Lecture

Honors U.S. History Name:

Week 13
Mr. Irwin Period:

CHAPTER 9 -1
THE EXPANSION OF EDUCATION

Key Terms:
• literacy – the ability to read and write

• assimilation – the process by which people of one culture become part of another.

• philanthropist – (usually wealthy) a person who gives donations to worthy causes

such as schools, universities, hospitals, etc. for the purpose of benefiting mankind in
general.

• the Niagara Movement – an African American group founded in 1905 that called for
full civil liberties and an end to racial discrimination.

• classism – societal conditions in which differences in social status are maintained

and perpetuated (the division of society into ranked groups).

• segregation – the policy and practice of imposing the social separation of races.

THE MANY FACES OF AMERICAN SCHOOLS

White America:
By the time of the Civil War, approximately half of American children were enrolled in
free public schools. In 1870, only 2 % of all 17-year-olds graduated from high school.
Originally, the goal of American public schools was to teach children the very basics of
how to read, write and do simple arithmetic (sometimes referred to as the 3 Rs of
readin’, rightin’ and ‘rithmetic).

In rural areas, farm children had to help plant and harvest the crops, so on average,
they only attended school from around November through April.

When the industrial age came about, after the Civil War, the educational needs of the
U.S. changed. At a time when families needed incomes, and factories needed laborers,
industrial America turned to immigrants, women, and children as the source for the labor
that would produce their products.

The Industrial Era created a need for workers who could be quick learners and who
could become skillful operators of the new machines that were increasing production of
all kinds of products. Families in need of money, were forced to choose work for their
children over education.

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Public Education Becomes Law:
The governments of the various states began focusing on the need for public education,
primarily because of the prevailing belief that education developed knowledge that could
be used to help Americans become self-sufficient and successful. By 1900, 31 states
had passed laws requiring children between the ages of 6 and 14 to attend school. By
1910, more than 70% of American children were attending public school.

Native American Schools:

The U.S. developed a policy of assimilation, and attempted to merge, or “Americanize”
native Americans into the dominant white culture. The concept of the “advanced
European” vs the “primitive Native American” was still prevalent in the late 1800s and
early 1900s. Government run boarding schools were set up. With a prevailing view that
the only way to civilize the Native American was to stamp out its culture. Towards this
goal, Native American children were separated from their families and sent to boarding
schools where they would learn the “American” way. These schools had the effect of
producing as a final product, children who no longer fit in with their own people, and
who were not fully accepted by the dominant white society either.

African American Schools:

After the Civil War, schools were segregated. African American children could not
attend the same schools as the whites attended. Many dominant whites, as well as
some black community leaders believed in keeping the races separate. Not everyone
agreed on this issue though. A number of legal cases came about as the result of
segregation, as you will learn today.

Immigrant Education:
As America experienced periods of high immigration between 1870 and 1910, schools
were modified to address the need to teach English to immigrants from a variety of
European countries (many of whom could speak little or no English upon arrival).

MINORITIES IN AN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY

1870 – 1910

By the late 19th century, America had evolved into a fragmented society based on racial,
ethnic, and religious lines of classism. At a time when the Statue of Liberty was being
installed in New York harbor, with an inscription of “give me your huddled masses,”
American society was not universally eager to incorporate “others” into the American
mainstream.

Classism and Segregation:

By the turn of the century, Jim Crow Laws were prevalent all across the country. These
laws were legal responses to the previously illegal practices that were used primarily in
the south, to keep Blacks from obtaining political and economic power. Included in the
Jim Crow Laws, were laws that imposed restrictions upon Blacks, and spelled out
conditions of a segregated American society.

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The African American Response:
As African Americans became educated and tried to find their place in society, there
were differing views on how to approach or how to achieve equality. Between the 1880s
and 1910, there was no single voice claiming to have the answer.

Booker T. Washington:
Booker T. Washington became the most celebrated Black leader of the Industrial Era.
He was born a slave in Virginia, in 1856. In 1881, he founded the Tuskegee Institute, a
vocational school for Blacks, in Alabama. At Tuskegee, Washington formulated a
philosophy that advocated economic advancement for every Black person. This
philosophy included the views that:

• Blacks should not attempt to fight for political and social rights.

• Instead, they should concentrate on learning skills that would help them get
ahead in society.

• Blacks should work hard to achieve their goals.

• Blacks should attempt to acquire property.

• Segregation was not necessarily degrading and therefore, it ought to be

accepted by Blacks.

Washington’s philosophy is illustrated in this quote: “In all things that are purely social
we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all matters essential to
mutual progress.”

He obtained national prominence and gave advice to several U.S. presidents.

W.E.B. Du Bois:
A northerner with a very different philosophy than that of Booker T. Washington’s.

• Was known as an elegant writer.

• A rigorous scholar.

• Was the 1st black man to earn a PhD from Harvard University.

• Proposed the idea of the “Talented Tenth.” The supposition that the most
cultivated and well-trained blacks should set the example for all of America, that
blacks were equal, and that this Talented Tenth should work to improve the
conditions of the less advantaged African Americans.

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 • He became the primary spokesperson for the Niagara Movement, a group of
northern blacks, committed to the sometimes militant pursuit of legal, economic
and political equality.

• In 1909, Du Bois helped found the NAACP, which emphasized the use of legal
strategies to end racial discrimination.

1896 – Plessy v. Ferguson:

In its ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court defines the concept of “separate but equal.” This
ruling has the effect of legally sanctioning segregation in America.

* (In groups, students will analyze Plessy v. Ferguson).

OVERHEAD

White Protestants
maintaining
dominant
control
↓

Minorities
← sometimes→ the →
numerical majority

↓ ↓ ↓

African Native Southern

Americans Americans Europeans
segregation assimilation classism
numerical numerical
majority majority

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