Rural school district reorganization and school consolidation are put into perspective by reviewing the large population increases that fueled small-school growth in the Great Plains, 1870-1930. Since the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, population losses, improvements in transportation, and arguments advocating economies of scale and increased…

With the goal of improving citizenship and character education in the elementary school child through learning by doing in the form of a school-based club, the Young Citizens League (YCL) appeared in rural South Dakota early in the twentieth century, introduced by Michael M. Guhin and developed by E.C. Giffen. By 1930, at its peak, it had an…

In 1948, a young and naive Robert Ove arrived at Whitetail, on the Mescalero Apache Reservation, to teach at the Bureau of Indian Affairs day school. Living there were the Chiricahua Apaches--descendants of Geronimo and the survivors of nearly 30 years of incarceration by the U.S. government. With help from Indian historian H. Henrietta Stockel,…

Students explore concepts of Progressive Era education and learn how the philanthropic efforts of Pierre Samuel du Pont helped transform Delaware's education system for African American school children. It is based on the National Register of Historic Places registration file "Iron Hill School Number 112C," interviews with former pupils,…

Written in 1953, this book presents the reminiscences of a renowned scientist about his early education in a one-room school at Prairie View, Kansas, during the 1870s and 1880s. The first chapter records early memories of the road to school, and describes the community of Anglo and German farmers served by Prairie View. Other chapters describe…

This book presents letters, a personal narrative, and a diary relating the experiences of nine women teachers who traveled from the East to teach on western frontiers before the Civil War. During 1846-56, the National Popular Education Board recruited 600 experienced teachers from New England and New York State; trained them in Hartford,…

This book explores the country schoolhouses of Texas' rural past. Sources include interviews with dozens of former country schoolteachers and students and first-person narratives collected from written works. Chapters cover the following topics: (1) history of public education and country schools in Texas; (2) distance travelled by teachers and…

In this video, former students and teachers recall their experiences in rural one-room schools in various regions. Just getting to school involved some hardship; anecdotes include experiences of walking, riding horses, driving snowmobiles or all-terrain vehicles, and canoeing to school. Students, teachers, and community members developed a…

The war has served to accentuate many marked weaknesses in the nation's rural school system. For years devoted leaders in this important educational field have carried forward a propaganda to enlist local and national interest in the matter, and not altogether without success. In many sections of the country splendid schools have been organized…

This book describes the experience of a young and inexperienced teacher during 1926 in rural Marengo County, Alabama. Susie Powers Tompkins accepted her first teaching assignment to earn money to continue college after her freshman year at Alabama College. However, for Tompkins the rewards of teaching went far beyond just earning money. She found…

The characteristics of one-room rural schools in Barbour County, West Virginia, are representative of one-room rural school characteristics in general. These include building design and problems; teacher' lives and duties, certification, salaries, and training; scheduling and curriculum; games; punishments; and hot lunch programs. Since one-room…

The country school legacy of Wyoming is rich in history, folklore, and tradition. Materials (many anecdotal) gathered from school records, oral histories, autobiographies, and memoirs provide glimpses into the diverse and demanding role of frontier teachers (who were mostly female and, by contract requirement, usually single) and the work and…

Designed to preserve the rich heritage of the rural school system which passed from the education scene in the 1930's and 1940's, this narrative, part history and part nostalgia, describes the author's own elementary education and the secure community life centered in the one room Spring Valley School in Hamilton County, Iowa, in the early decades…

During the mid-1930s, the main line of the Newfoundland (Canada) Railway stretched 547 miles from St. John's to Port aux Basques, and railway workers and their families lived along the line in small isolated settlements. The provincial department of education, the Newfoundland Railway, and the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company devised an…

This bulletin contains abstracts of the addresses delivered at a conference called by the United States Commissioner of Education to consider problems concerned with the professional preparation of teachers for rural schools. They were prepared from copies of the addresses or abstracts of them furnished by the speakers who prepared or delivered…