11 Facts About Monroe Work

Monroe Nathan Work was an African-American sociologist who founded the Department of Records and Research at the Tuskegee Institute in 1908.

Monroe Work's published works include the Negro Year Book and A Bibliography of the Negro in Africa and America, a bibliography of approximately seventeen thousand references to African Americans.

Monroe Work was born to formerly enslaved parents in Iredell County, North Carolina, and moved in 1867 to Cairo, Illinois, where his father pursued farming.

At the age of 23, Monroe Work entered Arkansas City High School, an integrated high school in Arkansas City, Kansas.

Monroe Work graduated 3rd in his class, and after undergoing training at the Chicago Theological Seminary, he enrolled in the University of Chicago to become a sociologist.

Monroe Work did research on the correlation between the highest crime rates among blacks and the large proportion living in slums.

Monroe Work finished school in Chicago with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy and a Master of Arts degree in Sociology.

Monroe Work married Florence E Hendrickson of Savannah on December 27,1904.

In July 1905, Work attended the conference of the Niagara Movement at the invitation of W E B Du Bois.

Monroe Work received the Harmon Award in Education in 1928 for his research and involvement in the Negro Year Book and his work on A Bibliography of the Negro in Africa and America.

Monroe Work died of natural causes in Tuskegee in 1945.