In "The Other American Dilemma," Rubén Donato and Jarrod Hanson examine the experiences of Mexican immigrants, Mexican Americans, and Hispanos/as in their schools and communities between 1912 and 1953. Drawing from the Mexican Archives located in Mexico City and by venturing outside of the Southwest, their examinations of specific…

This study argues for the importance of analyzing individual students' responses to writing instruction in crafting histories of the field of rhetoric and composition. I engage in an archival study of student writing at the University of Kansas during the turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, specifically through a genre-based local…

Haskell Indian Nations University opened 133 years ago, on September 17, 1884, as the U.S. Training and Industrial School--one of three original tribal boarding schools funded by the United States Congress. Three years later the school changed its name to Haskell Institute in honor of Chase Dudley Haskell, a U.S. representative from the Second…

As American settlement spread to the Midwest, college and university campuses came to symbolize some of the greatest achievements of public policy and private philanthropy. However, the expansion westward often ignored the cultural precedents of Native Americans and the diversity of the varied native landscapes. Today, campus planners and historic…

About 50 miles east of Topeka, Kansas, in what is now the suburban town of Merriam sits South Park Elementary School. Built in 1947 for white children at a cost of $90,000, the school at that time showcased eight modern classrooms, a multi-purpose auditorium, a lunchroom, and playground. Today, the building serves as a monument to a struggle for…

As late as 1938 there were 200,000 one-room schools scattered throughout the United States. By 1978 there were little more than 1,000 in operation. Primary-source research on rural education has now been conducted by 23 researchers in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming, sponsored by the Mountain…

In this article, the author discusses the 50th Anniversary Commission of the "Brown v. Board of Education" that draws both praise and criticism from nationally prominent figures in education, civil rights, and government--including its own commissioners. As the federal commission commemorates the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme…

Country schools in eastern and central Kansas are explored from six different aspects: country schools as historic sites; teachers (their roles, rules, and restrictions); reading, writing, arithmetic, and recitation (a day in a rural school); country schools and the Americanization of ethnic groups; country schools as community centers; and…

On May 17, 2004, our nation celebrated the 50th anniversary of a landmark decision, Brown versus the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. This U.S. Supreme Court decision was an impressive unanimous vote. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine of "Plessy v Ferguson" that the Court had…

The present study is an attempt to bring together and to interpret the more important facts concerning the origin and development of the municipal university in the United States. It is obvious that in a work in which the history of a university must be presented in a chapter instead of a volume, and in which the discussion of the subject as a…