Education, Jim Crow, and Women in the Progressive Era

Education

• By 1865, 50% of white children attended school.

– 2% graduated from high school.

• Push for more school funding, longer school year, child labor laws.

– By 1910, 72% of children attended school.

• 8.6% graduated high school.

• Compulsory education.

1865 School

1910School

• Immigrants highly valued education.

– Children and adults attended.

• Schools aided in assimilation.

– Taught English, American history, culture, values.

• Religious schools existed.

• Schools segregated by color.

• Colleges, universities opened in huge numbers in late 1800s, early 1900s.

– Only wealthy families could afford, at first.

• Women’s colleges began to open, men’s colleges began to accept women.

• Few colleges would accept black students.

• During Reconstruction, many black universities were founded.

• Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.– Taught students skills and trades to push for

economic equality.

• W.E.B. DuBois wanted black students do study liberal arts and become political leaders.– Take pride in both African and American heritages.

Booker T. Washington

Tuskegee Institute

W.E.B. DuBois

Discrimination and Jim Crow• After Civil War, slavery ended, discrimination

began.

• Voting restrictions:– Property Test-had to own property to vote.

– Poll Tax-had to pay a tax to vote.

– Literacy Test-be able to read, write, meet minimum standards of knowledge.

– Grandfather Clause-if your grandfather could vote, you could vote.

• Did not single out black voters (unconstitutional), but really did.

“What is that big word?”

• Segregation also existed, especially in south.

– Separating a group of people from the whole.

– Known in the south as Jim Crow Laws.

• Black and white segregated in schools, hospitals, public buildings, restaurants, public transportation, water fountains, restrooms.

• Supreme Court case Plessy v. Fergusonestablished “separate but equal” doctrine.

– Segregation was legal, as long as facilities were equal.

– Rarely equal in practice.

• Segregation sometimes turned violent.– Suspected criminals, blacks who got “uppity” were

sometimes subjected to lynching.• Hanging.

• Many southern black families moved north.– Faced “de facto” discrimination.

• By custom, not law.

• Many, black & white, opposed discrimination.

• 1909, Mary Ovington founded NAACP-National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.– Goal-abolish segregation, discrimination, gain civil

rights for black citizens.

Mary Ovington

Women• Wanted suffrage, to control their own

property & income, have access to higher education & professional jobs.

• For the most part, women were still homemakers.

– Worked outside home as maids, nurses, teachers.

• Many did volunteer work.

– Joined clubs that promoted suffrage, temperance, women’s rights.

• As more women went to school and entered workforce, they began to demand more.

• “New Women” changed fashion, hairstyles to be more convenient, wanted more out of marriage, access to birth control info.

• Suffrage movement grew.

• Women also had increased purchasing power.

– Creation of department stores, mail-order catalogs.

A.J. Stewart Co., First Department Store