Up from Slavery is the autobiography of American educator Booker T. Washington (1856-1915). The book describes his personal experience of having to work to rise up from the position of a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton Institute, to his work establishing vocational schools--most notably the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama--to help black people and other disadvantaged minorities learn useful, marketable skills and work. This book was a best-seller and remained the most popular African American autobiography until that of Malcolm X. In 1998, the Modern Library listed the book at No. 3 on its list of the 100 best nonfiction books of the 20th century, and in 1999 it was also listed by the conservative Intercollegiate Review as one of the 50 Best Books of the Twentieth Century.