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…

Materials from the I.D. Weeks Library of the University of South Dakota, relating to country schools and the history of rural education in South Dakota and written between 1874 and 1976, are listed in this annotated bibliography. Publications of the South Dakota Department of Public Instruction include: school laws, some dating back to 1877;…

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…

As revealed in personal interviews, periodicals, published and unpublished manuscripts, and school records, the teachers were the key factor in bringing education and culture to the frontier that was western South Dakota. Many teachers were girls of 16 or 17, inexperienced, hired from states to the east (Minnesota and Iowa), sight unseen.…

Country schools were important in the growth and development of North Dakota. While most of the early schools were constructed of wood, some were constructed of stone, sod, or logs. Standardization was established by 1915, and the white framed one-room school was duplicated in every township of the state until the end of World War II. A former…

This book focuses on the lives and work of women teachers in two rural California counties between 1850 and 1950. It explores the social context of teaching and what teaching meant and provided to women teachers. Chapter 1 explores the shifts between 1840 and 1930 in representations of the woman teacher in the United States. Chapter 2 discusses…

Teacher duties and curriculum developed by North Dakota, in deciding what role teachers would play in the community and what standards of conformity and propriety would be applied to teachers, mirrored certain aspects of the local culture and reflected a wider national culture. The inclusion of health studies reflected the local majority concern…

This part of the Country School Legacy: Humanities on the Frontier Project, funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and sponsored by the Mountain Plains Library Association, traces the biases faced by female school teachers in Utah from the nineteenth century to the present. First, there is a description of the early…

A study of historical background of the frontier and rural schools in Colorado describes education in the United State in general and the development of the educational process and school facilities during five phases of Colorado's economic and political development. "The Nation" discusses philosophies generally held during the middle…

Presenting information drawn primarily from interviews and visits to abandoned, operating, and restored country schools in Nebraska, this report is part of the Country School Legacy Project, intended to study the role rural schools played in the history of the frontier and to locate and preserve information related to country schools. The report…

The state superintendent, the county superintendent, and the one-room school teacher each contributed to classroom instruction in North Dakota. In 1895, the "School Text Book Law" provided for free text books and school supplies for all pupils; however, the law was not mandatory. Specific courses of study and elaborate handbooks on all…

As part of an eight-state research effort to locate and preserve information related to country schools, this report examines western South Dakota's country schools as historic sites, country schools as community centers, teachers (their roles, rules, and restrictions), school curriculum, education for Sioux Indians, and country schools today.…

Part of an 8-state effort to study the role rural schools have played in the history of the frontier and to locate and preserve information related to country schools, this report presents information drawn primarily from interviews with 30 former country school students, board members, and rural school teachers in western Nebraska and from visits…

As an examination of the role played by rural schools in the history of the Wyoming frontier and the result of an effort to locate and preserve information related to country schools, this report is part of an eight-state research effort. Periodicals, unpublished manuscripts, school records and interviews with 19 Wyoming residents reveal details…

The history of rural education in northwestern Wyoming and the accompanying bibliography of unpublished manuscripts, periodicals, school records, and oral histories comprise part of an eight-state research effort, Country School Legacy, to study the role rural schools have played in the history of the frontier and to locate and preserve…