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The Progressive Educator, Race and Ethnicity in the Depression Years: An Overview

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2017

Ronald K. Goodenow
Ronald K. Goodenow*
Affiliation:
State University of New York at Buffalo
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Extract

Few historians have analyzed the attitudes of major white progressive educators on race and ethnicity. Very little is known about what they did in the area of race relations and the schooling of minority and ethnic groups or about efforts sponsored by the Progressive Education Association to deal with racial tension and the “place” of blacks and white ethnics in American society. Likewise, the response and contribution of blacks and ethnics to progressive education has received little attention from scholars.

Type
Article I
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , Winter 1975 , pp. 365 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © 1975 by New York University 

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References

Notes

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2. See Flint Kellogg, Charles, NAACP: A History of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1, 1909–1920 (Baltimore, 1967): 20.Google Scholar

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20. See Heard Kilpatrick, William, Our Educational Task As Illustrated in the Changing South (Chapel Hill, 1930).Google Scholar

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23. See Heard Kilpatrick, William, “Education and Intolerance,” The Social Frontier, 5 (May 1939): 230–231; Heard Kilpatrick, William, “The Problem of Minorities, an Editorial,” Frontiers of Democracy, 6 (April 15, 1940); Heard Kilpatrick, William, “Through the Looking Glass,” Intercultural Education News, 2 (October 1910): 1; and the following in Frontiers of Democracy, 6 (April 15, 1940): Mead, Margaret, “The Student of Race Problems Can Say…”: 200–202; Pratt Fairchild, Henry, “Who is American?”: 203–205; Cole, Stewart G., “The Meaning of the Term: Minorities”: 205; Horowitz, Eugene, “The Social Roots of Prejudice”: 206–208; Alain Locke, “With Science as His Shield the Educator Must Bridge Our ‘Great Divides’”: 208–210; and Seamans, Herbert L., “Schools and Jews”: 211–213; See also Benedict, Ruth, “Differences vs. Superiorities,” Frontiers of Democracy, 9 (December 15, 1942): 81–82; Olsen, Edward G., “Perspective in Race Relations,” The Social Frontier, 1 (November 1934): 29; Brameld, Theodore, “Karl Marx and the American Teacher,” The Social Frontier, 2 (November 1935): 56; Boyden, H. J., “Which America?” The Social Frontier: 4 (May 1938), 268; and Mitchell, Broadus, “Excluded Because of Color,” letter to Frontiers of Democracy, 6 (March 1940): 191.Google Scholar

24. Rugg, Harold, America and Her Immigrants (n.d. 1922) and Rugg, Harold, An Introduction to Problems of American Culture (Boston), p. 561.Google Scholar

25. See “Education and National Unity,” Intercultural Education News 2 (January 1941): 3.Google Scholar

26. Rugg, Harold, “Creative America: Can She Begin Again?” Frontiers of Democracy, 6 (October 1939): 9. See also Clapp, Gordon R., “The Program of the Tennessee Valley Authority,” Frontiers of Democracy, 6 (November 15, 1939): 48–55, 61; Gant, George F. and Thorsten Lund, S. E., “Education and Regional Growth in the Tennessee Valley,” 6 (November 15, 1939): 49–51; and Soule, George, “The National Resources Planning Board,” Frontiers of Democracy, 6 (March 15, 1940): 168–170.Google Scholar

27. See especially Rugg, Harold, The Teacher of Teachers: Frontiers of Theory and Practice in Teacher Education (New York, 1952), p. 78.Google Scholar

28. See Daniel, Walter G., “Negro Welfare and Mabel Carney at Teachers College, Columbia University,” The Journal of Negro Education, 11 (October 1942): 560–562; and “Trends and Events of National Importance in Negro Education,” The Journal of Negro Education, 7 (January 1938): 92–93.Google Scholar

29. See Gallagher, Buell G., American Caste and the Negro College; plus footnote 65 below.Google Scholar

30. See “Report of the Executive Secretary,” (1936), 2, Progressive Education Association Mss., University of Illinois.Google Scholar

31. There were too many articles published to provide a complete citation. For representative pieces see the March, 1935 issue.Google Scholar

32. Citron, Abraham, Reynolds, Collins J. and Taylor, Sarah W., “Ten Years of Intercultural Education in Educational Magazines,” Harvard Educational Review, 15 (March 1945): 129–133. For valuable insights into the development of intercultural education in the 1930s see Grossman, Mordecai, “The Schools Fight Prejudice, An Appraisal of the Intercultural Education Movement,” Commentary, 1 (March 1946): 34–42; “Brief Report of Specific Organizations and Their Programs,” Harvard Educational Review, 15 (March 1945): 134–146; Feinberg, , “Progressive Education and Social Planning”; and Brameld, Theodore, Minority Problems in the Public Schools: A Study of Administrative Policies and Practices in Seven School Systems (New York, 1946). On the influence of urban unrest see Thurston, Eve, “Ethiopia Unshackled: A Brief History of the Education of Negro Children in New York City,” Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 69 (April 1965): 227–230. For a general overview of the relationship between the progressive education movement and intercultural education in the 1930s, see also Goodenow, Ronald K., “The Progressive Educator and Racial Tolerance: Intercultural Education, 1930–1941,” a paper presented to Division F of the American Educational Research Association (April 1975). The author has benefited from the insights of Nicholas Montalto on intercultural education.Google Scholar

33. For an overview of its literature see Graham, , Progressive Education …, op. cit., 138–139. Its activities and philosophy are summed up in Keliher, Alice V., “The Commission on Human Relations: Its Work and Relation to the Defense of Democracy,” Progressive Education, 17 (November 1940): 487–504.Google Scholar

34. Davis-DuBois was a “young militant” in the NAACP who supported black economic separatism in the early 1930s. See Wolters, , Negroes and the Great Depression …, pp. 310–311, 313, 318. Her NAACP interests went unmentioned in Davis-DuBois' intercultural education publications. For information on the early work of Davis-DuBois see Rachel Davis-DuBois, A School and Community Project in Developing Sympathetic Attitudes Toward Other Races and Nations (New York, 1934); Davis-DuBois, Rachel, “The New Frontier,” Opportunity, 12 (February 1934): 40–41; and Davis-DuBois, Rachel, “Practical Problems of International and Interracial Education,” The Clearing House, 8 (April 1936): 486–490. For an extensive review of the work of the Service Bureau see the “Report of the Committee for Evaluation of the Work of the Service Bureau for Intercultural Education” prepared by a Committee appointed by the General Education Board. This report is on file at The Rockefeller Foundation Archives in New York City. Genivieve Chase served as Director of Research. Committee members included Otto Klineberg, Hugh Hartshorne, E. Franklin Frazier, Willian G. Carr, Harry Stack Sullivan and Leonard W. Doob.Google Scholar

35. See, for example, Davis-DuBois, Rachel, “Intercultural Education at Benjamin Franklin H.S.,” High Points in the Work of the High Schools of New York City, 19 (December 1937): 23–29; Fine, Benjamin, “Schools to Open Intolerance Drive,” The New York Times (January 16, 1939), Section II, 3; and “Courses in Intercultural Education Given by Service Bureau Staff,” Intercultural Education News, 1 (September 20, 1939): 3. Local 5, the New York Teachers Union eventually purged from the American Federation of Teachers showed strong interest in race and ethnicity. It is evident that its membership included a substantial black representation. Its publications addressed racism and intolerance within the context of the historical job ceiling which faced blacks as well as specific depression conditions. It generally applauded the efforts of the PEA and Service Bureau. See, for example, Lewis, Celia, “Schools for Tolerance I,” The New York Teacher, 4 (December 1938): 10–11; and Milstein, Marion and Mayer, Jenny L., “Schools for Tolerance II,” The New York Teacher, 4 (January 1939): 10–11.Google Scholar

36. See “Report of the Committee ….”Google Scholar

37. For valuable research on the recollections of various progressives, including Kilpatrick, Stewart Cole, H. H. Giles and Helen and Frank Trager, who assumed power in the Service Bureau in the late 1930s, see the series of interviews conducted by Olive Hall of the Boston Univerity Human Relations Center c.a. 1958. The original manuscripts are on file at the Boston University Human Relations Center. The author wishes to acknowledge the generous assistance of Walter Feinberg of the University of Illinois in obtaining this material. One particularly helpful document in this collection is Stewart Cole, “The History of the Bureau of Intercultural Education,” an unpublished manuscript made from tape recordings of an interview by Hall.Google Scholar

38. See Cole, “The History of the Bureau …,” op. cit. Google Scholar

39. Brameld, Minority Problems …, op. cit., passim. Yavner, Louis, Administration of Human Relations Program in New York City Schools, Report to Hon. F. H. La Guardia, Mayor of the City of New York (New York, 1945), pp. 99–102. The General Education Board Report noted that interculturalists were at times naive regarding the sociology of the school itself. See Report of the Committee …, op. cit. Google Scholar

40. This rather static view of pluralism may be related to the emphasis of existing pluralist theory and many interculturalists on description and stress upon “differences” and “contributions.” It must also be seen within the context of the progressive educator's interest in building national consensus and unity around democratic ideology. For a valuable discussion of the ahistorical and asociological aspects of this approach see Newman, William M., American Pluralism: A Study of Minority Groups and Social Theory (New York, 1973), especially pp. 69–70. For an overview of arguments favoring “the Great Society” see Newman, Fred M. and Oliver, Donald W., “Education and Community,” Harvard Educational Review, 37 (Winter 1967): 61–106. Fein, Leonard J. in The Ecology of the Public Schools: An Inquiry into Community Control (New York, 1971) takes up the question to the historical attitude of liberals on legitimacy.Google Scholar

41. Council Against Intolerance in America, An American Answer to Intolerance (Teachers Manual No. I, Junior and Senior High Schools, Experimental Form) (New York, 1939).Google Scholar

42. See “Brief Report on Specific Organizations…,”.Google Scholar

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44. The South, in the period from 1930 to 1940, saw an increase in public school enrollment of over 300,000, despite national trends to the contrary. See United States Office of Education, Biennial Survey of Education in the United States, 1939–1940, Vol. I (Washington, 1947), pp. 60, 113.Google Scholar

45. The General Education Board, which funded many curricular revision projects in the South, numerous PEA programs and the regional endeavors of the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools and the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools for Negroes was motivated to a significant degree by these motives. See, for example, Havinghurst, Robert and Rhind, Flora, “The Program in General Education,” General Education Board, Annual Report (New York, 1941), p. 34.Google Scholar

46. This function of progressive education is discussed in Swift, David, Ideology and Change in the Public Schools: The Latent Functions of Progressive Education (Columbus, 1969) and in Burgess, Charles and Borrowman, Merle L., What Doctrines to Embrace: Studies in the History of American Education (Glenview, 1969), pp. 113–141.Google Scholar

47. For insights on recent Southern history, New South ideology and Southern progressivism see Tindall, George B., The Emergence of the New South 1913–1945 (Baton Rouge, 1967); Clark, Thomas D., The Emerging South (New York, 1968); Gaston, Paul M., The New South Creed: A Study in Southern Mythmaking (New York, 1970); and Bailey, Hugh G., Liberalism in the New South: Southern Social Reformers and the Progressive Movement (Coral Gables, 1969).Google Scholar

48. Tindall writes that Georgia's program was part of an attempt by D, Governor E. Rivers to create a “little New Deal” in his state. See Tindall, pp. 617–618.Google Scholar

49. For their social philosophy and ideas on the extent to which children must be trained to understand the “realities” of depression see Martin's, William H. comments in Clift, Virgil A., Anderson, Archibald W. and Hullfish, Gordon, Negro Education in America: Its Adequacy, Problems, and Needs, Sixteenth Yearbook of the John Dewey Society (New York, 1962), pp. 72–73. In their Curriculum Development (New York, 1935), they stress the need to keep students busy in the face of both increased opportunity for leisure and unemployment (406). Children must also be educated for the “planned social order” (29–30) in which urbanization (32) and the fostering of individualism within a cooperative context (36) were to be among the major goals of schooling. Both taught at the Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville. Caswell later went on to Teachers College, Columbia University.Google Scholar

50. Procedures for Virginia State Curriculum Program, Bulletin, State Board of Education, 14 (Richmond: November 1932), 24.Google Scholar

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52. Division of Instruction, State Department of Education, Montgomery, Report of the Committee on Social and Economic Conditions in Alabama and Their Implications for Education, Alabama Education Association, Bulletin No. 3 (Montgomery: May 15, 1937), 124–125.Google Scholar

53. See his “Summary of Recommendation in Regard to Negro Education,” in Louisiana Educational Survey, Vol. 4 (Baton Rouge, 1942), pp. 239–240.Google Scholar

54. Georgia Program for the Improvement of Instruction in the Public Schools, The Open Road: A Teacher's Guide for Child, Adult and Community Development in Negro Elementary Schools, Bulletin No. 2A (Atlanta, 1938), pp. 32–34; and Georgia Program for the Improvement of Instruction in the Public Schools, Guide to Life-Related Teaching in the Negro High Schools of Georgia, Bulletin No. 4 (Atlanta, October, 1938), pp. 27, 60–61.Google Scholar

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57. Ibid., 26.Google Scholar

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59. The PEA's position was developed in “Field Work in the South, Sponsored by the Progressive Education Association,” a position paper submitted by Frederick J. Redefer to the GEB, March 15, 1939. See also two internal memorandam of Leo M. Favrot of the General Education Board of an interview of Frederick L. Redefer of the PEA, April 17, 1939 and Interview Re: “Redefer's Request for Aid on Field Work in the South,” Leo Favrot to Frank C. Jenkins, Director, Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, March 27, 1939, GEB Mss. There is also considerable evidence in these and other materials that the PEA's image in the South was either self-serving or too “radical.” For information on the extensive program of the Southern Association see Frank Jenkins, et al., The Southern Association Study: A Report of the Work With the Thirty-Three Cooperating Secondary Schools (The Commission on Curricular Problems and Research of the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, 1941). This publication discusses cooperation with the PEA and contains a complete bibliography on its activities.Google Scholar

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67. See Brown, William H. and Robinson, William A., Serving Negro Schools: A Report of the Secondary Study, Its Purposes, Working Techniques and Findings (Atlanta, 1946), pp. 58–72. See page 71 for a listing of workshop publications. For the General Education Board's role in the Study see Mann, Albert R., “The Program in Southern Education,” General Education Board, Annual Report, 1943 (New York, 1944), The General Education Board Mss. in the Rockefeller Foundation Archives contain considerable materials on the study and the Board's motivation in funding it. Complex as these motives were, it came after continual prodding by several black educators and the refusal of the white Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools to include blacks in its programs of regional planning and evaluation.Google Scholar

68. Robinson, W. A., “Progressive Education and the Negro,” Proceedings Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools for Negroes (1937) (n.d.), 57–60. See also W. A. Robinson, “What Peculiar Organization and Direction Should Characterize the Education of Negroes?” The Journal of Negro Education, 5 (July 1936): 393–400; Robinson, W. A., “A New Era for Negro Schools,” Progressive Education, 7 (December 1940): 541–565; and Robinson, W. A., “What is Progressive Education?” The Virginia Teachers Bulletin, 14 (February 1937): 23–26.Google Scholar

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70. See, especially, The Bulletin (late in the decade, The National Educational Outlook Among Negroes) published by the National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools, renamed the American Teachers Association in the late 1930s, and the many journals published by black state teachers groups in the South. These publications are on file at the Schomberg Collection of the New York Public Library.Google Scholar

71. Charles S. Johnson, the black Fisk University sociologist, served on several PEA advisory committees in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and Alain Locke, a PEA member, appeared on PEA panels in the North. Very few blacks participated in the affairs of the PEA at the national level. For a strong attack on the general failure of the progressive education movement to include blacks see Robinson, “A New Era ….” There is some evidence that the officers of the PEA agonized slightly over segregation as early as 1935. In 1937, the Board of Directors passed a resolution by W. Carson Ryan that after March 1, 1937 national conferences would be held where “people of all races (could) … attend without discrimination in any way whatsoever all sessions of the conference.” This resolution, which said nothing with regard to housing, was apparently the result of difficulties surrounding an upcoming conference in St. Louis. See “Minutes of Board of Directors,” April 7, 1935 and January 9–10, 1937. PEA Mss. Teachers College.Google Scholar

72. See Caliver, Ambrose, “The Role of the Teacher in the Reorganization and Redirection of Negro Education,” The Journal of Negro Education, 5 (July 1936): 508–516; and Caliver, Ambrose, “The Negro Teacher and a Philosophy of Education, Negro,” The Journal of Negro Education, 2 (October 1933): 432–447. See also, “Report of the Committee on Resolutions of the American Teachers Association,” The National Educational Outlook Among Negroes, 18 (September 1937): 24–25; and Scott, John W., “The New Deal in Education,” The Bulletin, 12 (January 1934): back cover.Google Scholar

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77. Mann Bond, Horace, The Education of the Negro in the American Social Order (1934) (New York, 1966), p. 9.Google Scholar

78. Mann Bond, Horace, “Democracy and the Problem of Minority Groups,” Progressive Education, 18 (October 1941): 282. See also Mann Bond, Horace, “Education in the South,” The Journal of Educational Sociology, 12 (January, 1939): 264–274; Bond, , The Education of the Negro, pp. 48–149. Mann Bond, Horace, “The Extent and Character of Separate Schools in the United States,” The Journal of Negro Education, 4 (July 1935): 327, and Mann Bond, Horace, “The Liberal Arts College for Negroes: A Social Force,” in A Century of Municipal Higher Education (A Collection of Addresses Delivered During the Centennial Observance of the University of Louisville, America's Oldest Municipal University) (Chicago, 1937), p. 363.Google Scholar

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80. For an excellent recent discussion see Feinberg, Walter, Reason and Rhetoric (New York, 1975).Google Scholar

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86. The author has benefited from Simmons, Michael Jr., “The Function of Praxis in the Philosophy of Education,” unpublished manuscript (1974).Google Scholar

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88. For an excellent general discussion of the progressive view of politics see Welter, Rush, Popular Education and Democratic Social Thought in America (New York, 1962).Google Scholar