Born in Buckingham County, Virginia, Carter Woodson studied at Berea College from 1896 to 1898. He received his B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1907; a year later he was awarded an M.A. from Chicago. Woodson studied history at the Sorbonne and in 1912 received a Ph.D. from Harvard. (He is the only African American born of former slaves to earn a Ph.D.) He taught public school in West Virginia before moving to Washington, D.C., where he taught at Dunbar and Armstrong High School from 1908 to 1918. He served as principal of the Armstrong Manual Training High School and in 1919 was selected to be dean of the School of Liberal Arts at Howard University. Woodson retired in 1922 to devote more time to research. He founded the Journal of Negro History and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. He is responsible for the creation of Negro History Week, which later became Black History Month.

Source:
Goggin, Jacqueline. “Woodson, Carter Goodwin.” American National Biography. February 2000. http://www.anb.org/articles/14/14-00718.html. 28 March, 2005.

 Who’s Who in Colored America . Ed. Thomas Yenser. 5 th ed. Thomas Yenser: New York, 1940. pg. 576.