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Women in American Education, 1820-1955 Women in American Education, 1820–1955: The Female Force and Educational Reform JUNE EDWARDS GREENWOOD PRESS Women in American Education, 1820–1955 Recent Titles in Contributions to the Study of Education An Integrated Theory of Moral Development R. Murray Thomas The Condition of English: Literary Studies in a Changing Culture Avrom Fleishman Resource Allocation and Productivity in Education: Theory and Practice William T. Hartman and William Lowe Boyd, editors The Educational System of Israel Yaacov Iram and Mirjam Schmida Writing Centers and Writing Across the Curriculum Programs: Building Interdisciplinary Partnerships Robert W. Barnett and Jacob S Blumner, editors Country School Memories: An Oral History of One-Room Schooling Robert L. Leight and Alice Duffy Rinehart Education of Teachers in Russia Delbert H. Long and Roberta A. Long Eminent Educators: Studies in Intellectual Influence Maurice R. Berube Private Prometheus: Private Higher Education and Development in the 21st Century Philip G. Altbach, editor The Bright Boys: A History of Townsend Harris High School Eileen F. Lebow Célestin Freinet Victor Acker Reforming College Composition: Writing the Wrongs Ray Wallace, Alan Jackson, and Susan Lewis Wallace Women in American Education, 1820–1955 The Female Force and Educational Reform JUNE EDWARDS Contributions to the Study of Education, Number 81 GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Edwards, June, 1934– Women in American education, 1820–1955 : the female force and educational reform / June Edwards. p. cm.—(Contributions to the study of education, ISSN 0196–707X ; no. 81) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–313–31947–2 (alk. paper) 1. Women in education—United States—History. 2. Women educators—United States—Biography. 3. Educational change—United States—History. I. Title. II. Series. LC1757.E39 2002 370′.82—dc21 2001045122 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2002 by June Edwards All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001045122 ISBN: 0–313–31947–2 ISSN: 0196–707X First published in 2002 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10987654321 In memory of my mother, Katharine Rose Kirkhuff, a schoolteacher in Geary, Oklahoma, 1909–1912 Contents Introduction ix 1. Catharine Beecher: Educating Girls, Homemakers, and Teachers 1 2. Elizabeth Palmer Peabody: Educating Young Children 21 3. Elizabeth Blackwell: Medical and Physical Education for Females 41 4. Ellen Swallow Richards: Science Education for School, Home and Society 57 5. Jane Addams: Educating the Immigrant Poor 75 6. Maria Montessori: Educating Children for Independence 91 7. Mary McLeod Bethune: Educating African-American Youth 111 8. Helen Parkhurst: Educating for Responsibility with the Dalton Plan 129 Index 151 Introduction contemporary term called Constructivism is widely accepted A in educational theory as the best means of engendering true education. To understand subject matter and make meaningful connections, students build on prior knowledge, do open-ended research, solve problems, take risks, experiment, create, draw con- clusions, and apply what they have learned to new situations. Ac- tive engagement is the key. In this method of learning, students assume much more responsibility than in traditional classrooms and often work in small groups. They participate in community life and contribute useful service. The teacher’s role, although still cru- cial, shifts from center stage to that of guide, facilitator, motivator, and friend. Constructivist reforms are indeed an excellent infusion into modern-day schools, but the methods involved are not at all new. The focus of this book is on eight women who successfully utilized many of these practices in earlier times and made significant contributions not only to American education but to society as a whole. They were not the first or only ones, of course. Predecessors and contemporaries such as Jan Comenius, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Johann Pestalozzi, Friedrich Froebel, John Dewey, Booker T. x Introduction Washington, and W.E.B. DuBois also left their marks. However, these male philosophers and educators have been duly and deservingly celebrated. The females noted here, although they were well-known and respected in their own day, are often missing from current books on education, given short shrift, or not depicted as groundbreakers, for a variety of reasons. First, of course, is the age-old prejudice against females in all areas. Although this has improved in recent years, especially with the addition of women’s studies in college curriculums, many philosophy, history, and foundations of education texts have not changed significantly except to add a few women to the discussion or mention their names in passing. The ones selected for this book have been written about extensively in other contexts, but are still unknown to many students in education programs. Those who want to be kindergarten teachers, for instance, often have never heard of Elizabeth Peabody. Those interested in human ecology (formerly called home economics) do not learn of Ellen Swallow Richards until their advanced courses in that area. Second, although the beliefs and practices of these women chal- lenged the theories of the White male educators of their day, their teaching strategies are rarely described as a radical break with tra- dition. For example, Catharine Beecher has been extolled for the establishment of academic schools for girls and training programs for teachers, but the innovative methods used in her institutions have been ignored. Also, her well received home management guidebooks are seldom viewed as having educational significance. Such women’s unique and sometimes revolutionary contributions, if mentioned at all, are diminished as peripheral to those of more famous men. Third, these women educators have not been considered as important, perhaps, because of whom they chose to serve. They elected to work with those the establishment had rejected or deemed not worthy of education: the very young, the mentally dis- abled, the immigrant poor, teenaged girls (White and Black), young women seeking higher education and careers, housewives who needed homemaking skills, and female scientists, teachers, nurses, and doctors. Not only did these women believe in the potential of their clients, but they used teaching methods that were innovative and highly effective, some of which, wrapped in new skins, are being touted as “modern-day reforms.” Their methods focused on student interests and involvement, incorporated multiple skills, stressed open-ended research, critical thinking, and integration of Introduction xi subject matters, and promoted peer cooperation and shared teacher–student decision making. Today, we would call these strat- egies student-centered instruction, holistic teaching, cooperative learning, and teacher facilitation. In short, Constructivism. Their practices were radical in their day—and still are. The eight women in this book were selected because they chose to or were forced to work outside the traditional White male- dominated institutions, because their philosophies were antithetical to what was usually being done, or because they wanted to expand education to clientele not reached by traditional schooling. They also wrote articles and books that promoted their beliefs and meth- ods, which are helpful today in understanding the historical period and the social restrictions that often hampered their work. Excerpts from these publications illustrate the women’s goals, concerns, and challenges. Each chapter in this book contains a biographical sketch of an educator’s life and describes the reasons she embarked on her trailblazing endeavors, the hardships and hurdles encountered, her educational theories and methods, some criticisms voiced by con- temporaries and present-day scholars, and her long lasting achieve- ments. The women are as follow: 1. Catharine Esther Beecher (1800–1878). Perhaps the best-known woman in her day, Beecher established two secondary schools for girls and wrote much appreciated domestic education books for adult women homemakers. She also recruited and trained female teachers for public schools in the West, thus changing school teach- ing from a male occupation to a respectable career for educated women, and enforced the belief that good teaching requires peda- gogical as well as academic knowledge. 2. Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804–1887). A leader in the intellectual Transcendentalist group that included such luminaries as Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Peabody in young adulthood taught in and wrote about Bronson Alcott’s nontraditional school in Boston, then branched out on her own. In her later years, she became entranced with Friedrich Froebel’s work in Germany and established the first English-speaking kindergarten in America. For the next 30 years she trained teachers for these schools and promoted, through writings and speeches, the essential features of early childhood education. 3. Elizabeth Blackwell (1820–1910). The first woman to graduate from
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