Thus, as historians search for specifics, often what they find represents only that dominant faction. However,
there is an alternative discourse that invites us to see the world in a different way. The articles in this issue represent that
second group and provide us, the readers, with other options.
The first example of an alternate discourse can be found in the article by Hughes and Woodworth-Roman. This
piece, on African American uses of two types of early educational technology equipment (a hand duplicator and an
early record player), ties together two forms of historical research: document analysis (searching for information on the
equipment) and oral history. Hughes traveled to Mississippi, where she interviewed her grandmother and three African
American educators who had lived in a segregated South. Had these individuals used or seen others use a hand duplicator and/or an early record player? Yes, they had!
In my mind’s eye, I picture a horse-drawn wagon traveling between rural Alabama farmsteads. In this wagon are
resources to teach farmers and their families how to better grow their crops and maintain good health and households.
This fascinating extension project, which would eventually work with both rural Blacks and Whites, was conceived by
two very prominent and well-known early African Americans, Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver.
However, little has been known outside of Tuskegee and agricultural circles about this cutting-edge educational concept
from the first half of the twentieth century until now. Thus, Akins’ article presents another piece of history inviting the
reader to see into a more representative world.
The concept of alternate discourses is also found in the piece by Luetkehans and Omale. While they are working
with current African American professionals, the personal narratives of these subjects demonstrate that African American technology leaders’ early experiences with technology play a part in their career choices and advancements within
their fields.
Lastly, this issue of the Black History Bulletin bids us enter the world of libraries. Here we see a snapshot of the
early days of this field. As with the other articles in this issue, Hunt asks the reader to view the world through a particular
set of lenses—in this case that of African American librarians and library users. As Malone tells us in “Quiet Pioneers,”
“The earliest black public librarians of the twentieth century are hardly remembered today.”4 Yet, although they were—
and still remain—largely invisible, these individuals did exist, and while “their stories are difficult to reconstruct because
much of the evidence of their lives and labors has not survived,”5 they guided their clientele in search of education and
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(reading) recreation. Bravo to these early librarians. “Their presence . . . suggests the need to rethink the portrayal of the
American public library of the past and the historical development of librarianship.”6
In the final analysis, we see that the contributions of African Americans to educational technology and librarianship are substantial and deserving of recognition on their own merits, rather than as a footnote to the White male dominant group most featured in American historical discourse. In order to give a full and complete history of the fields of
educational technology and librarianship, it is essential to acknowledge the contributions of African Americans.
Notes
1.
Mary Bellis, “Colors of Innovation: Early History of African American Inventors,” http://inventors.about.com/od/blackinventors/a/
Early_History.htm.
“George Washington Carver Biography,” http://www.biography.com/people/george-washington-carver-9240299.
2.
University of Kentucky Libraries, “Notable Kentucky African Americans Database,” https://www.uky.edu/Libraries/NKAA/subject.
php?sub_id=62. Cheryl Knott Malone, “Quiet Pioneers: Black Women Public Librarians in the Segregated South,” Vitae
Scholasticae 19, no. 1 (Spring 2000), 59–76.
3.
Association for Educational Communications and Technology, “In the 20th Century: A Brief History,” http://www.aect.org/about/
history/#formative. Rebecca P. Butler and Lucy F. Townsend, “Constructing the Audiovisual Educator: A Gender Sensitive Analysis
of Audiotapes,” Vitae Scholasticae 19, no. 1 (Spring 2000), 77–91. Ann DeVaney and Rebecca P. Butler, “Voices of the Founders:
Early Discourses in Educational Technology,” in Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology, ed.
David H. Jonassen (New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1996). Dianne McAfee Hopkins and Rebecca P. Butler, The Federal
Roles in Support of School Library Media Centers (Chicago: American Library Association, 1991). Kathy Howard Latrobe, ed., The
Emerging School Library Media Center: Historical Issues and Perspectives (Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1998). Diana
L. Lembo, “A History of the Growth and Development of the Department of Audio-Visual Instruction of the National Education
Association From 1923 to 1968” (PhD diss., New York University, 1970). Jim Robertson, TeleVisionaries: In Their Own Words:
Public Television’s Founders Tell How It All Began (Charlotte Harbor, FL: Tabby House Books, 1993). Paul Saettler, The Evolution
of American Educational Technology (Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1990). TechTrends 43, no. 1 (January/February 1998).
TechTrends 52, no. 2 (March/April 2008). Wayne A. Wiegand, “An Active Instrument for Propaganda”: The American Public Library
During World War I (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989).
4.
Malone, “Quiet Pioneers.”
5.
Ibid.
6.
Ibid.
Rebecca P. Butler is a Presidential Teaching Professor in the Department of Educational Technology,
Research, and Assessment at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois. She holds a Master of Science
in library and information studies from the University of Kentucky and a PhD in educational technology
from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her primary research areas are in (1) the history of educational
technology and school libraries, (2) copyright law for K-12 teachers and librarians, and (3) copyright
issues in higher education. She is the author of a number of articles and columns on the history of intellectual freedom in American school libraries, women and technology, educational technology hardware,
and technology and the sublime, as well as guest editor of two special issues of TechTrends (national journal of the Association for
Educational Communications and Technology) focusing on the history of that field and column editor of the same journal for a column
which examines historical aspects of technology in education. Furthermore, she has written three books and numerous articles covering copyright law in K-12 schools and has two additional books in press.
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