Discusses the life and career of Lowell Mason, the first professional music educator in the United States. Explores Mason's dual career as educator and businessman. Describes his involvement in choral directing, instrumental music, public school music teaching, and music teacher training. Attributes Mason's success to his teaching skills,…

During the Jim Crow era, separation of the races in public places was either required by law or permitted as a cultural norm. Public school systems across the U.S. south were typically segregated. After 1896, these schools were supposed to adhere to the separate but equal rule established by the U.S. Supreme Court in "Plessy v.…

In Cincinnati, Ohio, between 1836 and 1853, controversy over religious education resulted from religious, ethnic, and political factors. Debate began between Catholics (mostly German and Irish immigrants) and Protestants over which Bible should be used in the public schools. (It was accepted that daily Bible readings were to be a part of religious…

The public schools responsible for educating hundreds of thousands of East European Jewish immigrant children in New York City between 1893 and 1917 had three major goals: scholastic preparation, especially literacy in English, acculturation, and socioeconomic stratification. According to information obtained from interviews of students and…

For over a century, Texas public schools have attempted to acculturate Mexican-American children by denigrating Mexican-American culture, language, and history. These efforts have largely failed, as Mexican-Americans in Texas have not lost their cultural heritage and assimilated into the larger society. However, this ethnic group has been shorn of…

This document examines the chronological history of financing the Alaskan public school system. The first section traces the influence of the Greco-Russian Church and the Russian-American Company on education in Russian Alaska. The second section focuses on early United States education efforts, including the Sheldon Jackson era, the Organic Act…

This paper examines the history of the civic education of immigrants to the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was a time of great social upheaval, not only for the new immigrant groups, but also for members of groups that had arrived in the United States earlier. Public schools were seen as the logical institutions…

Examines the institutional history of public schools in the United States in the context of gender, and investigates gender practices and policies in the context of formal education. There was far less gender segregation in classrooms under the control of teachers than in informal groups of children outside adult supervision. (BJV)

Discusses history instruction in the public schools. Describes the deemphasis of history as social studies began to stress citizenship and social education. Argues that history will not regain an important place in education until historians begin to justify study of the past as a lesson in human life, wisdom, and mistakes. (DK)

Looking back at the debates about public schooling in the 1820s can be especially important today when Congress seeks to reinscribe the same definitions of schooling that the working class leaders tried to resist in the 19th century. On the platform for the New York Working Man's Party in 1829 was "equal education," a term that meant…

Provides a historical survey of black school politics in Atlanta between 1872 and 1973. Identifies four major periods in the struggle to improve educational opportunities for black children. Changes in strategies and goals from one period to the next were determined by changes in the political resources available to the black community. (PS)

Describes the "people's college" as the distinctive nineteenth-century educational institution of the United States. These tax-supported public secondary schools prepared graduates for business and industry but lost their position as the defining secondary institution when challenged to prepare students for college as well as employment.…

Contained herein is a developed and researched history of Public School Education in Delaware, current as of 1917. Contents include: (1) Colonial growth and development; (2) The first attempts at State Education; (3) The beginnings of public schools; (4) The first State taxation for schools; (5) The State system: Administration of Groves and…

This essay examines the relationship between economic and educational developments in the United States in the decades prior to the Civil War. Early industrialization in the United States began during the first half of the 19th century and seems to coincide with common school expansion and reforms. Yet the link between economic and educational…

The relationship between education and broad changes in American society is explored in these chapters, most of which were previously published essays. The first part of the book examines families, schools, and the challenges of economic opportunity. Chapter 1 examines the relation between family and schooling in colonial 19th-century America,…