The Booker T. Washington Home was founded in 1918 by Mr. and Mrs. Alex Barker. They housed six children in a small house in the 500 block of West Jackson Street in Bloomington. In 1920, women from various Bloomington-Normal churches decided to help with the daunting task of feeding, housing, and clothing the young children at the home. Eventually the home was chartered by the State of Illinois on December 22, 1920, as the McLean Home for Colored Children.
The chartered home was located at 1203 West Moulton Street in Bloomington. The six-room home, in poor condition and with no modern conveniences, opened with thirty children ages one to sixteen. The home was then able to purchase additional adjoining lots to provide for a yard and garden and a second structure. A new brick building was erected in 1935, and the name was changed to the Booker T. Washington Home in 1942. The home last appears in the City Directory in 1968.
This collection includes correspondence, brochures, newspaper articles, titles of abstract, and records books.