Robert Charles Bates (January 27, 1869 – May 2, 1950), was an American architect, educator, and textbook author. He was an African American architect and helped design and build many of the Claflin University campus buildings, a historically black university (HBU) in South Carolina. He is thought to be the first Black teacher of architecture at a HBU; and the first African American author of an architecture textbook.
Biography
Robert Charles Bates was born on January 27, 1869 in Columbia, South Carolina, where his father was a farmer. It is thought that he took a correspondence course in mechanical drawing (possibly from Scranton Correspondence School in Scranton, Pennsylvania). He attended Clafin University's Normal School to become a teacher, but he was short two years from graduation.
In a turn of events and despite not graduating, he was appointed as the superintendent of manual training at Claflin University, determined by the Freedmen's Aid Society and the Southern Education Society. By fall of 1890, Bates was teaching architectural drawing at Claflin, and is believed to be the first Black teacher of architecture at a HBU. Two years later he published a textbook based on his class lectures, and despite being poorly written, it may be the first architecture book authored by an African American.
From 1897 until 1900, Bates moved to Upstate New York in order to teach mechanical drawing at Elmira Reformatory. Followed by teaching vocational trade at the Jacob Tome Institution for Black juvenile delinquents and orphans in Port Deposit, Cecil County, Maryland.
Many of the biographical details of Bate's life are unknown. Bates' profile was included in the biographical dictionary African American Architects: A Biographical Dictionary, 1865–1945 (2004).
Bates died in Spencer, New York on May 2, 1950, at the age of 81.
Publications
Works
T. Willard Lewis Chapel (1890) at Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina
Fisk Building (main building, 1899) the north and south towers at Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina (destroyed by a fire in 1913) Fisk Building (main building, 1900) classroom annex at Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina (destroyed by a fire in 1913) John F. Slater Manual training building at Claflin University, Orangeburg, South Carolina