Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:49:13.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Out-of-Class Project: American Teachers' Summertime Activities, 1880s–1930s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Christine A. Ogren
Christine A. Ogren*
Affiliation:
Educational Policy and Leadership Studies department at The University of Iowa
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In March 1887, Eva Moll wrote about the previous summer in her diary: “The season was fall of rich things of course. Heard some fine violin and harp playing by two Italians. I never expect to hear ‘Nearer my God to Thee’ sweeter on this earth, than it was played by the violinist. We first went to Niagara, visiting all the points.” Moll was not a wealthy person of leisure. She was a single Kansas schoolteacher in her late twenties who struggled to make ends meet, and yet had spent nine weeks at the quintessentially middle-class Chautauqua Institution in western New York State. A slice of my larger investigation of the history of teachers' “summers off,” this essay will explore the social-class dimensions of their summertime activities during a distinctive period for both the middle class and the teaching force in the United States, the decades of the 1880s through the 1930s.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , February 2016 , pp. 8 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 History of Education Society 

References

1 Diary of Moll, Eva, March 27, 1887, Diaries Related to Chautauqua, Oliver Archives Center, Chautauqua, NY.Google Scholar

2 Coffman, Lotus Delta, The Social Composition of the Teaching Population (New York: Teachers College, 1911), 77, 83; Labaree, David F., The Trouble with Ed Schools (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 37; National Education Association, Report of the Committee on Teachers’ Salaries and Cost of Living (Ann Arbor, MI: National Education Association, 1913), 240; Lynd, Robert S. and Lynd, Helen Merrell, Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929), 209; Waller, Willard, The Sociology of Teaching (1932; reprinted, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1967), 58; Lortie, Dan C., Schoolteacher: A Sociological Study (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1975), 10; and Swartz, David, Culture & Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), 178.Google Scholar

3 Tyack, David and Hansot, Elisabeth, Learning Together: A History of Coeducation in American Public Schools (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), chaps. 3–4; and Gold, Kenneth M., School's In: The History of Summer Education in American Public Schools (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), chaps. 1–2, 74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Blount, Jackie M., Fit to Teach: Same-Sex Desire, Gender, and School Work in the Twentieth Century (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005); chap. 3; Clifford, Geraldine J., Those Good Gertrudes: A Social History of Women Teachers in America (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), 52–53, chaps. 3–6; Kliebard, Herbert M., “The Feminization of Teaching on the American Frontier: Keeping School in Otsego, Wisconsin, 1867–1880,” Journal of Curriculum Studies 27, no. 5 (1995): 545–61; Rury, John, “Who Became Teachers? The Social Characteristics of Teachers in American History,” in American Teachers: Histories of a Profession at Work, ed. Warren, Donald (New York: Macmillan, 1989), 9–48. Cordier's history of women teachers in Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska between the 1860s and the 1920s, Rousmaniere's account of New York City's women teachers in the 1920s, Hoffman's broad overview and documentary history, and Clifford's wide-ranging history of women teachers in the United States focus almost exclusively on the school year. In-depth accounts by Markowitz of the lives of Jewish women teachers in twentieth-century New York and Weiler of the lives of women teachers in rural California between 1850 and 1950 include the summer months, but just hint at the importance of summer in shaping teachers’ lives and careers. Pieroth's history of interwar Seattle teachers includes more in-depth discussion of their summer activities, and Rousmaniere's biography of teacher organizer and activist Margaret Haley includes detailed discussions of Haley's attendance at various summer schools while she was a young teacher in the 1880s and 1890s. Mary Hurlbut Cordier, Schoolwomen of the Prairies and Plains: Personal Narratives from Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, 1860s to 1920s (Albuquerque, NM: The University of New Mexico Press, 1992); Rousmaniere, Kate, City Teachers: Teaching and School Reform in Historical Perspective (New York: Teachers College Press, 1997); Hoffman, Nancy, Woman's “True” Profession: Voices From the History of Teaching, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2003); Clifford, , Those Good Gertrudes; Markowitz, Ruth Jacknow, My Daughter, the Teacher: Jewish Teachers in the New York City Schools (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993); Weiler, Kathleen, Country Schoolwomen: Teaching in Rural California, 1850–1950 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998); Pieroth, Doris Hinson, Seattle's Women Teachers of the Interwar Years: Shapers of a Livable City (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004); Rousmaniere, Kate, Citizen Teacher: The Life and Leadership of Margaret Haley (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005).Google Scholar

5 Bledstein, Burton J., The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1976), 30; Rodgers, Daniel T., The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 1850–1920 (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1974/1978), chap. 4; Aron, Cindy S., Working at Play: A History of Vacations in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Aron reflects teachers’ ambiguous status when she includes them in the middle class and in the working class in different parts of the book. On the formation of middle-class culture, see also Levine, Lawrence W., Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); Ohmann, Richard, Selling Culture: Magazines, Markets, and Class at the Turn of the Century (New York: Verso, 1996).Google Scholar

6 The Intelligence: A Journal of Education 21 (September 1, 1900): 493; “What Shall We Do With the Long Vacation?” The Iowa Normal Monthly (Hereafter INM) 1, no. 12 (July 1878): 360; “Teachers’ Vacations,” Midland Schools 25, no. 10 (June 1911): 291; and Ruediger, W. C., “Baiting Teachers,” School and Society 17 (March 24, 1917): 330–32.Google Scholar

7 Gold, , School's In, chap. 3, quotation on 97; Barr, W. F., “The Summer School,” INM 20, no. 10 (May 1897): 422; Lawrey, James, “The Summer School,” INM 20, no. 11–12 (June–July 1897): 451, 450; and NEA, Report, 240–41.Google Scholar

8 Lawrey, , “The Summer School,” 450; Elsbree, Willard S., Teachers’ Salaries (New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1931), 4; NEA, Report, 241; “The Teachers’ Vacation Association,” INM 13, no. 5 (December 1889): 122; and “Country Retreat for Teachers,” INM 22, no. 5 (December 1898): 190–93.Google Scholar

9 “Recreation for Teachers,” The American School Board Journal 21 (August 1900): n.p.; The Historical Collections of Washburn County and the Surrounding Area (1916?), 399, Washburn County Historical Society, Shell Lake, WI; Pieroth, , Seattle's Women Teachers, 189, 183–85; Kaufman, Polly Welts, National Parks and the Woman's Voice: A History (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996), 21; and Gompertz, Helen M., “A Tramp to Mt. Lyell,” Sierra Club Bulletin 1 (May 1894): 140.Google Scholar

10 “What Shall We Do,” 261; Pieroth, , Seattle's Women Teachers, 161–62; Miranda Cather to Nellie Covert, June 25, 1885, Nellie Penelope Covert Papers, Special Collections and Archives, Emporia State University; NEA, Report, 233; and Weiler, , Country Schoolwomen, 153, 298, note 83.Google Scholar

11 “State News,” Minneapolis Tribune, 19 August 1878, 3; NEA, Report, 232; Turner, Jas. W., Haifa Century in the School Room, or Personal Memoirs of Jas. W. Turner (Carrier Mills, IL: Turner Publishing Company, 1920), 43, 60; Pogue, Grace Canan, The Swift Seasons (Hollywood, CA: The Cloister Press, 1957), 75, 85–87; see also Weiler, Country Schoolwomen, chap. 4.Google Scholar

12 Gerber, Philip, ed., Bachelor Bess: The Homesteading Letters of Elizabeth Corey, 1909–1919 (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1990), 311–12, 355–56, 142, 190–91.Google Scholar

13 Markowitz, , My Daughter, 127; Gold, , School's In, chap. 4–5; Reese, William J., Power and the Promise of School Reform: Grassroots Movements During the Progressive Era rev. ed. (New York: Teachers College Press, 2002), 133–44; and NEA, Report, 231.Google Scholar

14 The Intelligence 22, no. 8 (April 15, 1902): 312; Midland Schools 35, no. 8 (April 1922): 303, 307; 35, no. 7 (March 1921): 260; 35, no. 9 (May 1921): 325; 35, no. 6 (February 1921): 195; 36, no. 6 (Feb. 1922): 188.Google Scholar

15 Poling-Kempes, Lesley, The Harvey Girls: Women Who Opened the West (New York: Paragon House, 1989).Google Scholar

16 Kaufman, , National Parks, 91; 1936–1939 Albums, Merle Janice Schroeder Papers, Boxes 1–2, Manuscript Collections, Yellowstone National Park Archives, Gardiner, MT.Google Scholar

17 Demaray, Jane Galloway, Yellowstone Summers: Touring with the Wylie Camping Company in America's First National Park (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 2015); Wylie, W. W., Yellowstone National Park, or the Great American Wonderland(Kansas City, MO: Ramsey, Millett & Hudson, 1882); Watry, Elizabeth Ann, “More than Mere Camps and Coaches: The Wylie Camping Company and the Development of a Middle-Class Leisure Ethic in Yellowstone National Park, 1883–1916,” Master's Thesis, Montana State University, 2010, guest quoted on 47–48; “Wylie Permanent Camping Co., Yellowstone National Park,” brochure (1910), Yellowstone National Park Research Library, Gardiner, MT; Aron, Working at Play, 233.Google Scholar

18 Kaufman, , National Parks, 66–67; Watry, Elizabeth A., Women in Wonderland: Lives, Legends, and Legacies of Yellowstone National Park (Helena, MT: Riverbend Publishing, 2012), 147, 155; Albright quoted in Memorandum of the History of Women in Uniform (NPS) in Yellowstone National Park by Aubrey L. Haines, October 1961, Employees, Vertical File Collection, Yellowstone Research Library; Correspondence between Johnson, J. M. and Albright, Horace, 1923, Interpretation and Education Records, series 2: Communications, Box 1, Yellowstone Archives.Google Scholar

19 Gold, , School's In, 99–100; Barr, , “The Summer School,” 421. On gender issues and the professional status of teaching, see Hoffman, Woman's “True” Profession; and Clifford, Geraldine Joncich, “Man/Woman/Teacher: Gender, Family, and Career in American Educational History,” in American Teachers, ed. Warren, 315–19.Google Scholar

20 Ogren, Christine A., The American State Normal School: “An Instrument of Great Good” (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 20–22; Allison, Clinton B., Teachers for the South: Pedagogy and Educationists in the University of Tennessee, 1844–1995 (New York: Peter Lang, 1998), 6–14; Miranda Cather to Nellie Covert, June 25, 1885, and Williams, Vallie P. to Nellie Covert, July 12, 1885, Nellie Penelope Covert Papers; and Wofford, Kate V., An History of the Status and Training of Elementary Rural Teachers of the United States, 1860–1930 (Pittsburgh: Thomas Siviter and Company, 1935). See also Spearman, Mindy, “‘The Peripatetic Normal School': Teachers Institutes in Five Southwestern Cities (1880–1920),” PhD Dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Fraser, James W., Preparing America's Teachers: A History (New York: Teachers College Press, 2007), 70–78; Gerber, , ed., Bachelor Bess, 193–94, 259, 260; and Fairclough, Adam, A Class of Their Own: Black Teachers in the Segregated South (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), 248, 319–20.Google Scholar

22 “To the Teachers and Friends of Education of Iowa,” INM 12, no. 10 (May 1889): 575; “National Educational Association,” Midland Schools 35, no. 9 (May 1921): 304; Transactions of the Michigan State Teachers'Association 1889 (1889), 48; INM 20, no. 1 (August 1896): 9; 25, no. 9 (April 1902): 451; and Pogue, , The Swift Seasons, 74.Google Scholar

23 Elsbree, Willard S., The American Teacher: Evolution of a Profession in a Democracy (1939; reprinted, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1970), 370–73; Simpson, Jeffrey, Chautauqua: An American Utopia (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1999); Adams, Herbert B., “Higher Education of the People: The Work of Chautauqua,” 1888, folder 2e, Historical Research Boxes, Oliver Archives Center; and Diary of Eva Moll, November 18, 1884, March 27, 1887.Google Scholar

24 Typed manuscript, 1951, and unsigned letter, Jewett House, folder 16i, Historical Research Boxes, Oliver Archives Center; Bray, Frank Chapin, A Reading Journey Through Chautauqua (Chautauqua, NY, 1905), 28a–28b, Oliver Archives Center, “Full Scholarship Holders,” The Chautauquan Weekly 4, no. 41 (June 2, 1910): 1, Oliver Archives Center; Chautauqua Year-Book for 1895 (Chautauqua, NY, 1895), Box 123, Historical Research Boxes, Oliver Archives Center; “The Chautauqua Summer Schools,” The Chautauqua Quarterly 15, no. 2 (March 1915): 3, Oliver Archives Center; and The Chautauquan Weekly 21, no. 32 (April 7, 1921): 1; 22, no. 31 (March 30, 1922): 45.Google Scholar

25 Allison, , Teachers for the South, 69–82; Superintendent Correspondence, Summer School of the South Collection, Series 2, Box 8, Folder 6, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Libraries, Knoxville; Neuffer, C. V. to Ferris, Chas. E., June ?, 1903 and Summer School of the South to Neuffer, June 5, 1903, copy, Student Employment Materials and Correspondence, Summer School of the South Collection, Series 2, Box 1, Folder 23; Summer School of the South Reports, Summer School of the South Collection, Series 5, Box 13; Catalogs of Summer School of the South in University of Tennessee Record, 1903–1918, Summer School of the South Collection.Google Scholar

26 Summer School of the South Announcement, University of Tennessee Index 5 (March 1902): 18; Summer School of the South, Thirteenth Session, University of Tennessee Record 17 (March 1914): 5; Catalogs of Summer School of the South in University of Tennessee Record, 1903–1918; “Psychology and Child Study,” Philander P. Claxton Papers, Box 19, Special Collections, University of Tennessee Libraries, Knoxville; “Third Session Opened of Big Summer School,” newspaper clipping hand-dated June 29, 1904, and “Dr. Dewey Completes His Course at Summer School,” newspaper clipping hand-dated July 3, 1904, Summer School of the South Collection, Series 5, Box 12; and Claxton, P. P., “Summer School of the South,” Teacher-Education Journal 3 (December 1941): 137.Google Scholar

27 Allison, , Teachers for the South, 81–82; Mowry, , Recollections of a New England Educator, 243–44; Chautauqua Institution: Proceeding of the Mid-Winter Meeting of the Trustees, 1910, 6, Oliver Archives Center; Chautauqua Institution: President's Reports, 1922 and 1923, 1923, 6, Oliver Archives Center; The Intelligence 22, no. 8 (April 15, 1902): 312; Elsbree, , The American Teacher, 373; and Midland Schools 35, no. 6 (February 1921): 200; 35, no. 7 (March 1921): 245.Google Scholar

28 Pogue, , The Swift Seasons, 81–82, 92, 104, 123, 29–30; “The Harvard Summer School,” INM 20, no. 10 (May 1897): 423; Cremin, Lawrence A., Shannon, David A., and Townsend, Mary Evelyn, A History of Teachers College, Columbia University (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954), 69.Google Scholar

29 Elsbree, , The American Teacher, 375; and Goodlad, John I., Romances with Schools: A Life of Education (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004), 148.Google Scholar

30 Harlow, W. B., “Summer Schools,” The Academy: A Journal of Secondary Education 1, no. 4 (1886): 152.Google Scholar

31 Allison, , Teachers for the South, 7; Williams, Vallie P. to Nellie Covert, July 12, 1885, Nellie Penelope Covert Papers; Gerber, , ed., Bachelor Bess, 193, 88; and “Harvard Summer School,” The American School Board Journal 14, no. 2 (February 1897): 18.Google Scholar

32 Catalogs of Summer School of the South in University of Tennessee Record, 1903— 1918; Summer School of the South 1905, University of Tennessee Record 8, no. 1 (1905): 4–5; The Summer School Spectator 1, no. 7 (July 27, 1909): 2; 2, no. 2 (June 24, 1910): 4; 2, no. 5 (July 5, 1910): 7; 2, no. 6 (July 8, 1910): 1; 2, no. 7 (July 12, 1910): 1; 2, no. 8 (July 15, 1910): 1; Summer School News 1, no. 6 (July 10, 1914): 1; 1, no. 9 (July 21, 1914): 1, Series 5, Box 13, Summer School of the South Collection; Lane, E. P., “Reveries of an Idler,” The Summer School Spectator 1 (July 13, 1909): 1, Series 1, Box, 1, Summer School of the South Collection; Programs, Series 1, Box 1, Summer School of the South Collection; and Claxton, “Summer School of the South,” 137–38.Google Scholar

33 Diary of Moll, Eva, November 18, 1884; The Chautauqua Program: Season of 1908, Chautauqua Institution Circulars, Oliver Archives Center; “The Coburn Players,” The Chautauquan Weekly 6, no. 49 (July 25, 1912): 6; Aron, , Working at Play, 116; and Midland Schools 15, no. 9 (May 1901): 376. Bestor's son and namesake became a well-known critic of American education in the mid-twentieth century. Like many teachers, Moll studied the curriculum of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle throughout the year; at the Chautauqua Institution, she attended CLSC ceremonies.Google Scholar

34 Diary of Moll, Eva, March 27, 1887; “Big Excursion to Asheville Tomorrow,” The Summer School Spectator 1, no. 2 (July 9, 1909): 1; “The Asheville Trip,” The Summer School Spectator 1, no. 4 (July 16, 1909): 2, 4; The American School Board Journal 31, no. 1 (July 1905), cover; NEA, Report, 225; and Watt, W. E., “Teachers as Travelers,” The Intelligence 21, no. 10 (May 15, 1901): 371.Google Scholar

35 “A Talk to Teachers,” The Intelligence 19, no. 8 (April 15, 1899): 312; The Intelligence 19, no. 10 (May 15, 1899): 19, no. 11 (June 1, 1899); and “All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy,” The Intelligence 22, no. 10 (May 15, 1902): 362.Google Scholar

36 “The National Educational Association,” INM 14, no. 11–12 (June–July 1891): 483–84; “A Summer Outing Trip for Teachers and Their Friends,” The Intelligence 20, no. 9 (May 1, 1900): 357; “A Talk to Teachers,” 312; The Intelligence 19, no. 8 (April 15, 1899): 311; Parker, Francis W., “Teachers of America, Come to the World's Columbian Exposition,” INM 17, no. 2 (September 1893): 72–73; and “A World's Fair Hotel for Teachers,” The INM 16, no. 5 (December 1892): 237–38.Google Scholar

37 Aron, , Working at Play, 142; Midland Schools 15, no. 9 (May 1901): 387; The Intelligence 21, no. 10 (May 15, 1901), cover; 22, no. 10 (May 15, 1902), cover; Albright, Horace M. and Taylor, Frank J., “Oh, Ranger!” A Book about the National Parks (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1928): 31; Corthell, Eleanor, “A Family Trek To Yellowstone—1903,” in Adventures in Yellowstone: Early Travelers Tell Their Tales, ed. Miller, M. Mark (Helena, MT: Twodot, 2009), 236; Galloway, , Yellowstone Summers, 3, 88.Google Scholar

38 Margaret Andrews Cruikshank, ed. Whittlesey, Lee H., “A Lady's Trip to Yellowstone, 1883,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 39 (Winter 1989): 2–15; Cruikshank, Margaret Ann, “Notes on Yellowstone Park” (1883), Visitors, Vertical File Collection, Yellowstone Research Library; Diary: F. E. Stratton, 1895, Stratton, F. E. Family Papers, Manuscript Collections, Yellowstone Archives; Cecilia Engel Scrapbook, 1924, Manuscript Collections, Yellowstone Archives; and Pogue, The Swift Seasons, 139–40.Google Scholar

39 The Intelligence 20, no. 5 (March 1, 1900): 192; Watt, W. E., “Touring in Europe,” The Intelligence 21, no. 9 (May 1, 1901): 353–54; Midland Schools 25, no. 8 (April 1911): 251; 35 (February 1921): 196; 35 (March 1921): 259. Cindy Aron claims: “Only very wealthy individuals could have afforded European travel during this period.” Aron, Working at Play, 10.Google Scholar

40 Donovan, Frances R., The Schoolma'am (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1938): 246; Mabel, E. O'Farrell and Scott, Anabel Read, “She Has an Itching Foot,” in Reminiscences of Some Early California Teachers: The Fourth Historical Year Book of the California Retired Teachers’ Association, ed. Settle, Laura Esta (California Retired Teachers Association, 1937), 115–16; and Pieroth, , Seattle's Women Teachers, 196, 174.Google Scholar

41 Sizer, Theodore R., Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984), 185.Google Scholar