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Workingmen and Free Schools in the Nineteenth Century: A Comment on the Labor-Education Thesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Jay M. Pawa*
Affiliation:
State University College, Oneonta

Extract

There was for many years a well-established generalization in American historical scholarship which assumed a direct relationship between the demands of workingmen for free public schools and the establishment of free public schools in certain eastern states in the early nineteenth century. Within the last decade the labor-education thesis has undergone some modification, so that more recent statements allow room for the role of the upper middle class in the building of free schools. Evidently what had been a relatively well-accepted thesis underwent extensive revision within a decade.

Type
Notes and Documents II
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 History of Education Quarterly 

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References

Notes

1. Hofstadter, Richard, Miller, William, and Aaron, Daniel, The American Republic to 1865 (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1959), 1:455; Austin, Ailene, The Labor Story (New York: Coward McCann, 1949), p. 244; Hicks, John D. and Mowry, George, A Short History of American Democracy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1956), p. 256; Wood Gavian, Ruth and Hamm, William A., United States History (Boston: D. C. Heath and Co., 1960), p. 312; Bamford Parkes, Henry, The United States of America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948), p. 231; Faulkner, Harold U., Kepner, Tyler, and Merrill, Edward H., History of the American Way (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950), p. 528; Beard, Mary R., Short History of the American Labor Movement (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920), pp. 39–40; Perkins, Dexter and Glyndon, G. Deusen, Van, The United States of America: A History (New York: Macmillan Co., 1962), 1:355; Connors, John D., Crusade for Public Schools, reprint from the American Teacher Magazine, Official Publication of the American Federation of Teachers and Affiliate of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., rev. ed., (December 1960), n.p.; United States Department of Labor, Growth of Labor Law in the United States (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1962), p. 46. The shift toward a modified version of the labor-education thesis may be found in a number of recent texts. Generally speaking the more up-to-date textbooks offer the middle class a role by pointing to the fear many middle class reformers had of an illiterate rabble. Harry Williams, T., Current, Richard N., and Friedel, Frank, A History of the United States (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969), p. 439; Eliot Morison, Samuel, Steele Commager, Henry, and Leuchtenberg, William E., The Growth of the American Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), 1:459, 490–91. This volume cites education reformers, like Robert Dale Owen, as foreign radicals, implying that Owen was an outsider not in tune with the “Moderate” demands of the Workingmen's Parties (pp. 490–91); Thomas, A. Bailey views free public schools as “the insurance premium that the wealthy were willing to pay for stability and democracy” (Thomas, A. Bailey, The American Pageant [Boston: D. C. Heath and Company, 1966], p. 334). A recent study which will have a significant impact on the labor-education thesis is Katz, Michael B., The Irony of Early School Reform: Educational Innovation in Mid-Nineteenth Century Massachusetts (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968), pp. 20–21, 39, 40, 46–49, 80–84, 216–18. Although not specifically directed at public school reform Stephan Thernstrom's history of Newburyport, Massachusetts, has some important ramifications for the history of American education: Stephan Thernstrom, Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth Century City (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), pp. 50–51, 76–77, 123.Google Scholar

2. Ely, Richard T., The Labor Movement in America (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell and Co., 1886), pp. 122–23.Google Scholar

3. Sidney Fine, “The Ely-Labadie Letters,” Michigan History 36 (March 1952) : 17; Perlman, Mark, Labor Union Theories in America (Evanston, Ill.: Row, Peterson and Co., 1958), pp. 49–55; Sidney Fine, “Richard T. Ely, Forerunner of Progressivism, 1880–1891,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 38 (March 1951) : 601, 606, 612, 617, 619. Both Commons' and Ely's brand of prolabor sentiments have been identified in Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900–1916 (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1967), p. 214. For further insights on Ely, see Sproat, John G., “The Best Men”: Liberal Reformers in the Gilded Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 215.Google Scholar

4. Simons, Algie M., Class Struggles in America (Chicago: H. Kerr and Co., 1906), p. 45. The first edition appeared in 1903. Charles Grier Sellers has commented on Simons' addiction to the Turner thesis: Charles Grier Sellers, “Andrew Jackson Versus the Historians,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 44 (March 1958): 618–19.Google Scholar

5. Simons, Class Struggles in America, pp. 21–23.Google Scholar

6. Simons, Algie M., Social Forces in American History (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1925), pp. 132–83.Google Scholar

7. Tracy Carlton, Frank, “The Workingmen's Party in New York City,Political Science Quarterly 22 (September 1907): 414–15.Google Scholar

8. Tracy Carlton, Frank, “Robert Dale Owen — Educator,The School Review 18 (January–December 1910) : 189–90.Google Scholar

9. Tracy Carlton, Frank, “Humanitarianism Past and Present,International Journal of Ethics 17 (October 1906) : 49, 51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Carlton, , “Robert Dale Owen –- Educator,” p. 189. Carlton also utilized the Turner thesis in that he believed the worker benefited from the frontier's leadership.Google Scholar

11. Tracy Carlton, Frank, “Economic Influence Upon Educational Progress in the United States,University of Wisconsin Bulletin, no. 221, Economic and Political Science Series, vol. 4, No. 1 (Madison, Wis., 1908), p. 42. Carlton referred to Simons study on Class Struggles in this article (ibid., p. 39.)Google Scholar

12. Ibid., pp. 39, 42–44.Google Scholar

13. Carlton, , “Economic Influences Upon Educational Progress in the United States,” p. 39.Google Scholar

14. There are many references concerning the New York City controversy: Debate, on the Claim of the Catholics to a Portion of the Common School Fund With the Arguments of Counsel Before the Board of Alderman of the City of New York, 29 and 30 October, 1840; Published by the Proprietor of the New York Freeman's Journal, 1840. Also, for an account of the battle as it raged on from year to year see Annual Report[s] of the Trustees of the Public School Society of New York; Pratt, John W., “Governor Seward and the New York City School Controversy, 1840–42,New York History 42 (October 1961): 351–64. For an account of the early skirmishing by religious groups, see Cremin, Lawrence A., The American Common School: A Historic Conception (New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1951), pp. 160–64.Google Scholar

15. Carlton, , “Economic Influences Upon Educational Progress in the United States,” p. 73. For a complete statement on the New York school controversy, see Lannie, Vincent P., Public Money and Parochial Education: Bishop Hughes, Governor Seward and the New York School Controversy (Cleveland: The Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1968).Google Scholar

16. Ibid.Google Scholar

17. Tracy Carlton, Frank, “Ephemeral Labor Movements,Popular Science Monthly 85 (November 1914): 487503; Tracy Carlton, Frank, Organized Labor in American History (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1920), p. 70.Google Scholar

18. Report of the Committee of the Senate Between Labor and Capital (Washington, D. C: Government Printing Office, 1884), 1:286–87, 352–54, 453, 457–58, 460–61, 840–41, 855, 1129–30. Virtually every major union official in the eastern United States testified before Senator Blair's committee on a federal-aid-to-education bill. Almost to a man they were uninterested in the free school question. See also, Copying Book of Samuel Gompers, Letter of Edmunston, G., December 2, 1884, A.F.L.-C.I.O. Building, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar

19. Carlton, , Organized Labor in American History pp. 110.Google Scholar

20. Ibid., p. 111.Google Scholar

21. Stewart, Ethelbert, Documentary History of the Early Organizations of Printers United States Bureau of Labor Bulletin no. 59 (Washington, D.C., July 1905), p. 912.Google Scholar

22. The Constitution and By-Laws of the United Trade Society of Journeymen Tailors, in the City of New York, 1833. The Tamiment Institute Library in New York City has a copy of the Constitution.Google Scholar

23. Curoe, Philip R. V., Educational Attitudes and Policies of Organized Labor in the United States (New York: Teachers College Press, 1926), p. 189.Google Scholar

24. Ibid.Google Scholar

25. Curoe, Educational Attitudes and Policies of Organized Labor, pp. 61–62. Norman Ware in his study of this organization, felt that it was a reform-dominated group without workingmen in attendance (Norman Ware, The Industrial Worker 1840–1860 [1924; reprint ed., Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1959], p. 209). Ware took his evidence from the New York Daily Tribune whose writer reported “that a great deal of dissatisfaction was expressed by the members at the lack of interest among workers” (New York Daily Tribune, June 3, 1850).Google Scholar

26. Curoe, Educational Attitudes and Policies of Organized Labor, pp. 22–23.Google Scholar

27. Curoe, Educational Attitudes and Policies of Organized Labor, p. 4.Google Scholar

28. Ibid., p. 191.Google Scholar

29. Ibid., p. 29.Google Scholar

30. An example of the stretching which Curoe engaged in was his presenting the phalanx as a workingmen's organization with an interest in education. Curoe, Educational Attitudes and Policies of Organized Labor, p. 57. The phalanx movement was interested in self-education rather than public schools.Google Scholar

31. Commons, John R. and Sumner, Helen, Documentary History of American Industrial Society (New York: Russell and Russell, 1958), 5:27–28; this support was repeated in Commons, John R., History of Labour in the United States (New York: Macmillan Co., 1918), 1:223–24.Google Scholar

32. Schlesinger, Arthur M., New Viewpoints in American History (1922; reprint ed., New York: Macmillan Co., 1957), pp. 86, 89–90.Google Scholar

33. Beard, Mary R., Short History of the American Labor Movement (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920), pp. 3940.Google Scholar

34. Reisner, Edward H., The Evolution of the American Common School (New York: Macmillan Co., 1930), p. 326. For still other endorsements see Monroe, Paul, Founding of the American Public School System (New York: Macmillan Co., 1940), 1:230–32; Mulhern, James, A History of Education: A Social Interpretation (New York: Ronald Press Co., 1959), p. 415.Google Scholar

35. Freeman Butts, R. and Cremin, Lawrence A., A History of Education in American Culture (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1953), pp. 151–52.Google Scholar

36. Clark, Marjorie R. and Fanny Simon, S., The Labor Movement (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1938), p. 30.Google Scholar

37. Cremin, Lawrence A., The American Common School: An Historic Conception (New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1951), p. 44.Google Scholar

38. Welter, Rush, Popular Education and Democratic Thought in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), chaps. 3, 4.Google Scholar

39. Ibid., pp. 45, 49.Google Scholar

40. Ibid., p. 53.Google Scholar

41. There was a significant difference between Welter's view of Jacksonian society and that of Joseph Dorfman who assaulted the clear-cut class concept approach (Dorfman, Joseph, “The Jackson Wage-Earner Thesis,American Historical Review 54 (January 1949): 305.Google Scholar

42. Welter, , Popular Education and Democratic Thought p. 9.Google Scholar

43. Ibid., p. 85. Welter cited Seward's concern with schools as an example of how the conservative looked to free schools to save the republic (pp. 82–85). See also, Grier Sellers, Charles, “Andrew Jackson Versus the Historians,Mississippi Valley Historical Review 44 (March 1958): 615–34.Google Scholar

44. Crandall, W. L. to Beekman, James W., June 13, 1850, Beekman MSS, New York Historical Society, box 25, folder 4.Google Scholar

45. A State Convention of the Friends of Free Schools was called for in April of 1850 (New York Daily Tribune, April 23, 1850). The convention call was made by professional educators. Men like William Phelps, the principal of the State Normal School at Albany, played prominent roles at the convention (New York Daily Tribune, July 12, 13, 1850). The repeal movement was strong in upstate rural areas (Randall, S. S. to Beekman, James W., October 21, 1850, Beekman MSS, New York Historical Society, box 25, folder 4; New York Daily Tribune, August 1, 1850).Google Scholar