[1] Slaughter moved to Washington, D.C. in 1896, where he took a position as a compositor with the U.S. Government Printing Office, a role including designing forms and typesetting documents.
[5] In 1910 Slaughter became editor of Philadelphia-based masonic publication the Odd Fellows Journal, a role he shared with Arturo Alfonso Schomburg for many years.
[2] Slaughter served as a correspondent for multiple periodicals, including the Kentucky Standard, the Philadelphia Tribune, and the A.M.E. Church Review.
[2] Other items in the collection included accounts of Black secret societies in the United States, a full run of The Colored American newspaper, and the complete writings of Paul Laurence Dunbar.
[2] In the mid-1940s, his library contained approximately 10,000 books and 100,000 newspaper clippings, as well as pamphlets, photographs, and letters,[2] The collection filled three floors and the basement of his Washington, D.C.
[7] Dorothy Porter Wesley created an inventory of Slaughter's collection when it was sold to Atlanta University and moved from his house in 1946.
[7] He belonged to an informal club called the "Labor Day Bunch," a group of Black men who would meet regularly to talk about books over gourmet meals; members included Slaughter, Schomburg, and Wendell Dabney.