Members-Only Tour of “A Better Life for Their Children” Exhibition at the National Building Museum

Members are invited to take an exclusive tour of the National Building Museum’s special exhibition, A Better Life for Their Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4978 Schools that Changed America. Through striking black-and-white photography, the exhibition tells the largely unknown story of the early twentieth-century partnership between Julius Rosenwald, a Jewish businessman and philanthropist, and Booker T. Washington, a Black educator, author, and reformer, which led to the construction of thousands of schoolhouses across fifteen states in the segregated South.

To document this story, Jewish photographer and curator Andrew Feiler traveled more than 25,000 miles, visiting 105 schools and interviewing dozens of former students, teachers, preservationists, and community leaders. The exhibition features Feiler’s photographs and narratives, reproduced architectural drawings and school models, a recreated Rosenwald classroom with period artifacts, and an introductory video, providing a vivid account of this transformative initiative. Learn more about the exhibition.

1-hour tours will take place from 11am-12pm and 1-2pm.

Tour participants will meet the guide at the National Building Museum. 

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