A Moment in Time - September 1941
By Sarah S. Uthoff
One of the biggest mistakes people make about one-room schools is assuming that they are all the same. These people appear to feel whether someone attended a one-room school in 1890 or 1950, in Iowa or Kentucky, it was all the same experience, but it was clearly not. I thought it might be enlightening to look at a particular school that was frozen in time to compare to your experience or school museum. I found one in the pages of “Good Housekeeping.” They were on their best behavior, and might have “fixed themselves up” before the reporter and photographer got there and maybe they didn’t answer all the questions we would ask, but nobody can deny this was a snapshot of that exact time. How does it compare to your school?
In the September 1941 issue, “Good Housekeeping” is an article and photo spread about the life of teachers of rural, one-room schools. They choose to focus on one school, selecting a school in Bullitt County, Kentucky taught by a former city girl, 23 year-old Dotty Johnson. They felt that it was a typical school for that year, although one-room schools were felt to becoming less common “such schools still flourish in remote sections of America.” There is no indication whether this is a particularly rich or particularly poor school. They probably chose an average income school and that is shown with them having some more modern equipment (like their desks) and some older (the woodstove rather than a furnace). The article and photos give a peek inside one country school in 1941, with my observations.
The School Building
The school was then 50 years old, although it does not specify whether it’s the same building or not. People seemed to refer to a school as the same if it was in the same place with the same name even if the actual building was replaced. Whether it had a name or a number is not given in the article. The school has a belfry and a porch covering the steps. Although the photos are in black and white, the building appears to be freshly painted white on the outside. There is hand pump for water outside the door, so no running for water to the next door farm.
The photos are all in black and white, so colors are unclear. The interior does not appear to be white, but possibly yellow, beige, tan or a lighter green. Blackboards cover the front of the room with at least one more, smaller board on a side wall. However, there is no Palmer Method alphabet line above either visible blackboard. Windows are evenly spaced along at least one wall (probably 3 of them from comparing photos) and from their placement there was probably a duplicate line of windows along the opposite wall as well. The windows are covered with white roller shades. In one of the photos a student has lifted one roller off its hooks, but whether he is dusting or trying to get it rolled up again, there is no information.
The desks all match and are of the type that are a cross between the traditional one-room school type desk and the more modern version that replaced them. The seat is all one piece like a chair and the fancy iron work is replaced with fairly plain stamped metal. This type of desk is prevalent in school supply catalogs from the time, but older looking desks are still offered for sale as well. The school is heated by a trash burner type stove. I thought for sure they would burn coal as I think of Kentucky as coal country, but they burn wood. There is a separate woodshed from the school that holds the wood supply. Often people restore only the schoolhouse, but schools had outbuildings. A woodshed or coal shed was very common. On cold days in Dotty’s school, they keep their coats on all day. There is no indication of artificial light either from oil lamps or electricity, but possibly electric lights might just be out of frame. There is no row of kerosene lamps with reflectors between the windows.
The Students
There are 24 students attending the school and they range in age from 5 to 15 and live between 1 and 4 miles from the school. Kentucky was not settled as firmly along section lines as were the states of the Midwest and so schools were usually not so evenly spaced. However, the difference in distance could also be due to whether there were enough students to support a second school within the area as schools often opened and closed according to local population shifts. At least in the later years of the one-room school era students sometimes were recruited out of the immediate district to help keep a school open. This school was open from July 1 to March 1 when weather and crop needs make school harder to get to. An unusual schedule in my experience, but I don’t know how common it was in other areas. It would coincide with the schedule of tenant farmers who might be moving out of the district when the rental year was up on March 1st. Also, they didn’t mention a breaking of the year into terms with different teachers as I have seen in other schools of the time, but they might just failed to mention it.
One student named Duggie used to play hooky. Now Dotty wakes him up a 5 am, so he can get to school on time. In the photo, he doesn’t look like he really appreciates it, but they are fishing together. There is no indication if this is why she has to get him up so early or just to get ready for school.
The Teacher
Dotty makes $76 dollars a month, but must pay $15 of that a month in board to the local family she lives with. They don’t have running water and cook on a woodstove. She has completed 1 year of the 2 year normal course at the University of Louisville, a state teacher college and continues to work toward her BA. She owns a car she purchased for $18, but only uses it to go home on the weekends. To get to school she rides to school with the daughter of the family she boards with on a horse. The family’s hired man actually controls the horse and the other two ride behind. He then takes the horse home to work on the farm for the day. There isn’t a mention of whether or not he comes back to pick them up.
During her off duty time, Dotty spends most evenings with the family she boards with. They do have a radio to listen to, but they are all in bed by 9 pm. On Wednesday nights she goes with the family she boards with to a Baptist prayer meeting. She’s also expected to help keep with chores around the house like helping wash dishes. However, she dates and has several boyfriends. They go to the movies or the county fair and sometimes they travel to Louisville for the evening. There is no indication that this is uncommon or that she has to ask anybody’s permission to do so.
The School Schedule
Dotty’s daily tasks include sweeping and dusting the schoolhouse, filling the inkwells, pinning up maps needed that day and lighting the stove on cold mornings. School starts at 8 am. Dotty is wearing a wristwatch and it’s the school’s official time. No sign of a clock in the school, but it could be on the desk, if it was small or in the back half of the classroom which wasn’t shown. Awards are given for promptness and attendance, scoldings for tardiness. Dotty teaches 12 subjects, including reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history, modeling in clay, spelling, singing, drawing, literature, health and grammar. Health includes things like brushing your teeth, what makes a balanced died, vitamins and how to get them. The county supervisor is W. H. McFarland. He visits the school during the photo shoot. His reported duties involve checking reports and awarding prizes.
Recess Dotty also organizes recess, sometimes she plays along. Girls play rope skipping up to 3 girls at a time. The boys play mublety-peg and the little kids play Farmer in the Dell.
Lunch
The students bring lunch. There is no indication of an attempt to have any type of hot dish. Lunch pails range from what looks like a modern rectangle lunch box to the black workmen’s style to oval aluminum kinds to two printed, handles over the top type boxes. The students and teacher sit together to eat on the porch and they are pumping water to drink with the meal. The article indicates they eat “biscuit sandwiches."
The article probably says more about the school than they meant it to. It gives a clear picture of one school in 1941. Contrast it to your school.
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