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Dissertation Information for Kandahl L. Radcliffe

NAME:
- Kandahl L. Radcliffe

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (1998)

ADVISORS:
- Christopher Ehret
- Brenda E. Stevenson

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Edward A. Alpers
- Judith A. Carney

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: The Tuskegee-Togo Cotton Scheme, 1900-1909

Abstract: Between 1900 and 1909, Booker T. Washington was invited by the German government, to send nine Tuskegee students, staff and graduates to develop cotton plantations in the German colony of Togoland. The goal of the Germans was to secure an independent source of cotton in order to fuel their textile industry, which was rapidly expanding at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and to end their dependence on imported American cotton. Prior to 1900 African-Americans had been invited to return to Africa through European and American philanthropic institutions as settlers and missionaries. What set Washington's venture, the Tuskegee-Togo Cotton Scheme apart, however, is that this was the first time that a major black institution in the deep South was engaged in an economic and scientific endeavor with a world power. The scheme also coincided with Washington's growing commitment to the ideas of economic Pan-Africanism. My research will help shed light on how the transference of Tuskegee cotton technology transformed the Togo landscape and the farming practices of the Togolese. There has been some debate as to whether the scheme was a success or failure. The scheme may have failed to provide what the Germans were hoping for, an independent source of cotton, but it offered new opportunities for the Togolese. I contend that the Tuskegeans strengthened the selling power of the Togolese by distribution of improved seeds, education in the latest agricultural and ginning techniques, and the establishment of the cotton school. Through James Nathan Calloway, one of the eight Tuskegeans, and most especially John Winfrey Robinson, many Togolese gained access to a new range of methods and understandings of how better to cope with and even, in limited ways, benefit from the German colonial presence.

MPACT Scores for Kandahl L. Radcliffe

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-10-09 11:10:49

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