Craig, Arthur

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Arthur Craig
1871–1959

Engineer, educator

Arthur Ulysses Craig was one of the first African Americans to earn an engineering degree in the United States. After Craig received his undergraduate degree from the University of Kansas, he studied abroad, returned to America, pursued graduate courses at two universities, helped to design an automobile, and worked as an educator at three historically black institutions. Craig's students as well as the members of the communities where he lived and worked were the beneficiaries of his knowledge, experience, and concern for improving the lives of others.

Arthur Craig, the son of Henry and Harriet Talbert Craig, was born in Weston, Missouri, on December 1, 1871. Craig attended public schools in Weston and Atchison High School in Kansas. He graduated from Atchison High in 1890.

In September 1891, Craig began his matriculation at the University of Kansas's School of Electrical Engineering. He was the third assistant in the physical laboratory. Craig received a B.S. in electrical engineering on June 5, 1895.

Craig traveled to Naas, Sweden. He enrolled in a Sloyd Training School at Naas that was founded by Otto Solomon, the Swedish educator. Solomon's school attracted Swedish teachers as well as educators from many other countries. The objectives of the Sloyd System were to instill in students such traits as appreciation for work, respect for physical labor, self-reliance, organizational skills, neatness, accuracy, manual dexterity, attentiveness, perseverance, patience, precision, and productivity. Craig also observed industrial education in the Swedish cities of Stockholm and Goteberg as well as in London, England. Beginning in 1901, he studied psychology, manual training, and philosophy at Columbia University, in New York. From 1909 to 1910, he enrolled in ethics, psychology, and philosophy courses at the Catholic University of America.

Improves Tuskegee's Curriculum and Campus

In 1896, Craig accepted a position as teacher of physics and electricity in the Industrial Department at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now known as Tuskegee University). When Craig arrived at the Alabama campus, he added electrical engineering to the curriculum. Craig and the students installed and operated Tuskegee's telephone system.

In addition, Craig designed the electrical lighting for Tuskegee's original chapel, which was constructed between 1896 and 1898. The chapel was the first building on Tuskegee's campus and the first in Macon County, Alabama, to be equipped with interior electrical lights. The town of Tuskegee also benefited from Craig's expertise because he planned its lighting system which was supplied by the institute's power plant. Under Craig's guidance, students maintained the school's power plant.

During the summer of 1900, Craig was employed by F. B. Stearns and Company. The Cleveland-based company manufactured automobiles from 1898 to 1929. Craig helped design at least one automobile. One year later, he was offered the position of head of the Industrial Department at Lincoln Institute (now known as Lincoln University) in his native state of Missouri.

Moves to Washington, D.C.

Instead of accepting the position at Lincoln, Craig decided in 1901 to teach high school in Washington, D.C. According to Frank Lincoln Mather in Who's Who of the Colored Race, Craig also served as a vocational counselor as early as 1904. Craig taught in the nation's capital for seventeen years. During that time, he was associated with at least two high schools: the Armstrong Manual Training Night School and the M Street High School. Craig introduced mechanical and architectural drawing in Washington's African American schools and helped develop manual training courses for schools in other cities. He also served as Armstrong's principal from 1904 to 1906. Perhaps by 1915, Craig was also teaching at M Street High School.

During his years as an educator in the public school system of Washington, Craig was involved in a number of additional activities. From 1909 to 1916, he was the superintendent of the Lincoln Temple Congregational Sunday School. While serving as Sunday school superintendent, Craig became one of the first individuals to use film as an instructional aid in churches.

Chronology

1871: Born in Weston, Missouri on December 1
1890: Graduates from Atchison High School
1895: Earns B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Kansas
1896: Accepts position as teacher of physics and electricity in the Industrial Department at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute; marries Luella C.G. Moore
1901: Enters Columbia University where he studies psychology, manual training, and philosophy; begins teaching high school in Washington, D.C.
1904: Appointed principal of Armstrong Manual Training Night School
1909: Serves as superintendent of Sunday School at Lincoln Temple Congregational Church
1910: Pursues courses in ethics, psychology, and philosophy at Catholic University of America
1932: Marries Althea M. Rochon
1959: Dies

Craig established public playgrounds in the city and was superintendent for three years. He was also one of the founders of Washington's Colored Social Settlement. A resident of the Anacostia section of Washington, Craig was involved in the campaign to make Cedar Hill, Frederick Douglass's Anacostia home, a national landmark. The efforts of Craig and many others were rewarded when Cedar Hill, which was opened to visitors in 1916, was added to the National Park System in 1962 and was designated a National Historic Site in 1988. In addition to his school, church, and community responsibilities, Craig ran a poultry farm and dairy.

Craig was a member of the American Negro Academy, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Masons, National Education Association, and the Teachers' Association of D.C. He moved to New York and was employed as a mechanic, draftsman, heating engineer, teacher and an editor of a Harlem newspaper.

Craig married Luella Cassandra Gladys Moore, a teacher at Tuskegee Institute, on August 26, 1896. They had three children. Details about Craig's life are scarce, and facts about his life after 1915 are even fewer. It is known that Craig died in 1959 and that he was survived by at least one immediate family member: his second wife, Althea, who died in 1970. Arthur Ulysses Craig's contributions are not widely known in the early 2000s. Yet he was a man who earned an engineering degree, studied abroad, and attended graduate school during a time when many members of his race could not attend high school. He dedicated decades of his life to improving education for African Americans and to improving the communities where he worked and lived.

REFERENCES

Books

Mather, Frank Lincoln. "Arthur Ulysses Craig." In Who's Who of the Colored Race: A Biographical Dictionary of Men and Women of African Descent 1915. Detroit: Gale Research, 1976.

Nichols, J. L., and William H. Crogman, eds. "Arthur Ulysses Craig." In Progress of a Race or the Remarkable Advancement of the American Negro. Naperville, IL: J. L. Nichols and Company, 1920.

Sowell, Thomas. "The Education of Minority Children." In Education in the Twenty-First Century. Ed. Edward P. Lazear. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2002.