Semester:
Offered:
Instructor: Emily Gowen
Meeting time: Monday, 9:45-11:45 am
Education is often understood as a lever for social change, but ideas about what constitutes a good education have long been hotly contested. What is more, the seeds of today’s most urgent educational controversies—such as debates about equity, educational purpose, censorship, etc.—can be found in archives related to America’s earliest schools. In this course, we will trace various American education reform movements from the early colonial period through the turn of the 20th century, and explore the philosophical, practical, and social conflicts that animated them. We will move thematically and chronologically through the histories of Indian schools, common schools, freedpeople’s schools, and women’s colleges, and end with post-reconstruction regimes of school segregation. Readings will include essays by thinkers like Horace Mann, Emma Willard, and W.E.B. DuBois, as well as educational materials like the New England Primer, the American Spelling Book, The Brownies' Book, and a range of novels, poems, tracts, and stories spanning the long nineteenth century. Students will have the chance to conduct hands-on research at archives related to various local educational institutions and will be encouraged to explore the legacies of early American reforms in today’s educational landscape.