were inspired by the work of pioneering educators such as Samuel Armstrong and Dr. Washington, to create and fund educational efforts specifically for the betterment of African Americans in the South. In his autobiography Up From Slavery, Booker T. Washington stated that what made the greatest impression on him at Hampton was General Samuel C. Armstrong, "the noblest, rarest human being that it has ever been my privilege to meet." "One might have removed from Hampton all the buildings, classrooms, teachers, and industries, and given the men and women there the opportunity of coming into daily contact with General Armstrong, and that alone would have been a liberal education." (Up from Slavery, Chapter III) Death and legacy Partially disabled by a stroke while on a speaking tour in 1892, Armstrong returned to Hampton in a private railroad car provided by his multimillionaire friend, Collis P. Huntington, builder of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway and Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, with whom he had collaborated on black-education projects. Armstrong died at the Hampton Institute on May 11, 1893, after suffering a second stroke. As he had requested, he was buried in the student cemetery on Hampton's campus. His widow returned to New England. As discussed in the family section above, all his daughters would be associated with Hampton University, and his son Daniel Armstrong would become a career Naval officer and train African American troops during World War II. His grandson, Harold Howe II, became Commissioner of Education under the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson. His papers (and those of some family members) are held by the Special Collections division of the Williams College library. Growth and decline of Normal Schools As the ever-increasing numbers of new teachers went back to their communities, by the first third of the 20th century, over 5,000 local schools had been built for blacks in the South with private matching funds provided by individuals such as Henry H. Rogers, Andrew Carnegie, and most notably, Julius Rosenwald, each of whom had arisen from modest roots to become wealthy. Dr. Washington later wrote that, by requiring matching funds, the benefactors felt they were also addressing self-esteem. The recipients locally would have a stake in knowing that they were helping themselves through their own hard work and sacrifice. In many communities, the histories of the so-called Rosenwald schools reflect that to have proved true. In time, the normal