Student Life and Culture in Alberta's Normal Schools, 1930-1939
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2016 Student Life and Culture in Alberta's Normal Schools, 1930-1939 Brackett, Shawn Brackett, S. (2016). Student Life and Culture in Alberta's Normal Schools, 1930-1939 (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27908 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/3265 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Student Life and Culture in Alberta’s Normal Schools, 1930-1939 by Shawn William Brackett A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY CALGARY, ALBERTA AUGUST, 2016 © Shawn William Brackett 2016 Abstract Normal schools in 1930s Alberta prepared the province’s future teachers. Several hundred students entered normal schools in Calgary, Camrose, and Edmonton every year to complete the one-year teacher preparation course. Student life in normal schools revolved around relationships between faculty and students. Normal school faculty regulated behaviour in and out of the classroom, supervised extracurricular activities, and oversaw off-campus accommodations in fulfilment of academic and social responsibilities to care for students. They aimed to prepare Normalites (as students called themselves) for the teaching profession and so reinforced existing gender and social mores—expectations to which students were largely content to conform. From the perspective of students, faculty were to be respected because of their power over teacher certification and because they demonstrated genuine care for student wellbeing. Faculty involvement in student affairs, more than any other factor, determined the character and course of student experience at Alberta’s normal schools. ii Acknowledgements Writing this thesis has been filled with excitement, humour, and a sense of historical wonder. Even when encountering obstacles, as inevitably crop up in the research process, I have genuinely loved this project. For that, I will always be grateful; for that I am indebted to the numerous people who have assisted me along the path. I should begin with Jonathan Anuik, who introduced himself to me at the CHEA 2014 conference in Saskatoon. He excitedly listened (as only he can) to my research interests and asked if I had seen “the Patterson papers”—I had not. He offered to show them to me in Edmonton and from that trip a tremendous archival source was made known to me. Without his mentorship or the documents, this project would have been impossible. Thank you, Jon. To my supervisor, Paul Stortz: thank you for being a strong advocate on my behalf and believing in my abilities from before I had arrived in Calgary. You have never flagged in your support or commitment to my success. To Betsy Jameson: you have changed me profoundly and I am deeply grateful. To Nancy Janovicek, Annette Timm, Kevin Anderson, and George Colpitts, of the University of Calgary History Department: my sincerest thanks. Your encouragement, challenge, and collegiality have made me a better researcher and teacher. To the members of my graduate cohort, especially Sandy Barron, your counsel and levity proved invaluable to keeping my spirits up. Few historical projects could make any progress without external support. To the archival and librarian staff, including Alicia (University of Alberta Archives), Heather (Provincial Archives of Alberta), Karen (University of Calgary Archives), and Dave (Camrose and District Centennial Museum): thank you for your expertise, your kindness, and your interest. To my external examiner, Ian Winchester, thank you for your time, insightful comments, and engaging questions. And, of course, travel for research can be quite expensive. Many thanks to the University of Calgary, U of C Faculty of Arts, U of C Department of History, and the Eleanor Luxton Historical Foundation. Your financial support in the form of scholarships, assistantships, and grants lowered barriers in the way of doing the work I love. iii To student affairs professionals of the past, the present, and the future. Your work matters, to the many and the few. iv Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii Dedication .......................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents .................................................................................................................v List of Figures and Illustrations ......................................................................................... vi Introduction ........................................................................................................................1 Historiography .........................................................................................................9 Chapter 1: The Social World ..........................................................................................23 1.1 Institutional Structures .....................................................................................24 1.2 Student Bodies .................................................................................................27 1.3 The Routines and Activities of Student Culture ..............................................35 Chapter 2: Relationships .................................................................................................48 2.1 Leaving Home: The Changing Place of Family ..............................................48 2.2 Gender and Student Life ..................................................................................55 2.3 “A Happy Degree of Intimacy”: Normalite-Faculty Relationships .................61 Chapter 3: Rules and Reasons ........................................................................................72 3.1 Promoted and Permitted Behaviour .................................................................73 3.2 Questionable Behaviour ...................................................................................86 Chapter 4: Reactions .......................................................................................................94 4.1 Rule Breakers ...................................................................................................94 4.2 Circumnavigating the Rules .............................................................................96 4.3 Conformity Endures .......................................................................................112 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................119 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................132 Appendix A: Project Yesteryear ......................................................................................137 Appendix B: Responses to Project Yesteryear ................................................................145 Appendix C: Copyright Clearance ...................................................................................148 v List of Figures and Illustrations Figure 1. Students’ Council, Edmonton Normal School, first term, 1935-36 ...................56 Figure 2. The Normalite Social Calendar ..........................................................................82 Figure 3. Yearbook Cartoons ...........................................................................................102 vi Introduction In the midst of economic depression and agricultural disaster, life in the 1930s represented significant transition for Albertans. Markets and investments could no longer guarantee profit, drought and extreme weather made the livelihood of so many untenable, and the populist political coalition was falling apart.1 Jobs were eliminated, homesteads and farms abandoned, policies redrawn, and relief extended. Uncertainty also characterized social and cultural landscapes, leaving an indelible mark on the people and their province.2 As Albertans adjusted to changing financial and environmental realities, some things remained relatively constant. Throughout this period most children attended school and learned from provincially-certified teachers; those children learned lessons both explicit and implicit about how people constructed gender and related to one another in gendered ways. At once, education was a structure to organize the transfer of knowledge, a project to develop citizenship, and a tool for general economic development; it also largely reinforced existing notions of gender.3 The figure at the centre of education in Alberta was the teacher, because the province depended so heavily on one-room (and one-teacher) schools to teach children scattered over a largely rural and isolating territory.4 To understand