History Commons^™

Education On The Underground Railroad: A Case Study Of Three Communities In New York State (1820-1870), Lenora April Harris

Dissertations - ALL

In the mid-nineteenth century a compulsory education system was emerging that allowed all children to attend public schools in northern states. This dissertation investigates school attendance rates among African American children in New York State from 1850-1870 by examining household patterns and educational access for African American school-age children in three communities: Sandy Ground, Syracuse, and Watertown. These communities were selected because of their involvement in the Underground Railroad. I employed a combination of educational and social history methods, qualitative and quantitative. An analysis of federal census reports, state superintendent reports, city directories, area maps, and property records for the …

Shifting Policies Of Educational Desegregation And Its Effects On The Resegregation Of The Aldine Independent School District, Tonya Elisette Juarez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This study examines the desegregation process for the Aldine Independent School District located in Houston, Texas. Beginning with an analysis of the development of public education in Texas, this study observes the educational conditions for blacks and Mexican Americans prior to the end of de jure segregation. Thereafter, it assesses the impact of the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision that required desegregation of American public schools. I argue that the shifting policies that occurred after Brown requiring mandatory integration resulted in white flight in the school district. With the end of mandatory integration, Aldine I.S.D. reverted back to …

For Dixie Children: Teaching Students What It Meant To Be Confederate Americans Through Their Textbooks, Nathan Richard Samuel Ryalls

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Education in the 19th century relied heavily on school texts in order to teach American children the moral and civic responsibilities they must possess in order to become productive members of the American republic. After declaring secession, Confederate cultural nationalists took up the cause of educating the school children in the Confederate States of America in the moral and civic responsibilities determined important to the preservation of their new nation. Southerners had felt disenfranchised by the northern press and believed their children learning from these schoolbooks became weakened in their southern identity. Though some southerners were espousing the need for …

Cooking Up A Course: Food Education At Pomona College, Christina A. Cyr

Pomona Senior Theses

Cooking skills are important but declining, with significant health, social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental implications. Food and cooking education can begin to address some of the negative effects of the cooking skills decline. This thesis makes the case for cooking classes in the education system, especially in higher education. The paper begins with a history of cooking education and skills, outlines the implications of the decline in skills, and discusses the potential for cooking education in higher education. The second part consists of a course syllabus, designed for Pomona College. The third section includes a discussion of the implementation …

Who We Are: Incarcerated Students And The New Prison Literature, 1995-2010, Reilly Hannah N. Lorastein

Honors Projects

This project focuses on American prison writings from the late 1990s to the 2000s. Much has been written about American prison intellectuals such as Malcolm X, George Jackson, Eldridge Cleaver, and Angela Davis, who wrote as active participants in black and brown freedom movements in the United States. However the new prison literature that has emerged over the past two decades through higher education programs within prisons has received little to no attention. This study provides a more nuanced view of the steadily growing silent population in the United States through close readings of Openline, an inter-disciplinary journal featuring …

The Struggle Toward Equality In Higher Education:The Impact Of The Morrill Acts On Race Relations In Virginia, 1872-1958, Nicholas Betts

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the impact of the 1862 and 1890 Morrill Acts on Virginia’s public higher education system. While the Morrill Acts, issued by the federal government, expanded access to higher education for all Americans, they also resulted in the entrenchment of segregation in seventeen different state public higher education systems. The segregated public higher education systems in Virginia and elsewhere led to inequality in the higher education available to African Americans students, compared with the higher education available to white students within these states. This thesis will address the disparity, brought about by unequal funding of institutions based upon …

The School And Society: Secondary School Social Studies Education From 1945-1970, Kevin John Owens

Honors Papers

This thesis explores the ways in which changes to citizenship are tied to changes in the secondary school social studies curriculum from 1945 through 1970. During this time, social and political changes forced alterations to the meaning of citizenship. Schools must inherently educate for the future, and are a good measure of what a society views as the values and skills most necessary for the future. As a central inculcator of common values, the social studies class reflected these changes more so than any other school subject.

Learning Freedom: Education, Elevation, And New York's African American Middle Class, 1827-1829, Michael Hines

Master's Theses

The education of free African American children in the antebellum period is a subject that has interested historians and scholars of education for decades. This thesis uses a new set of primary source material gathered from the pages of Freedom's Journal, the first African American owned and operated news organ in American history, to trace the development of attitudes regarding education in the free black community of New York in the late 1820s. By examining the editorials, articles, advice columns, and illustrations focused on education and child rearing that appear in the 104 issues of Freedom's Journal, this thesis shows …

Textbooks, Teachers, And Compromise: The Political Work Of Freedmen Education, Ashley Marie Swarthout

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

After the end of the Civil War, Northerners flooded into the South in order to participate in the education of freedmen. While many, perhaps most, of the individuals who worked in freedmen education had the best interests of the freedmen in mind, freedmen education in of itself was inherently political; therefore, all contributors to freedmen education were also sponsors of Southern Reconstruction politics. It is my argument that the aid organizations (particularly the American Missionary Association and the American Freedmen's Union Commission), the writers and printers of freedmen-specific textbooks (the American Tract Society and Lydia Maria Child), and the teachers …

Reaping The "Colored Harvest": The Catholic Mission In The American South, Megan Stout Sibbel

Dissertations

A central paradox marks the story of the Roman Catholic mission in the American South. On one hand, the Church committed itself to providing access to quality education in underserved southern black communities. The establishment of southern Catholic schools for African American children supported the nation's traditional emphasis on education as a prerequisite for economic, social, and political advancement. Insofar as Catholic schools and sisters in the Jim Crow South offered opportunity in communities that otherwise lacked access to education, they demonstrated some of the best qualities traditionally associated with the United States of America.

On the other hand, Catholic …

An Exploration Of Worship Practices At An African American Church Of Christ, Lamont Ali Francies

Doctoral Dissertations

The identity of the African American Churches of Christ is deeply rooted in the American struggle for racial equality. Without a formal governing body, the Churches of Christ have survived throughout the majority of the 20th century without making an official stance on racial relations. Many leaders in the religious movement have claimed racial immunity but have not addressed the evident division among ethnic lines. This study explored the extent of cultural influence that Caucasian Churches of Christ have on African American congregations.

This study observed these influences and how they shape religious culture and tradition in Black churches. The …

The Most Interesting Place : The Eastern Mediterranean And American Cultural Knowledge, Gregory Wiedeman

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study addresses how nineteenth-century Americans perceived the lands of the Eastern Mediterranean. The project rests upon a detailed examination of American primary school geography textbooks that enjoyed widespread circulation during the century. The lack of an effective education apparatus in the period rendered American students incredibly reliant on their textbooks. These texts reflect the general common knowledge of the region shared by most educated Americans. Additionally, this study draws support from a thorough analysis of travel accounts that were extraordinarily popular during the period. These works offered Americans a chance to explore vicariously the most interesting lands of the …