American Education In The 1800s

During the 1800s there was a growing emphasis on the importance of secondary education. Aside from college, the emergence of the American high school offered educational opportunities to more students. Despite the ideas of teaching the masses, many high schools excluded women from getting a secondary education (the origins of the American high school, 127). Additionally, enrollment at universities popularized, but women remained excluded from attending Ironically, by the late 1800s women had become crucial to public education. Girls may not have been permitted to attend the schools, but they could teach at them. Going along with earlier ideologies of domesticity, women were thought to be natural nurtures, and thus better educators for students.
Because women educators were cheaper than men, there was a shift to feminization of teaching (Stern, 10/02/17). This change provided the opportunity for women to gain independence, but continued to have women be under strict male authority.
While before the Civil War education for black people was illegal, following emancipation, freed slaves were allowed an education.
Despite this new opportunity, racial inequality prohibited equal advancement. The common school reform failed to address the growing issues of racial exclusion, and segregation of schools prevailed. Law prevented black students from attending public schools, so black students relied on donations and their own resources (10/15/17). Even when black schools were established, restrictions and racist propaganda prevented equal opportunities. The American Missionary Association, a group of northern white missionaries, intervened in the education of freed blacks by propelling their own agenda on the students (Self-Taught, 131). Although their mission was aid in the school of freed blacks, their double standards and prejudice against black education resulted in a biased and unequal curriculum (Self-Taught, 121). Despite the intervention of the AMA, schools allowed young black students to become literate, and learn the values of economics and marketing. One institutional opportunity freed blacks had was industrial education. Although they didn’t equalize the playing field between blacks and whites, an industrial education allowed students to learn valuable skills to progress in their own racial standing (Du Bois,
17).
The 1800s were a time of urbanization, immigration, and industrialization. In this time of social and economic change, the gap between socioeconomic classes widened and informal class discrimination prevailed (Pillars, 118). Immigration and the move to cities shifted the inequality of wealth (pillars, pg. 64). As cities become heavily populated, public schools’ attendance dramatically increased. The schools became overcrowded, low funded, and understaffed. Because of the lack of resources, there were multiple grade levels in one class, and classrooms had too many students. When it regarded secondary education, high schools were expensive and the economic restrictions of low socioeconomic environments resulted in educational institutions that were not equal to upper classes. Because of the disparity of classes, education was not a great equalizer for all socioeconomic statuses during the 1800s.