Mary McLeod Bethune Home, African-American house museum at Bethune-Cookman University, Daytona Beach, United States.
The Mary McLeod Bethune Home is a modest two-story frame house in the American Foursquare style, with side wings and a hip-roof porch across the front. A brick addition from 1953 houses the Bethune Foundation's papers and documents. It stands on the northeast side of the Bethune-Cookman University campus, west of Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
The house was built about 1904–05 and bought in 1913 by the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School, the institution Bethune founded that became Bethune-Cookman University, as her residence. She lived there from 1913 until her death in 1955. The Mary McLeod Bethune Foundation was created in 1953 to maintain the house, which was named a National Historic Landmark in 1974.
The Mary McLeod Bethune Foundation, founded in 1953, keeps the house as a museum interpreting her life. A brick addition from that year holds her papers and documents. Bethune was a friend of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt and advised Roosevelt in the 1930s.
The site is located on the university campus and visitors can explore the home through guided tours that explain each room and its original use. The building was fully restored in 2011 and maintains accessible pathways throughout the property.
The foundation established by Mary McLeod Bethune in 1953 continues to manage the property and maintains extensive archives documenting early African-American education efforts. These records provide researchers with firsthand information about education initiatives and community building during this period.
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