During and after the American Civil War, individual state governments, faced with numerous economic demands, struggled to meet the needs of soldiers and their families. Among other pressing questions, they had to decide what to do with the massive number of dependent children orphaned by the war. In order to protect children, it became more…

Samuel Chapman Armstrong is well known for establishing Hampton Institute, the institution most involved with training black teachers in the South after the Civil War. It is less known that he was born in Hawai'i to the missionary couple Reverend Richard and Clarissa Chapman Armstrong. His parents were members of the Fifth Company of missionaries…

This essay analyzes the contemporary understandings of, and the aims attributed to, "industrial" education for Africans which came to be strongly associated with "agricultural education" in the Cape Colony between 1890 and 1930. The author first sketches the early history of industrial education from the 1850s to show how this…

Traces the history of the People's College in central New York from inception (1853) to dissolution (1869). Notes its significance in relation to the Agricultural College Act (1862). Contends that the tension between reformers interested solely in mechanical education and those who did not wish to abandon the classical curriculum led to the…

The rate of female labor force participation between 1880 and 1930 increased from 15 to 25 percent. Home economics, commercial education, and industrial education were new elements of the curriculum designed for female occupations. Other programs, though coeducational, became sex-typed by the occupational roles with which they were associated. (RM)

Traces the historical development of technical literacy through the establishment of technical institutes in the United States. Relates the development of technical learning to the emerging industrial economy. Explains that instruction required literacy and fundamental mathematical skills. Notes scientific literacy was popularized by magazines…

Focuses on the relationship between corporation schooling and the labor market in the early twentieth century in the United States. Follows the beginnings of corporation schools as industry began to provide its own shop training programs to develop a trained labor force. Explores labor market concerns, the effects schools had on earnings, and the…

Addresses the change from the system of workshop apprenticeship to that of industrial training, pioneered in 1878 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works and the Spring Garden Institute, that eventually spread to the public school system in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania). (CMK)