ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: the CHILDREN WHO
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ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: THE CHILDREN WHO RAN FOR CONGRESS AND THE SCHOOL UP ON THE HILL: AN ORAL-INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CAPITOL PAGE SCHOOL, 1926-1983 Darryl J. Gonzalez, Doctor of Philosophy, 2008 Dissertation directed by: Professor Barbara Finkelstein Department of Education Policy and Leadership Although the corpus of work on Congressional history is impressive, there is one aspect of life inside the Capitol that has been neglected for over 200 years. Young messenger boys, or Pages, have worked for Congress since its early sessions but have never received much attention. This dissertation traces the evolution of Capitol Page School and by doing so, also follows the evolution of the larger Page system. The purpose of the study is to find out what the historical record can reveal about the history of Capitol Page School. Once that story is told, conclusions can be drawn about things like institutional inertia in Congress, preserving tradition, unusual childhood occupations and informal civic education, among others. Using both a documents review and an oral history approach allowed for a rich description of the evolution of Capitol Page School. Chapter Two reports on Page culture before 1926, concentrating on the relationships between Members of Congress and the boys, and how Pages formed their own culture and community as adjuncts of the Congress. Chapter Three examines the social conditions that were present in the 1920s which forced the formation of a school specifically for Pages inside the Capitol, run as a private enterprise by an individual teacher, and the subsequent attempts to continue the school. Chapter Four describes how Senator Harold Burton intervened to improve conditions at Capitol Page School, and also includes a previously unknown cache of information and behind-the-scenes maneuvering. Chapter Five explains the physical move of the school and then traces the substantial legislation that Congress failed to pass in order to give Pages an official residence to live in, and describes the precarious nature of the school. Chapter Six gives special attention to three noteworthy subcultures within the Page system: girls, African-Americans and Supreme Court Pages, and describes how each group began and received special consideration. Chapter Seven reports on how Capitol Page School was forced to dissolve in the early 1980s and how two new schools were formed to replace it. Chapter Eight discusses what can be learned from the historical record. THE CHILDREN WHO RAN FOR CONGRESS AND THE SCHOOL UP ON THE HILL: AN ORAL-INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF CAPITOL PAGE SCHOOL, 1926-1983 by Darryl James Gonzalez Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2008 Advisory Committee: Professor Barbara Finkelstein, Chair Professor Robert Croninger Professor Peter Levine Professor Dennis Herschbach Professor Judith Torney-Purta © Copyright by Darryl James Gonzalez 2008 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisory committee for providing me with the guidance and advice needed to produce this volume. They were especially helpful at the dissertation defense, and provided me with insightful comments which I used to improve the final product. Thank you also goes to Jim Oliver; without him, I never would have known that Pages even had a history. He also provided many of the pictures I used and was always a useful resource. To all the librarians, archivists and others on and around Capitol Hill who helped me with this project, a heartfelt thank you. I also need to thank all of the people I interviewed for this dissertation. They represent Pages everywhere, and I can only hope that I will prove to be worthy as keeper of their story. Thank you to my nieces and nephews who helped me with the more mundane tasks involved in this research like cataloguing, alphabetizing and filing. Special thanks goes to Erica Miller for helping with my endnotes. Most of all, I need to thank my wife, Courtney, and my children, Andrew, Brooke, Josh and Daniel, for their understanding and patience with me as I spent hour after hour away from them to complete this project. - ii - TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Overview Introduction …………………………………………………………….. 1 Part One: Preview ……………………………………………………… 2 Part Two: The Written Records …………………………………………. 5 Part Three: Methodology ………………………………………………. 9 Data Gathering 9 Interviews 10 Part Four: Limitations and Delimitations ………………………………. 11 Part Five: Chapter Preview ……………………………………………... 12 Notes ……………………………………………………………………. 14 Chapter Two: The Historical Antecedents and Culture of Pages, 1774 to 1926 Introduction ……………………………………………………………… 17 Part One: America's Founding Fathers, and Her Founding Boys ……….. 18 Congressional Messengers Before 1800 18 The First Senate Pages 20 The First House Pages and the First Supreme Court Page 23 Part Two: Who Pages Were ……………………………………………… 27 Using Young Boys As Pages 27 Becoming a Page 29 The Tradition of Appointing Orphans as Pages 32 Minority Pages 35 Part Three: The Unique Community of Pages…………………………….. 36 Pages and Their Relationships With Members 36 Page Mischief 47 Part Four: The Attention Paid to Formal Schooling ……………………… 69 Notes ……………………………………………………………………… 76 Chapter Three: Congress Passively Delegates Control of Capitol Page School to Private Individuals, 1926 to 1942 Introduction ……………………………………………………………….. 92 Part One: Child Advocacy Laws Put Pressure On Congress ……………... 93 Child Labor in the District of Columbia 93 Compulsory Education in the District of Columbia 98 Part Two: The Page System Adds a School, 1926 to 1931 ………………. 103 Parents Hire a Private Tutor, 1926 103 Laupheimer and Butler Collaborate To Form a Page School, 1927 to 1929 106 - iii - Devitt Assumes Control of Capitol Page School, 1929 to 1931 115 Part Three: Another Chance Meeting Leads to Another Page School, 1931 to 1942 ……………………………………………………………… 123 Kendall and McClintic Collaborate to Form a Page School, 1931 123 Kendall's Capitol Page School Grows, 1932 to 1942 127 Part Four: Kendall and the Roosevelt White House ……………………… 140 Part Five: Pages In the News, 1939 to 1940 ……………………………… 143 Notes ……………………………………………………………………… 147 Chapter Four: Senator Burton Advocates For Pages, 1942 to 1949 Introduction ………………………………………………………………. 161 Part One: Burton Visits Page School and Effects Change ……………….. 162 Part Two: Burton's Involvement Continues, 1942 to 1943 ………………. 177 Part Three: The Little Congress and Alice Tuohy ……………………….. 180 Part Four: The House Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, October 1943 ……………………………………………………………… 182 Part Five: Fallout From Tuohy's Letter, December 1943 to Summer of 1944 ……………………………………………………………………. 185 Part Six: Setbacks For Kendall, 1944-1945 School Year ………………… 194 Introduction 194 President Roosevelt Dies; Truman Abandons Diplomatic School, April 1945 196 Anderson Attacks Kendall and Page School, May 1945 198 Congressional Hearings to Investigate Page School, June 1945 204 Part Seven: Pages Secure a Residence, and the 1945-1946 School Year ... 208 Part Eight: Control of Page School Goes From Private to Public, and the 1946-1947 School Year ………………………………………………….. 213 Part Nine: Capitol Page School Operates Under Public Control, 1947-1949 ………………………….……………………………………. 219 The 1947-1948 School Year 219 The 1948-1949 School Year 223 Notes ……………………………………………………………………… 226 Chapter Five: Attempts at Change and Institutional Inertia, 1949 to 1982 Introduction ………………………………………………………………. 244 Part One: Page School Outgrows Its Space In the Capitol ………………. 244 Page School Moves Up In the World, From Basement to Attic, 1949 244 Plans to Move Page School to the New Senate Office Building, 1949 to 1958 247 - iv - Part Two: A Page Residence and More Inertia, 1951 to 1963 …………… 252 Review of Legislation, 1951 to 1956 252 Early Attempts at Change, 1956 258 The Change Effort Gains Momentum, 1956-1957 School Year 265 Efforts To Secure Housing Continue, 1959 to 1963 269 A Congressional Hearing and the Washington Post Series, 1963 271 Part Three: Edith Green Gives the Change Movement New Focus, 1964 to 1965 ……………………………………………………………… 274 Green's Committee Chinks Away at Institutional Inertia, 1964 274 Green Fights for Change Again, 1964 to 1965 277 The Aftereffects of Green's Advocacy, 1965 281 Part Four: Continued Attempts at Change, 1966 to 1982 ……………….. 285 The Period of Policy Churn Continues, 1966 to 1970 285 The Period of Inertia Continues, 1970 to 1975 286 Focus Turns to Page School, 1976 to 1978 291 Part Five: Key Players Look Back and Comment On the Page System .... 304 Part Six: Pages In the News, 1957 ……………………………………….. 306 Part Seven: Accreditation At a Boarding School With No Boarding Facilities, 1949 to 1974 …………………………………………………... 308 Notes ……………………………………………………………………… 315 Chapter Six: Marginalized Groups Within the Page System Introduction ……………………………………………………………….. 339 Part One: Congress Wrestles With Allowing Female Pages, 1935 to 1971.. 339 The "First" Female Page, 1939 339 Girls Test the Page System, 1939 to 1954 340 Senators Javits and Percy Force the Issue, 1970 to 1971 343 Part Two: The Differences in the Supreme Court Pages ………….…….. 352 Part Three: Negro Pages, 1954 to 1965 ………………………………….. 359 Notes ……………………………………………………………………... 366 Chapter Seven: Capitol Page School Is Closed, 1982 to 1983 Introduction ………………………………………………………………. 377 Part One: Pages Embarrass Congress With Accusations, June 1982 ……. 378 Part Two: The Task Force