he held for the remainder of his life. Rosenwald endowed Tuskegee so that Washington could spend less time fundraising and more managing the school. Later in 1912, Rosenwald provided funds to Tuskegee for a pilot program to build six new small schools in rural Alabama. They were designed, constructed and opened in 1913 and 1914, and overseen by Tuskegee architects and staff; the model proved successful. After Washington died in 1915, Rosenwald established the Rosenwald Fund in 1917, primarily to serve African-American students in rural areas throughout the South. The school building program was one of its largest programs. Using the architectural model plans developed by professors at Tuskegee Institute, the Rosenwald Fund spent over $4 million to help build 4,977 schools, 217 teachers' homes, and 163 shop buildings in 883 counties in 15 states, from Maryland to Texas. The Rosenwald Fund made matching grants, requiring community support, cooperation from the white school boards, and local fundraising. Black communities raised more than $4.7 million to aid the construction and sometimes donated land and labor; essentially they taxed themselves twice to do so. These schools became informally known as Rosenwald Schools. But the philanthropist did not want them to be named for him, as they belonged to their communities. By his death in 1932, these newer facilities could accommodate one-third of all African-American children in Southern U.S. schools. Up from Slavery to the White House Washington's long-term adviser, Timothy Thomas Fortune (1856–1928), was a respected African-American economist and editor of The New York Age, the most widely read newspaper in the black community within the United States. He was the ghost-writer and editor of Washington's first autobiography, The Story of My Life and Work. Washington published five books during his lifetime with the aid of ghost-writers Timothy Fortune, Max Bennett Thrasher and Robert E. Park. They included compilations of speeches and essays: The Story of My Life and Work (1900) Up from Slavery (1901) The Story of the Negro: The Rise of the Race from Slavery (2 vols., 1909) My Larger Education (1911) The Man Farthest Down (1912) In an effort to inspire the "commercial, agricultural, educational, and industrial advancement" of African Americans, Washington founded the National Negro Business League (NNBL) in 1900. When Washington's second autobiography, Up from Slavery, was published in 1901, it became a bestseller—remaining the best-selling autobiography of an African American for over sixty years—and had a