Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2011 Black Club Women's Purposes for Establishing Kindergartens in the Progressive Era, 1890-1910 Jean Marie Robbins Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Robbins, Jean Marie, "Black Club Women's Purposes for Establishing Kindergartens in the Progressive Era, 1890-1910" (2011). Dissertations. 99. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/99 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2011 Jean Marie Robbins LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO BLACK CLUB WOMEN’S PURPOSES FOR ESTABLISHING KINDERGARTENS IN THE PROGRESSIVE ERA, 1896-1906 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT JEAN ROBBINS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS MAY 2011 Copyright by Jean Robbins, 2011 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply grateful for the support from dear friends, family, colleagues, and librarians, named and anonymous, who made it possible for me to finish this dissertation. Thank you to the committee, Robert Halpern, Aisha Ray, and Patricia Mooney-Melvin who encouraged, supported, and pushed me. William Toney Seabolt retrieved documents from the Library of Congress, gave unsparing hospitality, contacts, as well as French translations of Mary Church Terrell’s writings. Carmen Palmer provided a pivotal conceptual shift, Valerie Collier formatted the text, and Hilary Smallwood did several important searches. The Graduate School at Loyola University Chicago, Sam Attoh, Jessica Horowitz, and Dina Berger provided support and prods at critical junctures. Thanks to my “Risky Sisters,” Florence Kimondo and Luisiana Melendez, for their limitless generosity, encouragement, critiques, common sense, great food, and love. My brother, John Hugo was a rock of support and encouragement as was Charlotte Miller. John Lake, my son, bore the brunt of this project on his young shoulders. I owe him a huge hunk of his childhood and gratitude beyond measure for his encouragement and insistence that I focus on my own plate. iii To John Lake, who grew in so many ways and taught me. Thank you. What, say you, is inspiration? Is it not an innate impulse to rise? —Josephine Silone Yates TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT viii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 Research Questions 5 Thesis 6 Rationale 8 Definition of Terms 11 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 15 The Context of the Progressive Era 17 Blacks’ Expectations About Education 21 Acknowledgement of Segregated Services 23 A Brief Kindergarten History 27 Kindergartens in the United States 30 Appeal of Kindergartens, Especially to Blacks 31 Free and Public Kindergartens 36 Women’s Clubs: Building a Power Base 40 Intersection of Social Class, Race, and Identity 43 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY 52 Research Plan and Methods 52 Subjects 53 Data Gathering Procedures 55 Data 58 Data Gathering 58 Primary Sources 60 Internal Review Board Process 65 Levels of Data 65 Data Analysis 68 Limitations 70 CHAPTER FOUR: THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF EARLY EXPERIENCES ON MARY CHURCH TERRELL’S KINDERGARTEN ADVOCACY 73 The Influence of the Historical Context on Leadership and Activism 74 Sources About Terrell’s Life 80 Summary 101 CHAPTER FIVE: MARY CHURCH TERRELL’S ARTICLES AND SPEECHES 103 Context of Each Document 105 Themes and Illustrative Quotes 111 Summary 132 vi CHAPTER SIX: JOSEPHINE SILONE YATES – THE PERIOD OF GROWTH 134 Source of Information About Yates 136 A Brief Biography of Josephine Silone Yates 138 The Club Work of Josephine Silone Yates 140 Yates’ Writings 143 Themes and Related Quotes from Josephine Silone Yates’ Articles 152 Summary 171 CHAPTER SEVEN: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS 176 Suggestions for Further Research 191 In Sum 193 APPENDIX A: STORY OF THE COLORED WOMAN’S LEAGUE OF WASHINGTON DC KINDERGARTENS 195 APPENDIX B: LIST OF BLACK KINDERGARTENS ESTABLISHED BY NACW CLUBS 198 APPENDIX C: BRIEF DISCUSSION OF BLACK KINDERGARTENS AFTER 1906 205 REFERENCES 212 VITA 224 vii ABSTRACT Little literature exists that examines black people’s efforts to educate their young children during the Progressive Era. It was the period in which early childhood education in the form of kindergarten began to flourish in the United States and around the world. Even in the abundance of literature about kindergarten’s successes and its potential to transform impoverished families, the overwhelmingly poor black population remained invisible to the great majority of researchers writing about the progress of that movement. Yet primary historical documents, such as the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACW) records, manuscripts, and Progressive Era newspapers, reveal that black women made tremendous contributions to the movement to meet the educational needs of children and families in their communities and to institutionalize kindergarten. This research will center on the black kindergarten movement through the work of two important advocates Mary Church Terrell and Josephine Silone Yates, who were the first two presidents of the National Association of Colored Women. The two women’s writings will shed light on the conditions they expected kindergartens to address, how they planned to go about establishing kindergartens for poor black children, and why they thought kindergarten, in particular, would be especially beneficial to black children and families. viii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Little literature exists that examines black people’s efforts to educate their young children during the Progressive Era. It was the period in which, after many fits and starts, early childhood education in the form of kindergarten, began to flourish in the United States and around the world. Even in the abundance of literature about kindergarten’s successes and its potential to transform impoverished families, the overwhelmingly poor black population remained invisible to the great majority of researchers writing about the progress of that movement (Lerner, 1974; Peltzman, 1998; Scott, 1990). Yet primary historical documents, such as the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACW) records, manuscripts, and Progressive Era newspapers, reveal that black women made tremendous contributions to the movement to meet the educational needs of children and families in their communities and to institutionalize kindergarten. Considering the general resistance to black participation in most aspects of society, the scarcity of financial and other resources among blacks, and their lack of political power, the fact that black club women persisted in establishing free kindergartens and in pressuring for public access to kindergartens was remarkable. How did the black kindergarten movement unfold and who were its leaders? How did these leaders describe the purpose of establishing kindergartens for young black children and their families? What did the wealthy, highly educated black women at the forefront of 1 2 this movement believe that kindergartens would contribute to the effort to uplift poor blacks? This research will center on the black kindergarten movement through the work of two of its most outspoken and powerful advocates, Mary Church Terrell and Josephine Silone Yates. These leaders were identified by examining early NACW convention records, news articles from the period, and other primary and secondary sources about the kindergarten movement. Mary Church Terrell, the first NACW president, proposed the goal of establishing kindergartens as one of NACW’s top priorities, raised funds to support NACW clubs’ kindergartens, and employed creative strategies to increase the availability of kindergartens for black children. Josephine Silone Yates, NACW’s second president, wrote and spoke extensively on the benefits of kindergarten and on the importance of kindergarten teacher preparation. Many other black women were deeply committed to providing kindergartens for black children but as founding members and leaders of the first secular national black women’s organization for the first decade of the organization’s existence, Terrell and Yates emerged as leaders because they articulated the message to a national audience of educated blacks. Terrell and Yates’ writings shed light on the conditions they expected kindergartens to address, their strategies for getting club women to establish kindergartens for poor black children, and why they thought kindergarten, in particular, would be especially beneficial to black children and families. The most logical sources that reveal the women’s purposes for establishing kindergartens and capture their authentic voices and actions are their articles and speeches that mention kindergarten. 3 Terrell’s personal papers are archived in the Library of Congress and Moorland- Spingarn Research Center at Howard University but Yates’ personal papers appear not to be archived formally, however her published writings appear in various periodicals and some correspondence and speeches appear in the NACW records. Derrida described archival research as “nostalgia for the return to the most archaic place of absolute commencement” (quoted