The Origins of Chazy Central Rural School, Part 2

As we approach the 100th anniversary of the opening of Chazy Central Rural School, I thought it might be interesting to take a closer look at its origins. These blog posts, which will delve into the historical context of the school’s founding, are based on a talk I gave for the Clinton County Historical Association. Part 1 looked at the broad social changes happening at the turn of the century and their effect on education. In Part 2, we’ll see how proponents of the Country Life Movement tried to bring city innovations to country schools, and look at some of the urban schools that inspired William Miner and George Mott.

Interior of a Rural School
Instructional Lantern Slide produced by the NY State
Education Department
New York State Archives

For the most part, early progressive education reformers focused their efforts on urban schools. Cities had more resources and seemed to be in greater need of attention. So, by the turn of the century, the differences between urban and rural schools had become quite striking. The one-room country schoolhouse, where children of all ages were taught by a single, minimally-trained and supervised teacher, seemed all the more backward when compared to urban schools. Rural school reformers thus started from the presumption that the most effective way to help rural schools was to introduce the modifications that had been implemented in city schools.

In their correspondence regarding the Chazy Central Rural School, William Miner and George Mott most frequently cited three urban schools as their inspiration: John Dewey’s Laboratory School at the University of Chicago; the Speyer School of Teachers College, Columbia University, which was a combined elementary school, social settlement, and teacher-training facility; and the school systems of Gary, Indiana under superintendent William Wirt.

Elementary Geography Class,
Laboratory School

George Mott spent two months in Gary taking a course for school superintendents in the winter of 1916. Like many people who were interested in education reform he was captivated by what Wirt had accomplished there, and in fact the original proposal presented to the town in November 1915 stated that the new school would adopt the so-called “Gary Plan.” Although CCRS ultimately decided not to implement the plan, it clearly had a powerful influence on Mott and other would-be reformers. 

Gary was a new city—it had been founded in 1906 by US Steel as a company town. When Superintendent William Wirt arrived in 1907, he had the opportunity to create an innovative school system more or less from scratch. Wirt introduced what he called the Platoon System, also known simply as the “Gary Plan.” Its main goal was to maximize use of school facilities in order to serve a growing number of students in limited space. The platoon system divided students into two groups. For part of the day, Platoon X used classrooms for traditional academic subjects, while Platoon Y did specialized activities—sports, music, art, library, field trips, assemblies, etc. They then switched places for the second part of the day.

Print Shop at Emerson School, Gary, Indiana
From The Gary Schools: A General Account

Wirt envisioned each school as what he called “a self-sustaining child community.” The school should contain all the elements that children would find in the adult world, so that they would be prepared for life in modern society. The Gary schools provided industrial and manual training facilities such as printing, electrical, carpentry, and metalworking shops, so that students could gain work experience and learn real skills. Students also worked on the school grounds, in the office, and in the cafeteria.

The Gary schools are a good example of the way the two strains of Progressive education reform could coexist. On the one hand, the platoon system was designed to maximize efficient use of resources and required coordination and planning from above. On the other hand, the curriculum grew out of a desire to provide an enriching environment in which children could naturally learn by doing.

While city schools frequently served as models for what rural school reformers were trying to accomplish, they also recognized that country children had specific needs and that the country school had a different role to fulfill in the rural community. In addressing the broader problems facing rural residents, proponents of the Country Life movement hoped that education and specifically, the rural school, would become a catalyst for change.

From Country Life and the Country School

The Country Life Movement aimed to counteract the forces that it was believed drove young people away from the country and pulled them to the cities. People left rural areas because of the lack of economic opportunity, but were also drawn toward the cities because of their social attractions. The solution, then, seemed to be finding ways to make country life more attractive so that people would not want to leave. 

In looking at the conditions of country life, reformers identified isolation as the root of many problems. It was unavoidable that people in rural areas would live at some distance from their neighbors, but there were other ways of fostering community and cooperation. Better methods of communication, like improved roads, the telephone, and rural mail delivery, would help. So would organizations like the Grange, Farmers Institutes, village improvement societies, and cooperative associations like creameries.

From Country Life and the Country School

Key to bringing about these changes was education, and so the school was at the center of all discussions about country life. Mabel Carney, one of the most prominent writers about rural schools, pointed out a number of reasons why the school could, and should, be at the forefront of the Country Life Movement. For one, the school was a “democratic community institution, representing the whole community.” Every community had a school, and it was guaranteed at least some financial support. As an agent of the state, it had a certain degree of authority and could compel “attention, support, and attendance.” Finally, properly trained school teachers were prepared to take up leadership roles in the community.

The first step was reforming the school itself. In the 1910 book The American Rural School (which George Mott advised all CCRS teachers to read) author Harold Foght identified six elements that were essential to the 20th century rural school:

1. More thorough school organization and administration

2. Greatly increased school support

3. Professional supervision and instruction

4. Modern school plant

5. Practical course of study

6. Centralization and consolidation of schools

In Part 3, we will see how Chazy Central Rural School implemented these school reforms.

Sources:

Liberty Hyde Bailey, The Country-Life Movement in the United States (Macmillan, 1911)

Joseph C. Burke, William H. Miner: The Man and the Myth (Langdon Street Press, 2009)

Kenyon L. Butterfield, Chapters in Rural Progress (University of Chicago Press, 1908)

Mabel Carney, Country Life and the Country School: A Study of the Agencies of Rural Progress and of the Social Relationship of the School to the Country Community (Row, Peterson and Company, 1912)

Ronald D. Cohen and Raymond A. Mohl, The Paradox of Progressive Education: The Gary Plan and Urban Schooling (Kennikat Press, 1979)

David B. Danbom, “Rural Education Reform and the Country Life Movement, 1900-1920,” Agricultural History 53, no. 2 (April 1979), 462-474.

H. W. Foght, The American Rural School: Its Characteristics, Its Future and Its Problems (Macmillan, 1910)

The Origins of Chazy Central Rural School, Part 1

As we approach the 100th anniversary of the opening of Chazy Central Rural School, I thought it might be interesting to take a closer look at its origins. These blog posts, which will delve into the historical context of the school’s founding, are based on a talk I gave for the Clinton County Historical Association. Part 1 looks at the broad social changes happening at the turn of the century and their effect on education.

Chazy Central Rural School
From a set of instructional lantern slides produced by
the New York State Education Department, 1919
New York State Archives

When Chazy Central Rural School first opened its doors to pupils in the fall of 1916, it was like nothing that had ever been seen before in the North Country. A five-story Spanish Mission style structure, topped with turrets and a bell tower, it towered over all the other buildings in the village. Inside were classrooms for students from first through twelfth grade, laboratories and workshops, two swimming pools, a thousand-seat auditorium with film projector and organ, doctor’s and dentist’s offices, and a sunlit cafeteria where students ate at marble-topped tables.

Rev. George R. Mott,
first Dean of CCRS

CCRS was formed when the village school and ten other rural school districts in Chazy and Champlain merged under a new state law that allowed for consolidation. The two main figures behind the push for consolidation and the creation of a new school were William H. Miner, inventor, philanthropist, and owner of Heart’s Delight Farm; and George R. Mott, minister of the Chazy Presbyterian Church. While their goal was always to create a school that would serve the particular needs of the children of Chazy, they were also deeply connected to broader currents of thought regarding education. CCRS was very much the product of a particular moment in time and beliefs about the role of public schools in 20th-century America.

Chazy Central Rural School grew out of two early-20th century movements: the Progressive educational reform movement and the Country Life Movement, both of which attempted to solve some of the problems associated with the shift from a primarily rural, agricultural society to an urban-industrial one. In both movements, public schools took center stage as as one of the key sites of social change. Progressive educators and advocates of the Country Life Movement had many ideas about what rural schools should look like and what role they should play in rural communities. In fact, if you read the dozens of books on the subject published between 1900 and 1920, and then planned a school based on what you had read, you would probably end up with something that looked very much like Chazy Central Rural School.

So what were the problems that rural school reformers were trying to solve, and why did CCRS look the way it did when it opened in 1916? Over the course of the 19th century, agriculture and rural life had been transformed by demographic shifts and technological changes. In 1835, more than 2/3 of all Americans lived on farms. If you were a white man, you had a good chance of owning property and working for yourself, rather than for wages. But as the United States became a more industrialized nation, that changed. In 1880, the Census Bureau found for the first time that the majority of the workforce was in non-farming jobs. By 1900, two out of every five Americans lived in cities.

Farm family posing with a threshing machine, late 19th c.
from Passion for the Past

For those Americans who remained in the country, farming was altered by the introduction of new machinery and long-distance transportation. Farming had always represented independence and financial security, but by the 1890s, that was less true than it ever had been. Farmers depended upon seed and equipment suppliers, storage facilities, banks, and railroads, which were increasingly part of impersonal corporate conglomerates. They had little control over what prices their products would command, or where they would be sold.

In both city and country, there was a growing sense that schools were not adequately preparing students for life in a modern, industrial society. In cities, this sense of crisis was compounded by a growing and diversifying student population that included first- and second-generation immigrants along with students who did not plan to attend college. In 1890, less than 5% of American adolescents attended high school, but by 1920 over 30% did. Instead of preparing students for college and professions, the high school now also had to provide a general education to students with varying needs. Traditional academic subjects were supplemented by programs in music, drawing, sports, nature study, and the like. Schools expanded their offerings to include technical, business, and other vocational training.

John Dewey, the best-known proponent
of “education for democracy”

In making these changes to American schools, Progressive educational reformers were guided by two main philosophies, which historians have described as “education for democracy” and “education for efficiency.” Proponents of education for democracy emphasized the need to make schools creative environments. They promoted child-centered activities and programs based on the child’s individual interests. The school itself should be a microcosm of the larger society, where students would learn about all aspects of life and would be given opportunities to use their hands as well as their heads. Nurturing the individual child, it was hoped, would help produce a more just, equitable, and democratic society.

On the other hand, proponents of efficiency in education drew upon the practices of business and industry to make schools run more smoothly. They introduced reforms in administration, supervision, teacher training, and testing, with the goal of turning out students who were prepared to take their places in the modern bureaucratic system. In this case, the personal happiness of the individual child was secondary to the needs of society as a whole. These two perspectives could, and did, exist within the same school system. And although their approaches were different, both ultimately had the goal of producing a harmonious society made up of well-adjusted individuals.

In Part 2, we’ll see how proponents of the Country Life Movement tried to bring city innovations to country schools, and look at some of the urban schools that inspired William Miner and George Mott.

Sources:

Joseph C. Burke, William H. Miner: The Man and the Myth (Langdon Street Press, 2009)

Ronald D. Cohen and Raymond A. Mohl, The Paradox of Progressive Education: The Gary Plan and Urban Schooling (Kennikat Press, 1979)

David B. Danbom, “Rural Education Reform and the Country Life Movement, 1900-1920,” Agricultural History 53, no. 2 (April 1979), 462-474.

Pageants and Greased Pigs: The Glorious, Complicated Fourth of July

John Lewis Krimmel, Fourth of July Celebration in Centre Square, Philadelphia (1819)

John Adams, writing to his wife Abigail in the summer of 1776, was certain that he had witnessed a day destined to be celebrated “as the great anniversary Festival.” “It ought to be commemorated,” he wrote, “as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” Adams, of course, was talking about the 2nd of July, the day on which the Second Continental Congress had voted to approve a resolution of independence. Ultimately, Americans would come to celebrate on July 4th, the date shown on the copy of the Declaration of Independence that was made public. But Adams was right that Americans would commemorate their independence with “pomp and parade.” For much of the United States’ history, the Fourth of July has been one of the most significant holidays of the year.

Advertisement for Fourth of July
picnic in Cincinnati, 1877
(Library of Congress)

When William Miner was a boy, July Fourth celebrations, especially those in big cities, tended to separate along class and ethnic lines. Fraternal, labor, and ethnic organizations hosted their own festivities for their members, which included picnics, athletic competitions, and other boisterous amusements. Members of elite groups, such as the Society of the Cincinnati, attended official public ceremonies and private banquets. These more genteel citizens often criticized working-class celebrations as “reckless tomfoolery,” “lawless saturnalia,” and “desecrated by rowdyism.” By the end of the 19th century, municipal governments had begun to try to control holiday celebrations by enacting regulations on parades and the detonation of fireworks, and by increasing police patrols on the Fourth. They also began to sponsor their own Fourth of July celebrations, which helped maintain public order while also boosting the popularity of city officials. City governments organized “carnival processions, fireworks, balloon ascensions, picnics, dances, bicycle races, and athletic contests.”

Immigrant children in colonial pageant, Portland,
ca. 1926 (Maine Historical Society)

In the early 20th century, “growing fears about fires and vandalism, immigrant mobs, and injuries and accidents” coalesced with the emerging Progressive movement to create the “Safe and Sane July Fourth” campaign. Launched by the Playground Association of America, the Safe and Sane movement campaigned to ban the private sale of fireworks. However, leaders also recognized that they would have to provide alternative forms of entertainment. Their goal was to find activities that would appeal to a mass audience but still had some redeeming social value. Folk dancing, athletic drills, pageants, and crafts—especially those associated with the American past—were popular choices. Activities that incorporated lessons from history were seen as particularly valuable to the groups that playground and settlement workers aimed to reach: children and immigrants. 

These workers had much in common with proponents of the Colonial Revival movement, who also believed that the past had important lessons to teach the present. Here at the Alice, it sometimes feels like every day is the Fourth of July, surrounded as we are by images of George Washington and other reminders of early American history. But as we’ve seen, Independence Day has always been a lot more contested than these straightforward expressions of patriotism might suggest. Who celebrates the Fourth of July, and what form those celebrations take, can get pretty complicated.







Sources:

Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776, “Had a Declaration...” [electronic edition]. Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society. http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/

David Glassberg, American Historical Pageantry: The Uses of Tradition in the Early Twentieth Century (University of North Carolina Press, 1990)

Roy Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920 (Cambridge University Press, 1983)

Leah Weinryb Grohsgal, “Bonfires, Greased Pig Races, Pickle Contests, and More: Historic Fourth of July Celebrations from Chronicling America,” NEH Division of Preservation and Access.

The Revival of Weaving in the 20th Century

In the same year that the Alice T. Miner Museum opened its doors, a new organization was founded in Chicago by a group of women interested in the study and collection of woven coverlets. While Alice herself doesn’t seem to have been a guild member, she knew at least one of its organizers: Georgiana Long Gunsaulus, the widow of Frank W. Gunsaulus, who shared with her late husband and with Alice an interest in collecting and preserving examples of early textile art.

The founding of the Coverlet Guild in 1924 was perhaps the logical outcome of an interest in the art and history of weaving that had been developing since the early 1900s, and which intersected with a number of other contemporary movements. Alice’s coverlet collection might be seen as an outgrowth of her interest in the Arts and Crafts Movement (evident in the scrapbook articles she saved from the 1890s) as well as her connections to the Colonial Revival. It also brought her into contact with individuals who were attempting to revive or preserve weaving in Appalachia in an effort to “uplift” mountain women—a project that was itself influenced by the Progressive movement and the settlement houses of Chicago.

Tools of textile production on display
at the Hull-House Labor Museum

Proponents of the Arts and Crafts movement, the Appalachian craft revival, and Progressivism all believed in the ability of handicraft to improve people’s lives. Handwork provided a creative outlet and a vehicle for self-expression; it could be a way to counteract the homogenizing forces of industrialization and mass production; and on a more practical level, it might provide income for people (women, especially) whose economic opportunities were limited. Many different crafts were promoted (metalwork, pottery, bookbinding), but weaving was especially beloved by all three groups. It was fairly easy to learn and produced useful goods; it had connections to early American history but also was an important part of many of the cultures from which immigrants came; and it was a craft traditionally performed by women in their own homes.

In his 1904 report for the Bureau of Labor, “The Revival of Handicrafts in America,” Max West recorded the activities of dozens of organizations dedicated to reviving hand weaving (mostly in the southern mountains) and rug making (in New England). All were founded by educated, middle- to upper-class women (many of whom had spent time at Hull House or another settlement house) who came to rural communities and worked with local women to revive their craft traditions. 

Women preparing to warp a loom using traditional
methods, North Carolina, ca. 1910

The Appalachian region was the obvious target for this kind of reform work. Communities tended to be economically depressed and isolated, and life was considered especially hard for women, who lived largely without modern conveniences. But because these areas had been “left behind” in the race toward modernization (as reformers saw it) textile production and other handicrafts had never died out completely. There were still plenty of women in the Appalachian south who knew how to spin and weave, using knowledge and patterns that had been passed down from the early nineteenth century.

Blue Mountain Room, White House

Already in 1904, West reported, “There is a constant and apparently increasing demand for hand-woven fabrics, notwithstanding their expensiveness as compared with factory-made goods. Aside from the popularity of old-fashioned blue-and-white coverlets for decorative purposes, handmade linsey-woolsey and cottonades are coming into vogue for outing and golf skirts, and even to some extent for men’s clothing; and there is also a growing demand for hand-woven linen and other cloth to serve as the backgrounds for art embroidery, etc.” The Appalachian weaving revival got an important boost in 1913, when first lady Ellen Wilson redecorated the White House’s Blue Mountain Room using traditional textiles made by Emelda McHargue Walker, a Tennessee weaver who worked with Allanstand Industries, one of the major weaving centers in North Carolina.

Allanstand Industries product display, 1910s

Women living in rural areas of the Appalachian Mountains were receptive to the idea of producing coverlets and other textiles as a source of income. It was something that many of them already knew how to do, the materials were readily available, and the products could be shipped inexpensively. Perhaps most importantly, it was work they could do at home and was compatible with childrearing and other household duties. Whether women felt the kind of creative satisfaction that proponents of handicraft assumed they would is another story. Most of the time, weavers did not get to decide what they made. They were given patterns and materials by the managers of weaving centers, who designed products that would appeal to middle-class consumers. Weavers felt pride in their technical skills and doing a job well, but it was not necessarily an uplifting, aesthetic experience. Still, in a region where currency was in short supply, weaving provided a reliable source of cash income. 

The founders and managers of weaving centers also hoped that their work would preserve the traditions of weaving. However, the pattens, tools, and materials they used were modern ones, suited for the production of large quantities of textiles for sale in urban markets. Over time, weaving centers tended to shift production from coverlets and other large items to smaller pieces like towels and placemats that required less time and skill. But women did keep weaving (indeed, the Allanstand Craft Shop is still in operation), and the craft centers do seem to have encouraged a greater appreciation for antique textiles, which helped to preserve them and led to the creation of groups like the Colonial Coverlet Guild.

So where do Alice Miner and her coverlet collection fit into this story? We’ll get to that in the next post, when a visitor from the Kentucky mountains pays a visit to the North Country.