Literacy at Calhoun Colored School 18921945

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Reading Research QuarterlyVol. 37, No. 1

January/February/March 2002©2002 International Reading Association

(pp. 8–44)

Over the last two decades, examinations of theunderlying assumptions of how literacy is de-fined and the purposes to which literacy hasbeen put have challenged common-sense be-

liefs about universal access and opportunities for literacyand the cultural, social, and political contexts of literacyeducation. Challengers have contested the uncritical his-torical accounts (i.e., Mathews, 1966; Smith,1934/1965/1986) that ignore difference in general and dif-ferences in the literacy experiences within and betweenmarginalized groups and the mainstream, specifically.Historian Harvey Graff (1979, 1981, 1987, 1995) has de-tailed the complex relationships among literacy, knowl-edge, privilege, and power. His research on literacy inselect North American cities presents literacy as a conduitfor social and cultural hegemony. Graff also described lit-eracy’s power to liberate as one of the great fears of thedominant class as well as the political, social, and institu-tional structures constructed to hinder access to literacy.

Most telling, however, are the historical accounts(Anderson, 1995; Au, 2000; Bond, 1939/1969; Graff, 1979,1981, 1987, 1995; Kaestle, 1985, 1988; Kaestle, Damon-Moore, Stedman, Tinsley, & Trollinger, 1991; Shannon,1989; Soltow & Stevens, 1981) that document how access(freedom to obtain) and opportunity (favorable circum-stances to use and expand basic skills) for literacy educa-tion have been restricted by race, ethnicity, class, gender,religion, language, and geography. The research of these

scholars has helped to dislodge and demystify notions ofuniversal access for all groups and individuals throughclose examinations of barriers to access experienced bymembers of marginalized communities. Historically, ac-cess to literacy and opportunity for literacy educationhave been experienced differently in varied contexts—racial/ethnic, class, gendered, historical, social, religious,linguistic, and geographical. Gee (1990) argued com-pellingly that definitions of literacy have appealed to no-tions of its acquisition on the basis of naturalness,innocence, and individual responsibility, “obscuring themultiple ways in which reading, writing, and language in-terrelate within the working of power and desire in sociallife” (p. 27). The presumption here is that literacy is con-text sensitive; that is, varied contexts (economic, cultural,gendered, geographical, historical, ideological, linguistic,racial/ethnic, religious, and social) affect access to literacyand opportunity for its development and use. Giventhese considerations, equal outcomes should not be ex-pected from unequal circumstances.

By way of illustration, the memoir Life Is So Goodby George Dawson and Richard Glaubman (2000) detailshow varied contexts hindered the late Mr. Dawson’s ac-cess and opportunity for literacy. The memoir’s appealderives from the vivid picture of Mr. Dawson, an elderlyAfrican American who lived in Marshall, Texas, for practi-cally his entire life, and his continuing quest for literacy.Impressively, Mr. Dawson shares his life story explaining

Literacy at Calhoun Colored School 1892-1945Arlette Ingram Willis

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, USA

9

This article examines the historical experiences and struggles ofAfrican Americans seeking literacy access during the PostReconstruction era and, in so doing, adds to what is known aboutthe literacy histories of marginalized groups, here African Americansliving in Calhoun, Alabama, from 1892–1945. Then, as now, literacywas represented to subjugated people as the acquisition of skillswith the hope that said skills would lead to liberation. Applying a

Foucaultian genealogical analysis to documents from CalhounColored School reveals interconnections of power/knowledge rela-tions and discursive practices of the Hampton-Tuskegee model ofeducation that shaped literacy access and opportunity. Moreover,these discursive practices framed the school’s literacy program anddelimitated literacy access and opportunities.

Literacy at Calhoun Colored School 1892–1945

Alfabetización en la Escuela para Niños de Color de Calhoun 1892–1945genealógico basado en Foucault a documentos de la Escuela paraNiños de Color de Calhoun, se muestran conexiones entre las rela-ciones poder/conocimiento, asi como prácticas discursivas del mod-elo educativo Hampton-Tuskegee que dio forma al acceso y opor-tunidades de alfabetización. Más aún, estas prácticas discursivasconstituyeron el marco del programa de alfabetización de la escuelay delimitaron el acceso y las oportunidades de alfabetización.

Este artículo examina las experiencias históricas y las luchas de losafroamericanos en búsqueda del acceso a la alfabetización durante laépoca posterior a la Reconstrucción. Es, por tanto, un aporte a la his-toria de la alfabetización de los grupos marginados, en este caso losafroamericanos que vivían en Calhoun, Alabama, de 1892 a 1945.En aquel momento, como hoy, la alfabetización se presentaba a losgrupos oprimidos como la adquisición de habilidades que con-ducirian a la liberación. Mediante la aplicación de un análisis

Lesen und Schreiben in der Calhoun Schule für Farbige 1892–1945Dieser Aufsatz untersucht die historischen Erfahrungen und dasRingen der Afro-Amerikaner in ihrem Bemühen um Zugang zumLesen und Schreiben in der Folgezeit der Rekonstruktionära; undergänzt somit das bisher bekannte Allgemeinwissen über die his-torischen Abläufe beim Erlernen des Lesens und Schreibens vonRandgruppen, hier afro-amerikanische Lebensbedingungen inCalhoun, Alabama, von 1892–1945. Damals—wie heute—wurde denunterdrückten Menschen nahegelegt, daß durch Lesen undSchreiben Fähigkeiten angeeignet werden, verbunden mit derHoffnung, daß besagte Fähigkeiten zur Befreiung führen würden.

Durch Anwendung einer genealogischen Analyse nach Foucault ausDokumenten der farbigen Schule von Calhoun offenbaren sichVerbindungen der Beziehungen zwischen Macht/Wissen und diskur-siver Handhabungen des Hampton-Tuskegee Bildungsmodells,welches den Zugang und die Möglichkeiten zum Erwerb des Lesensund Schreibens modellierte. Darüber hinaus formten diese diskur-siven Anwendungen den Lese- und Schreiblehrplan der Schule undsie umgrenzten den Zugang und die Chancen zum Lernen von Lesenund Schreiben.

ABSTRACTS

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ABSTRACTS

Littératie à l’École pour enfants de couleur de Calhoun (1892–1945)

L’application d’une grille d’analyse généalogique foucaltienne auxdocuments provenant de l’École pour enfants de couleur de Calhounmet en évidence des interconnections entre les relations de pou-voir/savoir et les pratiques discursives du modèle d’éducation deHampton-Tuskegee qui ont façonné les possibilités d’accès à la lit-tératie. En outre, ces pratiques discursives ont structuré le pro-gramme scolaire en littératie et défini les possibilités d’accès à la littératie.

Cet article s’intéresse aux expériences historiques et aux luttes desAfro-américains cherchant à accéder à la littératie pendant la périodede la Post-reconstruction et, ce faisant, complète ce que l’on sait déjàconcernant l’histoire de la littératie des groupes marginalisés, en l’oc-currence ici les Afro-américains vivant à Calhoun, Alabama, de 1892à 1945. À ce moment-là, comme aujourd’hui, la littératie était présen-tée à des gens subjugués comme une acquisition de compétencesavec l’espoir que les dites compétences conduisent à la libération.

how his family could not afford the luxury of sendinghim to school to learn to read and write when there waswork to be done in the fields. After his own childrengraduated from college, and at the age of 98, Mr. Dawsonfinally learned to read and write. His life experiences sug-gest that current conceptions of literacy support situatingour understanding of literacy within accessible contexts:the opportunities available to the learner and individualresponsibility.

In a similar fashion the role of access and opportu-nity for literacy can be found in the philosophical andpractical work of the late Paulo Freire and DonaldoMacedo (1987), among others, who have helped to clarifythe ways that literacy can shape and empower lives.Giroux (1993) wrote that literacy is neither a skill norknowledge, but is “an emerging act of conscious and re-sistance” (p. 367). To explain this concept Giroux (1987)cited social theorist Antonio Gramsci, “literacy is both aconcept and a social practice that must be linked histori-cally to configurations of knowledge and power, on theone hand, and the political and cultural struggle over lan-guage and experience on the other” (pp. 1–2). The educa-tion and literacy experiences of African Americansthroughout history are replete with examples of the denialof access and opportunity for literacy and the struggleagainst political, cultural, racial, and economic structuresto obtain literacy. In this sense literacy access and oppor-tunity are endogenous with politics and economics.

Literacy, thus defined, cannot be understood with-out consideration of the multiple and varied contexts(cultural, economic, gendered, geographic, historical, ide-ological, social, and racial) that influence access and op-portunity. Inherent within this broadened view of literacyare questions relative to how social institutions and power/knowledge relations create, define, measure, value, privi-lege, and constrain literacy, historically and contemporari-ly. It seems imperative to consider how access andopportunity for literacy, especially among marginalizedgroups, helps us to disentangle notions of individual ef-fort from notions of social control. Examining the literacyhistories of people of color may help to inform discus-sions of how literacy access and opportunity are under-stood, represented, and practiced in schooling and howdecisions are made about which facets of literacy re-search are funded and promoted in the United States.The normative thinking that informs many current discus-sions of literacy access and opportunity places the re-sponsibility for literacy on individual communities,schools, families, and children without regard to the roleof history, politics, economics, and race in determiningaccess and opportunity.

This article is a genealogy of the literacy programsand practices at Calhoun Colored School (CCS) in the rur-

al African American community of Calhoun, Alabama,from 1892 to 1945. It is an important exploration becauseit offers insight in the local history, memory, and experi-ences of African Americans and extends the history of lit-eracy in America to include the experiences and voices ofsubjugated groups. In this article I discuss the joint effortsof the African American community in Calhoun, Alabama,and two European American females along with a smallgroup of African American and European Americanteachers from Hampton Institute, Hampton, Virginia, tocreate access to literacy in south central Alabama duringthe post-Reconstruction era. Their efforts culminated inthe founding of Calhoun Colored School, the first privateand independent boarding school for African Americansin the area. Further, I explore the role of political and so-cial institutions that affected the literacy practices andprograms offered at CCS.

This study begins several decades prior to thefounding of the school by acknowledging the prevailingthinking held among most European Americans andsome African Americans, thinking that was certainly heldby the founders and supporters of CCS, with regard tohow education should be offered, what forms it shouldtake, and what its purposes are for African Americans. Inthis way I bring together official knowledge and localmemory, which, as Foucault (1994) suggested, is neces-sary “to establish a historical knowledge of struggles andto make use of this knowledge tactically today” (p. 42).Many histories and studies have been written about thedenial of literacy access for African Americans; few havefocused on disentangling the multiple, interwoven, andinterdependent contexts that influenced literacy accessand opportunity within and beyond the specific periodand geographical location to contemporary spaces. Thisconsideration is nonetheless important, as Foucaultianframeworks provide missing information about the man-ner in which power/knowledge relations work to deter-mine and shape literacy access and opportunity.Exploring the literacy experiences of African Americans atCCS will provide insight about the extent to which thisschool reflected the views of the larger society, in gener-al, and the views of the supporters of the Hampton-Tuskegee model, specifically, with regard to literacyaccess and opportunity. Further, this study exploressources of information that make possible a better under-standing of the power/knowledge relation of literacy ac-cess and opportunity for African Americans historicallyand in this new millennium.

This study is also genealogical in the more com-monly understood sense, that is, members of my extend-ed family attended Calhoun Colored School. I firstlearned of CCS during a summer vacation at my parents’home when an elder cousin enthusiastically described

Literacy at Calhoun Colored School 1892Ð1945 11

her plans to attend Calhoun’s annual reunion. My mother,whose older sister attended CCS, also shared memories ofelaborate school functions she enjoyed with her parentsat CCS. Their stories piqued my interest as they portrayedCCS as a “private boarding school” for African Americanchildren in their era. Admittedly, I had hoped to locateinformation on CCS that affirmed their fond memories,experiences, and hope for educational accomplishments.From a historical and philosophical stance, I found CCSto be part of a much larger campaign to socially controleducation in the rural South for African Americans, aview very different from the memories my relatives hold.

Method In this study I incorporate a genealogical mode of

analysis that began with locating and synthesizing infor-mation on the history of education and literacy as experi-enced by African Americans in the South to approachhistorical events “in terms of their most unique character-istics, their most acute manifestations” (Foucault, 1984, p.88). This step also supplied information needed to under-stand the political, economic, and social contexts thatpreceded education and literacy at Calhoun ColoredSchool. Data were collected in interwoven and overlap-ping steps as I conducted an extensive review of avail-able primary and secondary sources on the history ofAfrican American education and CCS. Herein is a partiallist of the primary sources I reviewed. I began with theentire set of General Education Board (1994) files relatedto CCS, which included extensive records of correspon-dence between Charlotte Thorn, a founder and principalat CCS, and the members of the General Education Board(established to support education of African Americans inthe South). These records were a helpful source in track-ing some of CCS’s financial concerns, requests for fund-ing from a variety of philanthropic agencies, andinformation on teachers and staff hired at CCS. A copy ofthe property deed from the Lowndes County Courthouse(1948) was examined for property rights to the land onwhich the school is located (the original school buildingsno longer exist).

The most helpful documents were the AnnualReports of the Principals of Calhoun Colored School, ofCalhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama (hereafter referredto as the “Reports”) written for the Calhoun ColoredSchool Board of Trustees. These archival materials wereexamined from Hampton University in Hampton,Virginia, and the State of Alabama Department ofArchives and History in Montgomery, Alabama. The ad-ministrators of CCS left a sufficiently continuous record oftheir approach to literacy in these Reports for mostschool years between 1892 and 1943. The Reports consti-

tute the official school records and are the most impor-tant source of information on the school’s curriculum. Allavailable annual Reports were reviewed (numbers 30–31,33–34, and 43–45 were not located). Most Reports beganwith an introduction and a brief outline of the year’s ac-complishments and needs, a treasurer’s report, reportswritten by individual department heads, and a list ofdonors and bequests.

Copies of CCS school administrators’ correspon-dence, photographs, and journal and newspaper articleswere obtained from Hampton University; the State ofAlabama Department of Archives and History; AlabamaState University in Montgomery; and Wellesley College, inWellesley, Massachusetts. These items included photos ofthe school, principal, teachers, and students; school bul-letins and special school publications; and copies of cor-respondence between members of the school’sadministration and members of the Calhoun ColoredSchool Board of Trustees and other supporters of theschool.

Several secondary sources include the Journal ofNegro Education and The Southern Workman andHampton School Record (hereafter referred to as TheSouthern Workman), the official publication of theHampton Institute (now Hampton University). The latterwas an important outlet for a large number of articles,testimonies, letters, editorials, and essays written by theschool’s founders, visitors, donors, teachers, and studentson the work conducted at CCS. Several brief historical ac-counts of CCS (Avery, 1933; Dabney, 1936; Davis, 1914;Ellis, 1984; Hallowell, 1913; Jones, 1917, 1969; Lasch-Quinn, 1993; Ovington, 1927; Peagler, 1915) were alsoreviewed. Finally, the American Primers Guide to theMicrofiche Collection was consulted for information onreaders listed in the Reports.

In this article, I draw upon the Reports as the pri-mary source of evidence for the descriptions and expla-nations of literacy practices, programs, and instruction atCCS and within the African American community. In sodoing, I allow the voices and passion of the authors ofthe Reports to speak for themselves, in an effort to re-port, but not to fictionalize or romanticize, their thinkingabout literacy. Supplemental evidence is drawn primarilyfrom the General Education Board Archives and TheSouthern Workman journal. Together these sources rep-resent the official school historical documents, theschool’s financial status, and commentary on the school’sprogress, respectively.

I have elected to allow a genealogy of literacy atCCS to flow as uninterrupted as possible. The aim ofsuch inquiry, as Foucault (1970) pointed out, “is to redis-cover on what basis knowledge and theory became pos-sible; within what space of order knowledge is

12 READING RESEARCH QUARTERLY January/February/March 2002 37/1


constituted” (pp. xxi–xxii). A genealogical approach is“descriptive and conjunctural; it presents a series of dis-crete elements that, while following their own periodicityand their own dynamics, assemble at the same conjunc-ture” (Rabinow, 1994, p. 203). My application ofFoucaultian analysis seeks to “uncover institutional prac-tices” (Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1982, p. 104) and their inter-connections with power/knowledge relations as theyunfolded and to illustrate how African Americans gainedaccess to literacy at CCS. Thus, it is not one series ofevents that I have located and examined, but a “series ofseries” (Foucault, 1972, p. 7) that describe historicalevents in their complexity.

Genealogical analysis brings together the officialknowledge of history and the local memory of struggleby revealing the way each has been presented or chal-lenged to test what is often agreed upon as knowledge.As such, genealogies focus on the continuities and dis-continuities of history that include “overlapping, interac-tion, and echoes” (Foucault, 1980a, p. 149).Methodologically, this approach focuses on continuitiesand discontinuities between epistemes (also called discur-sive formations or discursive practices). For Foucault theyrepresented “the knowledge systems which primarily in-formed the thinking during certain periods ofhistory...and the social context in which certain knowl-edge is inextricably connected to power, such that theyare often written as power/knowledge” (Pinkus, 1996).He also used these terms to illustrate the rules by which aculture forms or makes knowledge, informed by politicsand shaped by social practice. Specifically, Foucault(1972) wrote that an episteme “is not a form of knowl-edge (connaissance) or type of rationality...it is the totali-ty of relations that can be discovered, for a given period,between the sciences when one analyses them at the lev-el of discursive regularities” (p. 191). Further, he formu-lated the idea of dispositif to account for the “practices(institutions, architectural arrangements, regulations, laws,administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophicpropositions, morality, philanthropy) in addition to dis-course which we may use to do a genealogical analysisof some particular situation” (Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1982,p. 121). He also identified nondiscursive practices inwhich language is not used to produce knowledge, but isused to maintain power. Herein, I examine the discourse,political and social contexts, and power/knowledge rela-tions that influenced literacy access at CCS.

I begin by acknowledging the historical conditionsof literacy access for African Americans and discussingthe relations amongst political, economic, and social con-texts that hindered literacy access. I also examine the in-terconnections of discourse and power/knowledgerelations as they work together to shape literacy access.

As Foucault (1975) argued, “power produces knowledge”and “power and knowledge directly imply one another;that there is no power relation without the correlativeconstitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledgethat does not presuppose and constitute at the same timepower relations” (p. 27). Moreover, the term powershould be understood to mean the “rationalization, orrather, as a series of discursive-institutional employmentsof rationality that seek to normalize and discipline thesocial population through the liquidation of alterity andthe production of docile minds and bodies” (Best, 1995,p. 115, emphasis in the original). Following is a descrip-tion of the complex set of circumstances that made possi-ble the power/knowledge relations that affected literacyaccess for African Americans.

ResultsIn the late 1800s, America experienced a renewed

sense of Anglo-Saxon racism rooted and grounded in thelarger discourse on race and the role of nonwhites in soci-ety. White America sought to maintain the idea of whitesupremacy and white dominance in all areas of lifethrough claims of scientific evidence of racial difference(Karier, 1975). Philosophies and theories of racial differ-ences drawn from Darwin, Galton, and Spencer asserted,defended, and attempted to justify the evolutionary supe-riority of the Anglo-Saxon race above all others in intelli-gence, morals, and beauty. Herbert Spencer wasespecially popular in the U.S., and he found a ready ac-ceptance among many white politicians, scientists, andsouthern sympathizers in a nation reeling in the aftermathof a civil war and the Reconstruction era. These philoso-phies and theories generated interest in all facets of soci-ety, as white native-born Americans sought to retain theirdominant status, from the preservation clubs (Dorr, 2000)to eugenics organizations to the schoolhouse, and to de-termine and shape the role of African Americans in soci-ety. Educators and politicians seized the opportunity touse the pseudoscientific claims of the racial superiority ofNordic whites in all facets of life from intelligence tomorals to beauty, and notions of the inheritability of intel-ligence that placed whites at the forefront and all othersas inferior. This thinking permeated social institutions inan effort to vindicate the separation of the races in schoolsand separate pedagogical agendas (Dennis, 1998). In edu-cation whites were offered a classical course of study andAfrican Americans a rudimentary elementary and industri-al course of study (Anderson, 1988) for the “preservationof the social order and White supremacy” (Dennis, 1998,p. 144). Moreover, discursive practices were used to keepAfrican Americans in a subservient role through gradual-ism in economics, disenfranchisement in politics, and ac-


commodation and isolationalism in society and education.Historian James Anderson (1995) argued that the literacyexperiences of African Americans

differed sharply from the white experience [Cornelius,1991], placing the national experience in a very differentperspective. Despite fundamental elements of truth in thestandard story, it does not prepare one to understand thedistinct experience of African Americans or to gauge theimpact of their experiences on the nation’s complex andcontradictory attitudes regarding the rights of individualsto literacy. (p. 20)

In the next section, I offer a brief historicaloverview of the literacy experiences of African Americansas “genealogy advances the notion of an always alreadybegun beginning” (Best, 1995, p. 111). I provide a gener-al discussion of the historical, social, economic, and polit-ical contexts of access to literacy as experienced byAfrican Americans. As Best noted, “Foucault never re-gards discourse as anything but a discursive practice em-bedded in institutional networks of power and authority”(p. 110). It is beyond the scope of this article to offer anexhaustive review of African American education and lit-eracy in the South (Anderson, 1988; Bond, 1939/1969;Franklin, 1994; Jones, 1917). Background information,thus, is needed and appropriate to frame the discussionthat follows and to reveal the context of life in the ruralsouth for African Americans in the mid- to late 1800s. Ialso acknowledge the prevailing episteme and discursivepractices in the Hampton-Tuskegee model as it shapedliteracy programs and schools like CCS. Additionally, Idiscuss the contexts of life for African Americans inCalhoun, Alabama, prior to the founding of CCS as “anoverdetermined event that is constituted within a pregiv-en context” (Best, p. 111). The African American commu-nity was very involved in establishing and sustaining aschool in Calhoun, Alabama.

Access denied: An alternative perspectiv e ofthe early history of literacy in the U.S.

African Americans’ access to and opportunity forliteracy is entangled in a history of denial and struggle ofhuman rights. From the complicity of the United Statesgovernment to individual states and local governments,African Americans were denied equal status as humanbeings and citizens. A few examples of the status ofAfrican Americans can be found in the ContinentalCongress reference to African Americans in its infamous3/5s clause (Article I, section 2), the suppression of insur-rections (Article I, section 8) that referenced slave upris-ings led by literate African Americans, and the FugitiveSlave Laws of 1850. Literacy access and opportunity were

denied by colonies, states, and territories in what is nowVirginia (1685), Missouri (1821), Mississippi (1823), andSouth Carolina (1834) among others. The heroic efforts toteach slaves and free blacks literacy skills, in a time whensuch acts were illegal, are well documented in the biogra-phies of African American men and women (e.g., AnnMarie Becroft, Louisa Gause, Milla Granson, WilliamHenry Heard, Daniel Payne, Mary S. Peake, and FerebeRogers). In addition, there were heroic efforts by whitemen and women (e.g., Benjamin Franklin, Cotton Mather,Margaret Kate, the New York Manumission Society, andPrudence Crandall) to extend literacy to AfricanAmericans. In spite of these efforts, the vast majority ofAfrican Americans remained illiterate. In part, asAnderson (1995) argued, “universal literacy was never fa-vored by southern whites who believed that illiteracyamong the slaves and free persons of color was essentialto the well being of society” (p. 18).

The intimate connection among literacy, liberation,and freedom in slave narratives offers a particularly com-pelling visage of the connections among race, knowledge,and power. Collectively, the narratives of slaves and ex-slaves illustrate how limited literacy access and opportunitywere to African Americans and their continuous struggle toobtain literacy. Many African Americans in this periodlearned to read through the benevolence of others, whitesand blacks, who taught them to read as well as throughtheir personal ingenuity and resiliency. As personally liber-ating as literacy acquisition was, the opportunity to movebeyond the acquisition of basic skills was restricted by po-litical, social, economic, and cultural contexts.

During the Reconstruction era most AfricanAmericans did not know how to read or write and con-tinued to live in the South under Jim Crow laws (racial,caste-like system in the southern and border states be-tween 1877 through the mid-1960s that legalized segrega-tion). There was little time for the luxury of an education.They often signed bogus sharecrop contracts that re-quired their labor and that of most of their families fromearly morning to late at night working in the fields orbuilding fences, bridges, and roads. Penalties were stifffor the tenant farmer who could not meet this agreement,including payments to the landowner; thus all familymembers were needed. In many cases, the guidelineswere such that the tenant and his family were bound to alife of servitude. Several U.S. Constitutional amendmentsextended citizenship privileges to African Americans: The13th Amendment abolished slavery (1865), the 14thAmendment granted equal protection and due process toall citizens (1868), and the 15th Amendment guaranteedthe right to vote to African American males (1870).However, access and opportunity for literacy were entan-

gled in state politics, local customs, misappropriation ofstate funds, and racism.

During the early years of the U.S. Civil War, andcontinuing until 1870, the American MissionaryAssociation (AMA), an abolitionist religious organization,and the United States government worked through theFreedmen’s Bureau (the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen,and Abandoned Lands) to feed, educate, and proselytizeAfrican Americans (Butchart, 1980; Morris, 1981). TheAMA sent thousands of teachers to the rural South to ed-ucate African Americans. As such, this organization of-fered access for African Americans to obtain literacy. TheAMA created its own curriculum as illustrated in a seriesof Freedmen’s school textbooks: The Freedmen’s Primer,The Freedmen’s Spelling Book, The Lincoln Primer, andthe First, Second, and Third Freedmen’s Readers (alsoavailable from AMS Press were Advice to Freedmen,Friendly Counsels for Freedmen, The Freedmen’s Book,John Freeman and His Family, and Plain Counsels forFreedmen). In Butchart’s (1980) critical analysis of thework of the AMA, he noted that white promoters of blackeducation held scientific ideas about the intellectual ca-pacity and morality of African Americans. Ideologically,they believed in the importance of teaching AfricanAmericans “submission to white authority, hard work aslaborers, and acceptance of a white moral code” (p. 138).Butchart observed that the pervasiveness of these beliefsand cultural assumptions can be found throughout thecurriculum, textbooks, and instructional materials createdby the AMA, where there were “implicit messages under-lying stories, buried in pictures, and interwoven into thevery structure of language and institutions” (p. 135). Theliteracy lessons created by the AMA also can be charac-terized as lessons in social control.

Butchart’s critique also examined the influence ofthe philosopher Samuel C. Armstrong (1839–1893) withinthe Freedmen’s Bureau, at Hampton Institute, and onAfrican American education. Armstrong, the son of mis-sionaries to Hawaii, was a colonel of the 9th Regiment ofAfrican American soldiers during the U.S. Civil War. Afterthe Civil War, he became an agent for the Freedmen’sBureau and later, in 1868, he founded Hampton Normaland Agricultural Institute (now Hampton University).

The influence of Samuel C. Armstrong and Booker T.Washington

Armstrong (1892) held very definite beliefs aboutthe type of education needed by African Americans aswell as their place in the social order. He claimed that“industrial education has come to stay. Progress throughChristian education, temperance, hard work and thrift, isever our watchword” (p. 9). He went on to state that

we have no theory of the capacity of the Negro. He canlearn as other men do, and what other men can; and isfound in the advance line of the learned professions, com-peting with the “superior race” for the ownership of land,and for the prizes that reward success in all kinds of enter-prise. (p. 9)

A year later he wrote, “the greatest benefit acquired bythe former [Negro] was a knowledge of the English lan-guage, with industrial training, and a knowledge ofChristianity; a very imperfect education, but a start thatcounted for much” (1893, p. 3).

A prolific writer, Armstrong (1908) summarized hisphilosophy this way: “The only hope for the future of theSouth is in a vigorous effort to elevate the colored raceby practical education that shall fit them for life” (p. 3).He knew that under his plan it would take longer for stu-dents to complete their education due to the insufficientamount of time allotted to the academic course of study.

Armstrong also declared that “the Negroes, who areto form the working classes of the South, must be taughtnot only to do their work well, but to know what theirwork means” (1908, p. 4). In terms of education,Armstrong wrote that “the average Negro student needs aregime which shall control the twenty-four hours of eachday—only thus can the old ideas and ways be pushed outand new ones take their place” (1908, p. 6). He went onto add, “the education needed for the elevation of the col-ored race is one that touches upon the whole range oflife, aims at a foundation of good habits and sound princi-ples, that considers the details of each day” (1908, p. 7).Finally, he declared that “what the Negro needs at once iselementary and industrial education and moral develop-ment” (1908, p. 23). Armstrong’s philosophy and curricu-lum framed the foundation of several educationalinstitutions (e.g., Hampton Institute, Tuskegee Institute,and CCS, among others).

Booker T. Washington, born a slave but a graduateof Hampton, was the protégé of Armstrong. Washingtonhad internalized his experiences at Hampton (Dunn,1993), and when given the opportunity to become presi-dent of Tuskegee in 1881 he replicated them. In his ownwords, Washington described his thinking about the roleand place of African Americans in society in his famousspeech known as the Atlanta Compromise Speech, givenat the Atlanta Expedition in 1895. He encouraged AfricanAmericans to “cast down [buckets] in agriculture, me-chanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in theprofessions” (Harlan, 1974, p. 584). Washington also stat-ed “no race can prosper till it learns that there is as muchdignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem” (p. 584).And he asserted that “In all things that are purely socialwe can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand



in all things essential to mutual progress” (p. 585). Hisspeech was well received and praised by northern indus-trialists and southern economists.

The influence of Armstrong and Washington, in whathas come to be known as the Hampton-Tuskegee modelof education, designed to support the southern economyand instill African American submission, is unfathomable.The Hampton-Tuskegee curriculum consisted of elemen-tary education and industrial training, both taught in half-day sessions and the latter used for the upkeep of theschool. This model also stressed the importance of disci-pline, thrift, and white morals. Anderson (1988) arguedthat those who espoused the Hampton-Tuskegee modelbelieved that industrial education held an “ideologicalforce that would provide instruction suitable for adjustingblacks to a subordinate social role in the emergent NewSouth” (p. 36). This ideological force was promoted toconvince whites and African Americans of their reasonableplace in U.S. society as they gradually became part of themainstream once they had proven themselves to be self-sufficient, moral, and peaceful workers within their owncommunities. The latter position was to be accomplishedthrough an elaborate plan to create a body of AfricanAmerican teachers who would spread the Hampton-Tuskegee model of gradualism, accommodation, segrega-tion, and isolationism throughout the rural South.

The Hampton-Tuskegee model supported the pre-vailing thinking of the era, the ideas and beliefs of manywhites about the limited intellectual and moral abilities ofAfrican Americans, and the need to supply training suit-able to retain a relatively free source of labor in thesouthern economy. Dennis (1998) argued that the sup-porters of the Hampton-Tuskegee model were “cloakingtheir ideas on race in the language of objectivity andevangelical uplift, they clouded the elements of coercionand racism inherent in their educational program” (pp.154–155). The model was embraced and promoted as theway to educate African Americans by northern whitepoliticians, philanthropic agencies (General EducationBoard, Jeanes Fund, John F. Slater Fund, RosenwaldFund), and industrialists (e.g., Andrew Carnegie, John D.Rockefeller). This model and the support it received frompoliticians, philanthropists, and southern educators creat-ed a structure for social control by delimiting educationalopportunities.

Booker T. Washington’s connections with support-ers of the Hampton-Tuskegee model included northernwhite industrialists, southern politicians, and PresidentsCleveland and Roosevelt. The support and attentionWashington received from the rural South to the WhiteHouse to the royal court of England and the endorsementof the Hampton-Tuskegee model by whites were trouble-some to many African Americans. They found it difficult

to reconcile his call for industrial training of AfricanAmericans and his desire to work alongside whites forthe gradual accommodation of African Americans insociety. W.E.B. DuBois (1901), in his address entitled“The Evolution of Negro Leadership,” acknowledgedWashington’s popularity among whites and the “deepsuspicion and dislike” (p. 54) of Washington among hisown people. He critiqued Washington’s stance and “pro-gramme of industrial education, conciliation of the South,and submission and silence as to the civil and politicalrights” (1969, p. 37).

Washington’s promotion of the Hampton-Tuskegeemodel and the white support it received set off a firestormof controversy among whites and African Americans onthe question of African American intelligence and the besttype education needed. Washington’s chief opponentswere W.E.B. DuBois and other African American leadersand intellectuals (e.g., Charles Chestnut, Anna J. Cooper,John Hope, Ida B. Wells, and the members of the NiagaraMovement). These men and women sought a classical ed-ucation as a means of competing with whites. Anderson(1988) argued that

Black leaders did not view their adoption of the classicalliberal curriculum or its philosophical foundations as mereimitation of white schooling. Indeed, they knew manywhites who had no education at all. Rather, they saw thiscurriculum as providing access to the best intellectual tradi-tions of their era and the best means to understanding theirown historical development and sociological uniqueness.(p. 29)

As DuBois (1901) argued, it was not that Washington’sideas (Hampton-Tuskegee model) were original, but thatWashington was so influential, especially among whites,that his views affected the education of all AfricanAmericans in the nation.

African American communities and individuals withuntold resiliency struggled to obtain literacy. As Anderson(1995) has observed, “historically African Americans haverelied heavily on schooling to eliminate illiteracy.Consequently, the denial of opportunities for schoolinghave translated into the denial of access to literacy” (pp.35–36). The educational and, hence, literacy experiencesof the racially and economically isolated rural AfricanAmerican community of Calhoun in Lowndes County,Alabama, fit his description well.

Calhoun, AlabamaCalhoun, Alabama, is located in Lowndes County, a

716 square-mile area that was home of the AlibamoIndians in south central Alabama. Calhoun sits in what iscommonly referred to by residents of Alabama as theheart of the Black Belt (Dillingham, 1902). In the early


1890s, there were 32,000 African Americans to 5,000whites in Lowndes County, and in the town of Calhounthere were 2,700 African Americans to 100 whites (Thorn,1893). Lowndes County also is commonly referred to asBloody Lowndes for which there is uncontested agree-ment regarding the nickname. The moniker BloodyLowndes references the white dominance in the area thatresulted in violent resistance toward African Americanswith numerous deaths, killings, lynchings, and race riots.These violent outbursts occurred whenever the white mi-nority felt threatened that changes, especially racial andeconomic, would disrupt their way of life. Just monthsbefore the founding of Calhoun Colored School, TheEvening Post, a local newspaper, reported that a race riothad resulted in the death of several African Americans.Racial unrest in Lowndes County was the result of politi-cal and customarily deep-seated racism. The AfricanAmericans who lived in Lowndes County were formerslaves or the children of former slaves whose forebearshad worked for the white planter class in the area. It wasalso reported that 30,000 African Americans still lived onplantations (Dillingham & Thorn, 1896).

Mary White Ovington (1910), a frequent visitor anda financial supporter of CCS, attempted to capture theslave experience of the area in an article, “Slaves’Reminiscences of Slavery,” published in The Independent.The article was a compilation of a series of interviews sheconducted with former slaves and is a helpful source forunderstanding the lives of the African Americans wholived in Lowndes County before the CCS was established.Her interviews with former slaves retold descriptions ofthe inhumane physical abuse and psychological mistreat-ment that former slaves endured as they were chained,belled, and whipped. Despite the abuse they suffered,the former slaves also told how they helped, fed, taught,and supported one another in any way they could. Oneold woman, whom Ovington referred to as Aunt Kitty,told of sheltering a runaway slave for years, though asslaves they both faced death if they were discovered.African Americans in these small isolated communitiesdepended on one another for life and safety.

In 1891 African Americans in Lowndes County werein financial bondage under the land-lease or sharecrop-ping system to a small group of white landowners thatdictated every major decision of the lives of the AfricanAmerican workers. For years the white planter class hadmanaged to maintain its economic stranglehold on theAfrican Americans through “legal sanctions” (Harlan,1974, p. 263) derived from the state’s educational fundingsystem. The state of Alabama’s passage of the 1891Apportionment Act gave control of school funds to localofficials in the Black Belt region, which amounted to

funds earmarked for black education being funneled towhite schools.

In light of these circumstances, a group of AfricanAmericans in Calhoun, Alabama, began meeting in interde-nominational prayer meetings at Ramah Baptist Churchseeking divine intervention for a school. The AfricanAmerican community prayed continuously for 7 days and7 nights, and they believed that their prayers would be an-swered (Thorn, 1919). The membership of this prayergroup and its representation of the entire African Americanpopulation are difficult to determine, as there are norecords that identify the members by name. What isknown is that the pastors of several African Americanchurches encouraged their worshipers to join in prayer atRamah Baptist Church (Thorn, 1892). Goldsmith (1975)called Ramah the “Mother of all Black Baptist churches inLowndes County” (p. 170) from which other Baptistchurches grew. These worshipers formed the nucleus ofthe prayer group and supporters of a school. The prayersof the intercessory group appeared to have been answeredwhen one cold rainy day Booker T. Washington arrived tolook at the area.

Washington sensed the passionate desire of thisAfrican American community for an education for its chil-dren. He had seen the schools designated for AfricanAmericans throughout the South–converted churches andouthouses and dilapidated school buildings that lackedsupplies. He also was aware of how ill prepared theAfrican American teachers were and of how the land-lease system dictated a very short school term.

The African American community traveled to meetwith Washington over nearly impassable dirt roads; theyrode on horseback, in wagons, or walked barefoot. Heobserved, “The people are more than anxious for theschool.... All day long people are arriving. Some onmules, some in buggies and some in ox carts. All wereeager to know what the prospects of ‘their school’ were”(Harlan, 1974, pp. 163–164). With no hope of state fund-ing, Washington knew that only a privately funded, inde-pendent, nondenominational school would pleaseeveryone. He also thought it wise to require a minimaltuition for students so as to dismiss any idea of welfare.African Americans seeking an education were often de-pendent on “private philanthropy and what blacks called‘double taxation,’ the practice of paying for their schoolsthrough voluntary contributions of land, labor, and mon-ey” (Anderson, 1988, p. 36).

The members of the African American communitywere not deterred when, with very little money and littlereal hope of securing additional finances, they pledged,by faith, to raise the amount needed to establish a schoolin their community. In fact, a minister (unknown) isrecorded as stating that “It certainly meets our approval:


we all thought it was the hand of God that moved thosefriends to think of us” (Thorn, 1891, p. 263). The peoplebelieved that their prayers had been answered in this se-ries of events, and so firm was this faith and belief that ithas remained within the minds and hearts of the peopleof the community and former students for more than acentury. To that end, the African American communityentered into a signed village covenant in which they“pledged themselves to try to put down everything that isunfriendly to the life of a little child” (Dillingham &Thorn, 1904, p. 61). Perhaps fittingly, the Big Swamp sec-tion of Calhoun, on the very spot that had served as atrading post for slaves, became the site for a school forthe children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren offormer slaves: Calhoun Colored School.

Calhoun Colored SchoolShortly after Washington’s warm and eager recep-

tion by the African American community in Calhoun, hegave a talk at Hampton Institute. There he shared the

passionate desire of the African American community toeducate their children by establishing a local school. Twowhite female teachers at Hampton, Charlotte Thorn andMabel Dillingham, were challenged by his inspiring pre-sentation. These women talked throughout the night andmet with Washington the next day to arrange a visit tothe area.

Thorn and Dillingham, both privately educated,were working at Hampton as a matron and night schoolteacher, respectively. Neither was formally educated orcertified as a teacher. Thorn, the daughter of a U.S. Navyofficer, had been a New Haven, Connecticut, socialite be-fore being personally convinced by Samuel C. Armstrongto join the mission field at Hampton. Dillingham, thedaughter of a well-respected minister in New England,believed that working among the less fortunate was herlife’s calling. Together they brought an invaluable net-work of friends and supporters who donated finances,materials, clothing, services, and time to the school. Forexample, Thorn’s socialite status brought her into contactwith financially secure and influential people, andthroughout the New England area there were nearly 20Calhoun Clubs established for the express purpose ofsupporting the school. Likewise, Dillingham’s status asthe daughter of a well-respected minister gave her entréeto religious organizations from churches to Sundayschool classrooms where fund-raising helped with theupkeep of the school.

It was late in 1891 when Washington returned toCalhoun along with Thorn and Dillingham to survey thearea as a possible site for a school. Encouraged by thesecond visit, the African American community met withthe small party from Hampton and agreed to work to-gether. Thorn and Dillingham began immediately to laythe groundwork for the school and published their plansin the December issue of The Southern Workman. Theystated that “the county schools usually have only a threemonths’ session, but not even the opportunity for educa-tion is given to the colored children of Calhoun” (Thorn& Dillingham, 1892–1894, p. 263).

A column by Alice Bacon, a worker at HamptonInstitute under Samuel C. Armstrong, appeared in TheEvening Post in February 1892 and more clearly describedthe paucity of educational opportunities for AfricanAmericans in Lowndes County and how the current teach-ers were willing to leave their posts to join the new school:

The teacher of the only (so called) school in the neighbor-hood, a young girl of 17 or 18, had gathered a number ofchildren about her to share with her the benefits of sixmonths of schooling in which she had obtained learn-ing…. A young man who was teaching three miles awaycame to the meeting with his whole school. He said he

Charlotte Thorn. Courtesy of Hampton University Archives.


was going to shut up his school and attend the new one,when it should open, bringing his pupils with him. (np)

Bacon’s comments were among the few words ofencouragement received by Thorn and Dillingham fromthe white community. Undeterred, Thorn and Dillinghamproceeded to lay the groundwork for the establishmentof a school and sought ways to work with both theAfrican American community and the white landowners.Ninety acres of land were purchased for the schoolgrounds from a Mr. Chestnutt, whose family were formerslave owners (Thorn, 1910). On February 20, 1892, forthe sum of one dollar, Thorn and Dillingham and theirsupporters (John Bigelow, Thomas Wentworth, SilasJones, and Washington) agreed to an additional land pur-chase and conditions set forth by Mr. Bell, the most pros-perous local merchant. The court records of the latterpurchase outlined the express purposes of the land for aschool and “for the physical training as well as generalinstruction, the pursuit of gardening and farming are un-derstood within such uses, and the sale of anything madeby the scholars or employees on the books, stationary,clothing, and supplies is not prohibited by the condi-tions” (Lowndes County, Alabama, Court Records, p. 2,Deed 449, W). The careful phrasing of this agreementsuggests that Mr. Bell expected the students to be in-structed to become farmers. His concerns illustrate whatmany white landowners feared: Their economic interestswould not be served well with the onslaught of educa-tion for the African Americans in their community.

An article written by someone known only asL.W.B., “Two Yankee Girls,” published in a localnewspaper, The Ocean, on March 12, 1893, also offeredhistorical structure to the cause of Negro education anddescribed the goals of Thorn and Dillingham. The author,identified by the initials L.W.B., poignantly captured theskepticism of the rural white community at the promiseof two Northern white women dedicating their lives tothe teaching of poor rural Negroes, observing that“Southern chivalry that put stripes of blood upon thebacks of white women who dared to teach slaves isdead, but the Yankee school marm still lives and has asmuch pluck and courage as had the disciples ofPrudence Crandall before the war” (np). Noting the prin-cipals’ associations with Cambridge, Harvard, and Yale,the article ended by celebrating their courage:

They have made a rift in the cloud of ignorance that hangsover Lowndes County, the blackest county in the State ofAlabama, and perhaps the most degraded. They are notmartyrs. They are American women accepting seriouslythe responsibility that goes with higher education and re-finement and doing their part to uplift those who areAmerican citizens to make them worthy of the name. (np)

Unlike the missionary schoolmarms to which the authorrefers, CCS was not modeled after the missionary schoolsfrom the North that offered a more traditional educationand focus on literacy. The leaders of CCS had internal-ized the Hampton-Tuskegee model with its stress on lim-iting the academic course of study and stressing industrialtraining. Moreover, the reporter’s reference to the citizen-ship status of African Americans should not be read liter-ally as the customs and laws of the Jim Crow Southhindered citizenship status for another 60 years.

Thorn and Dillingham included the Hampton-Tuskegee model’s most basic tenets in CCS’s Declarationof Incorporation of 1892. In part the Declaration statedthat CCS was established for “the mental, moral, and in-dustrial training of colored children” (Lowndes County,Alabama, Court Record, Deed 1948, p. 140; Yoder, 1933,p. 14). The education offered at CCS mirrored theHampton-Tuskegee model for an African American com-munity in its approach to curriculum, basic elementaryeducation and industrial training, and apolitical stance.

Philosophically and financially, CCS was bound touphold the ideas of the Hampton-Tuskegee model thatoffered (a) a limited education for African Americans, (b)economic development on the farm and through trades,(c) creation of an African American corps of teachers, and(d) moral development through the school’s curriculum.Most importantly, this model strongly encouraged gradu-ates to work in their community by becoming farmers,homemakers, cooks, carpenters, dressmakers, and teach-ers. The graduates (eighth graders), many of whomwould later become teachers, were likewise encouragedto return to live within the community and begin elemen-tary schools in remote areas. The idea of an AfricanAmerican teacher training corps is best captured in thewords of Booker T. Washington who urged folks to “carrya drop of [Armstrong’s] life blood into the darkest cornerof the darkest South” (Anderson, 1988, p. 77); thus, theinternalization of the model was spread.

Thorn and Dillingham, along with their fourEuropean American academic teachers and their twoAfrican American vocational teachers, were pleased withthe African American community’s support of their effortsto bring an education to CCS. However, they were over-whelmed and unprepared for the 300 men, women, andchildren who arrived on the first day of school, October1, 1892. The principals claimed, “two hundred of theseboys and girls could neither read or write. The ideas ofthe people concerning education were very vague. Outof a poverty almost beyond description, these coloredpeople of Calhoun gave $536 toward the support of theschool, besides $360 which they paid in tuition fees”(Thorn & Dillingham, 1892–1894, p. 1). This statementalso suggests that 100 African Americans could read and


write, indicating that there was some social stratificationin this community.

The coprincipals’ enthusiasm for their mission andthe school was revealed in letters printed in The SouthernWorkman (Dillingham, 1893; Thorn, 1893), describingtheir first few weeks at Calhoun. Their letters suggest thatthey were very content working long days from 6:00 a.m.to 9:00 p.m. and conducting the work of the school.Dillingham (1893) communicated her impression of thepeople as well as the impact that the school was havingin the community:

The majority can neither read nor write, but we have twoclasses that are much above the rest. They know very lit-tle, however. Miss Thorn, Miss Southworth, Miss GeorgiaSimmons and I teach, and a young fellow, at the placehere, is a janitor for the school building; he teaches fourclasses of the little ones and is in one classhimself...Patterson and Miss Georgia (both Hampton grad-uates) have the night school four times a week. The spiritamong the people, so far, is wonderfully good.... Threeweeks ago at night, we had a concert and raised $52.00for books. The reading room has been open to boys twoSaturday evenings, and about twenty came. (p. 12)

She went on to mention the earnest desire for an ed-ucation expressed by the students, the excitement of the“boys and girls over colorful school supplies” (p. 12), and

the willingness of the people to help in any way thatthey can, albeit she says that they don’t know how tohelp. Finally, Dillingham stated that “some of the peopleknow, or live as if they knew, no more of morality thankittens” (p. 12). By way of contrast, a Hampton graduateand an African American teacher, Georgia Washington(1893), also published a letter in the same periodical asDillingham and Thorn. She described the AfricanAmerican people as mothers, fathers, and children whowere “like the colored people everywhere, are very reli-gious; some, I believe, are real Christians; they verily be-lieve the Lord sent us all here in direct answer to theirprayers” (p. 11). In one letter, Thorn (1893) declared thatmany African American volunteers came to help at theschool “in any way that they could” (p. 12), and “wehave some students among both boys and girls, who areearnest in their desire for an education. They take hold ofthe work-day plan with enthusiasm, and say they want tolearn how to work as well as to study” (p. 12).

It is important to note Thorn’s reference to “boysand girls” should not be misunderstood as a reference toyoung children; these students were between the ages of15 and 30. Dennis (1998) argued that some whiteslooked upon African Americans with “a paternalisticcounter-image…dependent children” (p. 144). It is diffi-cult to tell whether the comments by Dillingham andThorn exemplified passive racism, or whether knowingtheir audience and readership of The Southern Workman,they were attempting to engender support for their effortsby referencing the young adults as children. In other ref-erences to African American community leaders, theyclearly referred to adults who are not students at theschool by their titles or as parents.

The missionary tone of these letters reflects thethinking of those involved in benevolence work(Butchart, 1980) and was written to appeal to northernwhite readers and potential supporters. Following theseinitial letters, the principals, teachers, graduates, friends,workers, and supporters of CCS published frequent in-stallments of the progress of the school in The SouthernWorkman as well as in city and religious newspapersthroughout the nation. Their appeals did not fall on deafears or stone hearts, because several Calhoun Clubs wereestablished in the northeastern U.S. to support the school.

The lives of the coprincipals were full and produc-tive as they worked with the local African American com-munity, philanthropic agencies, and local whites duringthe first 2 years. Dillingham served as head of theAcademic Department until her death in 1894. Reports ofthe cause of death vary, ranging from the hardships andwork of the school to the stress of white resistance. TheChristian Register’s obituary of Dillingham (October 25,1894) recalled her life of service to the poverty-stricken

Teachers at the Calhoun School. Courtesy of the GilderLehrman Collection on deposit at the Peirpont MorganLibrary New York. GLC 5130.02, p. 9, image D.


rural Negroes and the doors that were closed to her bythe whites in the area. Thorn carried on the work of theschool with the help of Dillingham’s brother Pitt and hiswife and with the financial support of a host of philan-thropic organizations, donors, and friends.

From the onset the school’s budget was Thorn’sconcern. She quickly learned that the per-pupil expendi-tures in Alabama for African American students was 6cents while the per-pupil cost for whites was 2 dollars(Thorn & Dillingham, 1892–1894). The archival recordsdocument the near daily correspondence by Thorn withfinancial supporters and philanthropic agencies garneringfunds to run the school. She worked tirelessly not onlyraising funds for the school but also investing money, pur-chasing land, and meeting with visitors from all over theworld who came to see the work at Calhoun. For 40 yearsthe coprincipals (Thorn, Pitt Dillingham, and later CharlesYoder) published letters in The Southern Workman andnewspapers throughout the northeastern U.S. solicitingthe readership for financial support and donations ofclothing, shoes, books, magazines, and newspapers forthe school and community. However, annually there werebudget lines for textbooks and stationary. From the begin-ning, the coprincipals promoted literacy in several differ-ent ways: (a) requiring students to purchase textbooks (asopposed to using the discarded books from whiteschools); (b) conducting daily and weekly Bible lessons;(c) reading voluntarily to the elderly; (d) forming literarysocieties for students; (e) inviting the community to attendschool plays, socials, and debates; and (f) creating a read-ing room for teachers and students with donated readingmaterials. The reading room was the forerunner of theschool, community, and teachers’ libraries.

Changes in the literacy programs and practices atCCS reflect changes in how the administrators andAfrican American community leaders responded tobroader changes in the nation and locally. Changes in theschool’s literacy program and practices also reflectchanges in the leadership of the Academic Department.One means of depicting changes in the school’s literacyprograms and practices both chronologically and themati-cally was the focus on change under the heads of theAcademic Department.

ÒTwo hundred could neither read or write:Ó Literacyduring the early years, 1892Ð1906

From the first days of operation Thorn andDillingham framed their school’s curriculum to reflect thephilosophies espoused by Samuel C. Armstrong for edu-cating African Americans. They held dear and internalizedhis admonition that

there is no question but that the great needs in this part ofthe country are industrial training and good primary andsecondary schools. The eagerness of many of the Negroesfor a “higher education,” regardless of everything else, iscertainly a danger to be guarded against. (Thorn &Dillingham, 1892–1894, p. 5)

In accord with the Hampton-Tuskegee model, CCS of-fered elementary education and industrial training so thatthe majority of boys could become farmers and the girlsdressmakers, cooks, and laundresses. It was hoped thatthe success of CCS graduates would set an example forothers in the community to emulate.

Mabel DillinghamThe coprincipals and teachers created a multidimen-

sional literacy program to meet the needs of CCS studentsand members of the African American community. The 2years that Dillingham served as the head of the AcademicDepartment set the agenda for the school’s literacy pro-grams and practices throughout most of the school’s oper-ation. There appear to be four distinct parts to theschool’s literacy program, and another is tangential.

First, the school’s literacy program and practices atthe onset were largely experimental as neither principalwas trained as a teacher. The students who received theirinstruction were in the day or boarding school and paid amodest tuition or worked at the school. The literacy pro-grams at CCS emphasized (a) oral reading; (b) elocution;(c) rote memory; (d) appreciation for literature; and (e)connecting home, school, and community life to school-work. The faculty, however, made special efforts to in-clude the following: (a) outside materials to intereststudents; (b) extensive discussions of words and allu-sions; (c) memorization of poetry (Longfellow andWhittier); (d) help with articulation and expression; and(e) practice of written work–helping students to put theirthoughts into words, to write, and to spell correctly. Byobserving students throughout the day, teachers also at-tempted to begin their literacy lessons by addressing thestudents’ interests and by helping the students to make aconnection between their thoughts and written words.Thorn and Dillingham (1892–1894) wrote that the stu-dents “could talk of what they knew very intelligently,and they are now being led from that to tell about thethings they have learned” (p. 8). In general, this approachto school literacy differed slightly from strict adherence tothe Hampton-Tuskegee model, which did not advocatethe use of literacy for aesthetic purposes or as a venuefor thinking or expression of ideas.

Second, the school literacy program included freenight school classes, taught by the Hampton (AfricanAmerican) graduates. These classes were established to

offer the mothers and fathers of the day school children achance to learn to read, write, and do simple arithmetic.The classes met 4 nights a week and were a part of theHampton-Tuskegee model brought to CCS. An editorialin The Southern Workman (Dillingham, 1893) describedthe night school attendees: “It took one back to ‘contra-band days,’ to see the class of old folks, toiling with dimeyes and stiff fingers over primer and copy books after aday’s work in the field” (p. 12). In addition, a special un-graded course of study for the older students was createdso that they could learn to read and write and not haveto take classes with young children.

Third, as part of a larger community outreach pro-gram, teachers and students extended the school’s literacyprogram to the old folks who lived during slavery days. Inthe homes of the older people in the community theytaught reading and writing. Three teachers and severalstudents formed the missionary committee, and their mis-sionary work offered help, comfort, and fellowship in thecommunity surrounding the school. Their missionarywork also included mothers’ meetings, a social and ser-vice club for the girls, and Sunday afternoon church ser-vices. The home visits were but one source of interactionbetween the school and the African American community.

The school administrators, faculty, and staff also in-vited the community to celebrate every holiday on theschool’s campus and to highlight the students’ accom-plishments. The ease and comfort with which black andwhite CCS teachers lived, ate, and conversed with theAfrican American community was a source of concern forthe white community who saw this example of socialequality as disastrous to the southern customs and way oflife. The administrators of CCS did not limit their commu-nity outreach to African Americans as they often extend-ed themselves to the European American community aswell. However, few whites accepted CCS’s efforts or sup-port except in times of medical emergencies, such as out-breaks of contagious diseases.

Fourth, anticipating the needs of the school begin-ning in 1891, Thorn and Dillingham began soliciting thereadership of The Southern Workman, along with friendsand associates, to donate reading materials for the school’slibrary. There was no specific mention of the type or levelof reading materials to send. Thorn and Dillinghambrought their own personal libraries to the school but be-lieved that a more extensive offering of reading materials(e.g., books, periodicals, newspapers) might be of interestto the teachers, students, and community.

One of the fundamental goals of the Hampton-Tuskegee model was to create teacher training programswhereby graduates would become teachers in outpostschools. The graduates of CCS were slated to becometeachers in the rural areas in the CCS-supported outpost

schools or in the county public school system, armedwith the ideas and methods they learned at CCS. In thismanner the Hampton-Tuskegee idea of literacy could tan-gentially be extended in the rural and county schools’ lit-eracy programs and practices throughout the South.

Pitt Dillingham and Thorn (1896) restated theircommitment to the Hampton-Tuskegee philosophy intheir next Report, arguing that “memory filling and witsharpening” were important but also “an equal, and not asubordinate—educating the boys and girls not for theNorthern city, but for the Southern farm, not ways fromthe world about them, but definitely and with enthusiasmfor the land and people of Lowndes County” (p. 7).These few sentences summarized the goals of theHampton-Tuskegee model to not upset the economicbalance of the South built on black labor, to appease theAfrican American laborers through elementary education,and to keep African American families working the land.

Susan S. ShowersIn 1896 Susan Showers, a graduate of Oswego

Normal School and a former Hampton night schoolteacher, assumed the duties of head of the AcademicDepartment. Showers (1896) wrote,

what others have done under other conditions is not alto-gether our guide. What can we do here to-day is the ques-tion. It is with this thought ever in mind that we areworking from year to year to build character and to makegood citizens in Lowndes County. (p. 21)

To that end, Showers, in concert with Armstrong’steachings, placed greater emphasis on discipline, training,morals, and character development. Each school day be-gan and ended with prayer, singing, and a Bible scripturereading. Every student who lived on the grounds owneda Bible and attended prayer meetings on Thursdayevenings and for a full day on Sunday. Showers also in-troduced educationally informed leadership and generalacademic improvements. She began by assigning teachersto only one grade level and adding a special ungradedclass for older students who were beginners. Showers(1897) sought to make instruction “practical,” that is, in-struction fit for the students’ lives in their community, andto “avoid educational fads” (p. 17). These ideas support-ed the Hampton-Tuskegee model, wherein Armstrong(1908) stated that “An imitation of Northern models willnot do. Right methods of work at the South must be cre-ated, not copied, though the underlying principle iseverywhere the same” (p. 3).

An outgrowth of her planning was the formation ofseparate literary societies for girls and boys. The literarygroups met on Saturday evenings and held debates onpapers they had written over a variety of subjects. The


new literary societies also extended Showers’s plan tominimize oratory in favor of more thoughtful interpreta-tions of literature. In addition to preparation for debates,the literary society for boys conducted Thursday eveningprayer meetings for the night school students. The girls,by way of contrast, “met for games and studied MissAlcott’s stories and problems of womanhood and home-life” (Hart, 1896, p. 32). Time was set aside monthly for asocial gathering with games, music, conversation, or en-tertainment for parents. These activities helped to buildand strengthen the sense of community among theschool administration, faculty, staff, and AfricanAmericans of Calhoun.

Showers required classroom teachers to make homevisits in an effort to better understand each child’s homelife. Clara Hart (1896), a teacher at CCS, echoed Showers’ssupport of teacher home visits, commenting that “theteachers feel that they must know the boys and girls, andthe homes from which they come. They must work for in-dividuals as well as for classes and school” (p. 30). Hartalso noted that “through the week the teachers meet theboys and girls, their fathers and mothers, and learn toknow them better, to appreciate to some extent their diffi-culties, and to shape the school work so as to help over-come them” (p. 32). Parental pride in their children’saccomplishments was evident during home visits asschoolwork was found adorning the walls of the cabinsand homes.

Showers (1896) observed that students were fond oftelling folk tales:

[T]he quickness with which they grasp anything put tothem in the form of a parable, and the richness of theirown folk-tales in our midst, lead us to believe that an im-portant ethical work could be done by the further and sys-tematic study of folk-stories, myths, heroic and historictales. (p. 20)

She planned to add lessons in the forthcoming schoolyear that focused on “folk-lore and tales, the supersti-tions, ghost and witch stories, and in particular the songslocal to Calhoun—the spirituals first, but also the workand play songs” (p. 20). Singing also was an importantcomponent of school life at CCS; it was a part of the dailylesson and overall school curriculum (see Appendix A).Teachers and students all gathered for informal Sundayevening services where they sang plantation songs.

The CCS faculty and staff’s outreach program to thecommunity expanded under Showers’s leadership to in-clude village socials where some “Brer Rabbit storieswere dramatized. The laughter of old and young togetherwas contagious, continuous, irresistible, and well-nigh in-extinguishable” (Dillingham & Thorn, 1898, p. 11). In ad-dition, the community outreach and support programs

now included (a) farmers’ conferences, (b) Teachers’Institutes, (c) Sunday services, (d) community work withthe elderly and infirm, and (e) holiday celebrations. Theholidays included the traditional ones as well asEmancipation Day (January 1), Armstrong Day (commem-orating the work of Samuel C. Armstrong, January 30),Arbor Day, and Flag Day.

A Flag Day celebration reported in The SouthernWorkman (Lemon, 1899) offered an example of how theAfrican American community supported the schoolthrough their attendance and participation in the celebra-tion and the willingness of teachers to adapt the school’scurriculum to the needs of the students, the community’sinvolvement in the life of the school, and their shared re-sponsibility for all members of the community. The FlagDay celebration began as students marched with the U.S.flag held high, accompanied by music played by theschool’s drill team, the singing of patriotic songs, readingof scripture by a local pastor, the singing of the nationalanthem, and the raising of the flag. The people, many ofwhom had never seen the American flag, were amazedand delighted. One old woman is reported to have said“Nevah did I see dis t’ing befo’. My ears done hyeahstrange t’ings dis day” (Lemon, 1899, p. 448). The respect-ful approach toward the students and the AfricanAmerican community would prove a prophetic decisionas the African American community was stalwart in theirsupport of CCS. As the coprincipals noted, “Least of allwould we forget what the colored people themselves, thefathers and mothers, and the students in particular, espe-cially the older ones living on the grounds, have done tomake Calhoun possible” (Dillingham & Thorn, 1899, p.11). The relationship between the administrators, faculty,and staff and the African American community of Calhounwas a close one as both parties worked to establish andmaintain CCS. Their relationship, however, was a depar-ture from the Hampton-Tuskegee model where whitesstrictly controlled the education of African Americans.

The faculty at CCS desired to provide a model pro-gram for the teachers in the county system. As Showers(1897) explained,

in this class pupils should gain an idea of the theory andpractice of teaching by observing the teaching in variousgrades, by simple lessons and discussions on the way toteach, and, best of all, by actually assisting the teachingunder the direction and criticism of the teacher in charge.(p. 18)

Until such time, CCS implemented ColoredTeachers’ Institutes to build stronger relationships withthe county colored school system, to share informationand innovations in education, and to assess how well stu-dents at CCS fared compared with county peers.



Many colored county schools remained housed inconverted churches, outhouses, or old cabins. Theschools had meager supplies—no desks, slates, or writingutensils—and the only books available for use wereWebster’s Blue-back Speller and White’s Arithmetic (datesof publications unspecified). The students in the countysystem learned to spell, but they were not able to learnto write. CCS graduates who taught in the county werestrongly discouraged from using the Webster Blue-backSpeller prior to beginning reading and writing instruction.CCS teacher candidates created their own “methods”books that included

hectograph copies of suggestions as to methods in geogra-phy, reading, arithmetic, writing, and spelling, also copiesof some of the best kindergarten and primary songs,Alabama school laws, samples of paper folding, lists ofbooks which a teacher ought to try to own, suggestions asto home-made apparatus, etc. (Dillingham & Thorn, 1899,p. 24)

Several former CCS graduates gathered on Fridayevenings throughout the school year to discuss methodsfor teaching reading and other subjects, to make illustrat-ed reading charts, to use the school’s equipment, and toborrow books for their classrooms.

Clara Hart Clara Hart, a teacher at CCS, assumed the role of

head in 1898 and set the agenda for the AcademicDepartment in the next century. She helped establishKemp Kindergarten, the first free kindergarten at CCS,

where students completed 2 years of schooling. Studentsat CCS attended 2 years of kindergarten, followed by 3years of primary (C, B, A), and then 3 of intermediatework (junior class and middle levels B and A). Finally,students spent 4 years in grammar school. Thus, a total of12 years of schooling was needed at CCS to receive aneighth-grade education. The reasoning and motivation forthe structure of these grade levels are not known, but it isclear that students spent several more years in school un-der this plan to receive the equivalent of an eighth-gradeeducation. In addition, night school classes and specialungraded classes for older adults offered only primaryschool training.

Hart’s (1898) first report offered the most succinctaccount of the CCS’s literacy program to date:

Reading is of course in every grade. Each class has at leastone period during the day. All pupils, except those in thehighest class, buy one reading book a year; and, in addi-tion, sets of books owned by the school are read by differ-ent classes. This year a large amount of simple reading hasbeen done, more than before. The A Primary, for example,besides reading twice the Cyr’s “Second Reader,” whichthe children owned, has read four or five other books—“Pets and Companions,” “Aesop’s Fables,” etc…. Nospelling books have been used. Lists of words taken fromthe various lessons and words in common use have beenput on the board or hectographed for the class…consider-able time has been given to composition work. Metcalf’s“Language Lessons” have been in use in several classes.There has been work in letter-writing, dictation, reproduc-tion of stories, etc. Some grammar is introduced inconnection with the work of the two highest classes. (pp.22–23)

The reading series written by Ellen Cyr (1899–1901)encouraged the use of good literature for children.Similarly, Hart listed readings completed by the seniorclass (eighth grade): Vision of Sir Launfal, Julius Caesar,Hiawatha, and poems from Longfellow. The three titlesjust mentioned were also listed by McMurray (1899) as thetype of quality literature needed for reading materials. Theuse of this literature reflected more readily the nationaltrend toward the use of literature for literacy instructionand was contrary to the Hampton-Tuskegee model. It alsoindicated that teachers at CCS were somewhat knowl-edgeable of the popular trends in teaching reading. In ad-dition, history and literature were combined in readingsfrom the histories of Greece, Rome, England, andAmerica. The goal was to introduce the class to “some ofthe world’s greatest men and women, and to create an in-terest for further study and reading” (Hart, 1898, p. 23). Inaccord with the Hampton-Tuskegee model of educationalaccommodation, Hart (1899) reported that “in the study ofthe ‘American Citizen’ the aim has been to make the les-

Calhoun graduates. Courtesy of the Gilder LehrmanCollection on deposit at the Pierpont Morgan Library NewYork. GLC 5130.02, p. 37 image D.


son apply to Lowndes County, and to lead the pupils toreason correctly about their own experience” (p. 23). Toreason correctly, under the Hampton-Tuskegee model,meant to help African Americans accept their role in soci-ety as submissive to whites, to work in their own commu-nities in hopes of gradual economic change, and toaccommodate themselves to the values of whites, whileremaining socially segregated.

Hart’s (1900) report included an outline of theAcademic Department’s course of study for grades K–4and repeated the aim of “preparing the boys and girls forliving in Lowndes County” (p. 24). (See Appendix B.)The materials used in each grade at CCS were listed, in-cluding those purchased by the students and those thatbelonged to the school. These titles suggest that underHart there was some consistency as many of the titles list-ed were part of the series of readers used in 1896. Shealso described the progress being made collecting folktales, “one class has tried to write up some of Calhoun’smyths. They wrote the story of how the moon and starscame to be, why the rabbit has a short tail, why the turtlelives in the water, and many more” (p. 23). Similar folktales had appeared in The Southern Workman in April1898, but their origin is unclear.

All students, day and night, as well as faculty, staff,and community folk used the library. It contained 1,001volumes of books, histories, biographies, fables, story-books (most of which were donated to the school), dailynewspapers, and magazines. In addition, three bookcasesof travelling libraries were sent out to local schools for a 3-month period during the school year. The number of vol-umes steadily increased over the next 2 years when SophieL. Thorn, Charlotte’s sister and a graduate of WellesleyCollege, became the school’s librarian. By 1902 the schoolboasted 1,660 volumes, 800 volumes of reference books, acard catalogue system, two daily newspapers, monthly pe-riodicals, and bound magazines. Due to extensive use ofthe library by faculty and students, the hours of operationwere extended until 7:00 p.m. on weekdays.

Emily Hallowell, a visitor, donor, and worker atCCS, published Calhoun Plantation Songs in 1901, inwhich she attempted to include the many plantationsongs sung at CCS. She was the daughter of Richard P.Hallowell (a member of Calhoun Colored School’s Boardof Trustees, the school’s auditor, and a large donor to theschool), whose financial donation was used to build thefirst schoolhouse. Hallowell donated copies of her booksthat were added to the other books, newspapers, and pe-riodicals in the school’s library.

Sophie Thorn reported in 1904 that 95 new bookswere added to the library including Washington’s (1903)Character Building and Keller’s (1903) The Story of MyLife. She also mentioned that several white neighbors

withdrew books from the school library and appreciatedthe opportunity to read its newspapers and magazines.Not surprisingly, Washington’s title was the first bookwritten by an African American mentioned among the li-brary’s volumes. In a review, also entitled “CharacterBuilding,” Showers (1902) praised Washington’s autobi-ography. Missing from this list of readings were the writ-ings of other African American authors: William WellsBrown, Charles Chesnutt, Anna Julia Cooper, W.E.B.DuBois, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Francis Watkins Harper,and Charlotte Forten Grimke. The works of the lattergroup of authors, however, were ideologically opposedto the Hampton-Tuskegee model as a means of gradualeconomic and accommodative social advancement.However, works by Paul Laurence Dunbar were oftenreprinted in The Southern Workman without commen-tary. By way of contrast, members of the journal’s editori-al staff vilified the works of W.E.B. DuBois. For example,a review of his The Souls of Black Folk (1903/1969) sug-gested that “some chapters are most pathetic but the tonethroughout is pessimistic and on the whole unhealthy”(Showers, 1902, p. 445).

Despite CCS efforts, there were still 8,000 AfricanAmerican children without formal education in LowndesCounty in 1899. Dillingham and Thorn (1899) estimatedthat only one in four African American children were be-ing educated and often by an underqualified teacher. Themain thrust of the teacher-training efforts, however, wasnot to reach all African American children, but to keepCCS graduates working as teachers in their communitiesand “to turn out farmers and housekeepers” (p. 8). Thecoprincipals also declared that their aim was to producewell-rounded individuals with academic and industrialtraining, unlike the education system in the North thatonly called for academic training. Clearly, they saw theirefforts as helpful but insufficient for the needs of thecounty, because they continued to offer the rhetoric ofthe Hampton-Tuskegee model although their academiccourse had changed significantly.

The 1902–1903 academic year brought two CalhounColored School and Hampton Institute graduates to CCSas classroom teachers in the Academic Department. Athird CCS graduate, who did not attend Hampton, alsobegan to teach at CCS during this school year. In addi-tion, several vocational teachers, graduates of Hamptonand Tuskegee, began their tenure at CCS. The employ-ment of these teachers was an important step in the con-tinuation of the Hampton-Tuskegee model; that is, CCSgraduates were teaching in the county system, and oth-ers, after continuing their education at different institu-tions, were returning to teach at CCS. There was,nonetheless, a disruption of the principles of theHampton-Tuskegee model in the teaching faculty at CCS.


For several years the school had employed increasingnumbers of African American and European Americanacademic female teachers who had been trained at vari-ous elite northern and eastern U.S. colleges and universi-ties. The ideological viewpoints of this latter group weredifferent from the Hampton-Tuskegee model. Their ideasabout literacy programs, practices, and materials were notas restrictive and reflected national trends in literacy edu-cation for whites.

The majority of the academic teachers remainedwhite women from the Northeast. However, academicteachers at CCS also included African and EuropeanAmerican teachers from elite colleges (Bryn Mawr, Mt.Holyoke, Vassar, Harvard, Wellesley, and ColumbiaTeachers College), other prestigious colleges (Oberlin,University of Chicago, New York University), and AfricanAmerican institutions (Tuskegee, Fisk, and Talladega).There were also European American teachers who taughtat Hampton and transferred to CCS or those who graduat-ed from less well-known high schools and normalschools. The average tenure of academic faculty at CCSwas 3 to 5 years.

The annual Report of the coprincipals in 1902,Dillingham and Thorn, exhibited some changes in thethinking of the administrators toward the Hampton-Tuskegee model. In several bold statements that suggesttheir concern about the worthiness of that model, theyexpressed their fears. First, they noted the expense of theindustrial course of study. Second, they observed thatAfrican American labor as “farming with ‘mere black mus-cle’ in our county is a very bad failure, and ought to be-

come a crime, no excuse for it being left” (p. 5). Third,they acknowledged that the sentiment among manyAfrican Americans was to leave the farm and work in themines and railroads. Citing Lemon’s farm report, whichstated that many of his students equated farming withpoverty and slavery, the coprincipals declared that theseattitudes would continue “in the cotton belt until a newkind of American schooling changes the sentiment” (p.5). Finally, they asserted that, “quite revolutionarychanges may yet be made, under the growing sense that,in spite of professions of devotion to industrial education,we are yet secretly and dangerously unconverted, onlyhalf alive to its importance and great educational possibil-ities” (p. 8). These are the strongest statements againstthe Hampton-Tuskegee model made by the administra-tors who go on to argue that the state was attempting toaddress their segregated system of schooling. It is notclear what prompted these statements, but immediatelyfollowing them, and paradoxically, the coprincipals’ listspecified changes in their academic and industrial cours-es of study.

In addition, the coprincipals outlined the features ofthe improved county school system that required 4months of schooling. However, the length of the schoolyear was only part of their concern with the improve-ments in the county system, for now CCS would have tocompete for African American students. The state-supported county training schools were being erected inresponse to the support for public high schools forAfrican Americans. As such, the new county schools wereto include both academic and industrial courses of study.Once opened, however, each county school was operat-ed at the local level by African Americans who createdprograms that offered greater access to an academiccourse of study than originally planned. Therefore, theJohn F. Slater Foundation called a special meeting to out-line the curriculum for the county training schools.

This Report ended with an admission of its apoliti-cal stance, “to keep the school, as usual, out of politics,yet to quiet unnecessary fear in a practical way, and tohelp the negroes to see the brighter side of the situation”(Dillingham & Thorn, 1902, p. 44). The coprincipals not-ed the importance of African Americans obtaining an ed-ucation and property for the future when they might beable to exercise their right to vote.

The links between enfranchisement and literacywere not apparent in the school’s literacy curriculum. InHart’s 1903 report, she described the efforts of classroomteachers to reconcile the call for academic and industrialtraining by creating thematic units for an article on anArbor Day celebration where teachers used the day as atheme for literacy lessons:

Black and white teachers at Calhoun School. Courtesy ofHampton University Archives.


[O]ne room made a study of the different oaks of theneighborhood, another spent the drawing periods in draw-ing, cutting and coloring leaves. The Arbor Day thoughtwas used in composition classes and some of the olderpupils listened to and learned to love parts of Bryant’sForest Hymn. The singing classes practiced the Arbor Daysongs...the teachers planned to have the preparationsmade...in connection with other regular classroom work.(p. 249)

Hart (1903) stated that the children sang, recited poems,and performed a dramatic skit, “all in their own languageand much of the planning was theirs. It supplied the fun-ny part of the afternoon” (p. 250). For many of the par-ents and community folk the event was a time tocelebrate the students’ ability to read, write, speak, andact and to meet in fellowship with the administration, fac-ulty, and staff at CCS.

The coprincipals constantly acknowledged the im-portance of the relationships with the community in themaintenance and success of the school, unlike theHampton-Tuskegee model that shunned involvementfrom the African American community and families. Theyrecalled the commitment of the African American parents:

Six years ago the fathers and mothers of Calhoun’s commu-nity signed a village covenant in which they pledged them-selves to try to put down everything that is unfriendly to thelife of a child.... Lowndes County is a hard place for a childto grow up in. Work life means debt and drudgery. There isan alarming lack of true home and family life.… Calhountries to reach and work with and build up the farms and thehomes, the schools and churches, about us; for these thingsshape the life of the child. Teaching the three “R’s” is notenough. (Dillingham & Thorn, 1904, p. 61)

The interdependent existence between the AfricanAmerican community and CCS’s administrators, teachers,and staff also was evinced in a testimony by Lemon(1903), an African American community worker whosetenure at CCS covered several decades. He wrote, “in ourcommunity, as a whole, we have a hopeful, hardworking,and faithful people. We understand each other better,and are beginning, as never before, to look upon eachother as friends. Real Christian character is being devel-oped” (p. 248).

The school literacy programs at CCS began to mir-ror that of the mainstream, or northern white schools, de-spite the Reports that appeared to denigrate the idea. Thecoprincipals wrote that

the idea is to approach still more closely to the standardsof the best elementary schools in other parts of the coun-try, covering in the full eight grades of primary and gram-mar school work. Calhoun’s course will mean ten years forcovering the eight of the Northern schools, more time re-quired for covering the same ground by reason of our

shorter year and the fact that our Primary Department (firstand second grades) has no afternoon session. (Dillingham& Thorn, 1905, p. 3)

Strategically, the coprincipals stated that additional gradeswere part of their threefold aims: “to secure better andmore advanced preparation of those going on toHampton, Tuskegee, and other schools, to fit all graduatesfor passing the State examination for teachers…and to of-fer more to the many boys and girls who will end theirschooling at Calhoun” (Dillingham & Thorn, 1905, pp.4–5). They also observed that CCS’s education, and henceliteracy programs, were not sufficient for dismantling cen-turies of servitude as well as the political and economicstranglehold of the rural South. The administration of CCShoped their teacher education program would help toeradicate illiteracy throughout Lowndes County.

Like one of the best northern schools: Literacy during the middle years, 1907Ð1926

Mabel Edna BrownThe appointment of Mabel Edna Brown as the head

of the Academic Department marked the first time anAfrican American held this important leadership positionat CCS. Brown’s reports portrayed the academic programunder her as a continuation of the work begun by Hart.As such, Brown systematically listed the areas to be cov-ered in the language arts: in reading—school classics andbiographies; in language—two original themes a week onhappenings in their own lives, letter writing, and specialattention to spoken English and the choice of words; ingrammar—technical work continued from the senior mid-dle year, finishing the textbook in use; and in methods ofteaching—special subjects taught in county schools, themaking of programmes, the making of simple lessonplans. She declared that although the course of study hadremained the same as in the past, “in all grades we aretrying to raise the standards of thinking, accuracy, quick-ness, articulation, and correct expression. The gain is al-ready noticeable in arithmetic, written English andreading” (Brown, 1906, p. 37). Unfortunately, no specificexamples were given to illustrate her point.

Throughout the early 1900s, administration and fac-ulty of CCS worked to improve the reading performanceof their students. A clear indication of their mission to im-prove literacy training and to use the best methods avail-able is found in Brown’s academic report of 1908. Beloware the readers and practices used in the reading and lan-guage arts course of study in the three levels of the firstand second grade (the primary grades at CCS):

Reading: Board lessons; Stewart’s First Days in School;Cyr’s Primer, First Reader, and Second Reader; Arnold’s


Stepping Stones to Literature; Harper’s First Reader;Christy’s Pathways in Nature and Literature; Child Life,

Book 2 and phonics (all materials undated).

Language: finding and writing of letters and words; capi-

tals; periods and question marks; copying of sentences,

prose, and poetry; characteristics of each month; naming

of trees, flowers, birds, insects, etc., and talks about them;

animals; dictation of easy sentences; story-telling; story-

playing; correction of incorrect speech throughout everyday; drill on verbs, both regular and irregular; and on the

most common mistakes in speech, common abbreviations,

addresses, and simple original sentences based on words

chosen from other lessons. (pp. 36–37)

The titles listed by Brown were similar to those not-ed by Smith (1934/1965/1986) as popular during this pe-riod. Although Brown did not describe the specificmethods used to teach reading, her use of the SteppingStones to Literature reader suggests that teachers mayhave used the sentence method. The publisher of this se-ries promoted this method where “entire sentences oreven whole stories as a starting point offered a happy op-portunity to introduce cumulative folk tales from litera-ture into readers for beginners” (Smith, 1934/1965/1986,p. 142), although CCS faculty had been using local folktales for years to engender interest in literacy.

Many book publishers (e.g., American BookCompany; Dodd, Mead, and Company; Doubleday; Ginn;

The school in two eras. Courtesy of Hampton University Archives.


and G. P. Putnam) advertised in The Southern Workmanjournal. Readers used in other grades were Friends andFeathers and Fur, Stickney Readers, Robinson Crusoe,Barnes Readers, Seven Little Sisters (Barnes & Lane, 1903),Harper Readers, The Jones Readers, Hiawatha Primer,Water Babies, Cyr’s Readers, and selected short stories.Students in the upper level classes were assigned SevenAmerican Classics, Hiawatha, Longfellow, King of theGolden River, Julius Caesar, The Christmas Carol, TheMerchant of Venice (selected parts), Silas Marner, TheAmerican Citizen, works by Booker T. Washington, andbooks of the Bible (dates unspecified). The readers usedreflected what the authors and publishers felt was ageappropriate for the first eight grades.

Brown’s listings are helpful for they offer insight tothe school’s decision to offer a more traditional classicaleducation than that espoused under the Hampton-Tuskegee model. For example, students read literary ex-cerpts in other subject areas, such as the writings ofFrederick Douglass in history, and learned to use a vari-ety of reference materials. Grammar was confined to theuse of Metcalf’s English Grammar Book. There wererecitations conducted in writing, spelling, memory po-ems, drawing, and music. In addition, spelling wordswere drawn from readings and conversations.

By 1909, after coprincipal Pitt Dillingham’s resigna-tion, CCS had a more complete academic program thanbefore, although it also continued to offer an industrialeducation course of study. Classes were offered inkindergarten through nine grades in three buildings. Theclassrooms also were better equipped with “the usualschool desks and chairs, blackboards, cupboards, refer-ence tales and shelves, books sited to the interests of thegrade and are decorated with pictures, flowers, andgrowing plants” (Brown, 1909, p. 39). Further, the acade-mic program for the new kindergarten program usedgames to teach numbers, reading, and writing.

The first-grade school day went as follows: morningprayers, exercises and talk, and arithmetic. The majorityof the rest of day, except for recess, drill, singing, andgymnastics, was given to literacy. Class periods were de-voted to writing, phonics, spelling, language, storytime,and reading (3 separate periods ranging from 20 to 30minutes). Brown acknowledged that reading and lan-guage traditionally were important school subjects atCCS, but their efforts for obtaining high levels of achieve-ment were lacking. She believed that the difficulties weredue, in part, to the level of difficulty assigned to eachgrade, the lack of interesting materials, and the methodsused, recitation. To remedy the situation, more suitabletextbooks had been purchased and Hallowell’s methods

were being used, albeit not explained. According toBrown, the results of this new method were evident inthe increased interest the children had in reading. One ofthe possible books the students read was the 1909 publi-cation of Calhoun in Pictures and Songs by Hallowell,5,000 copies of which she donated to the school library.This book contained an outline of the school’s history; alisting of the school’s departments and assets; pictures ofthe school’s transformation, including a photo of the orig-inal building and the school building in 1908; and a vari-ety of work and leisure songs with accompanyingpictures of students and community folk.

The literacy program at CCS continued to improveand under Brown expanded the time for literacy instruc-tion “from the primary room through the sixth grade,from one-fourth to one-half of the school day is devotedto English in some form, reading, memorizing poetry,language, spelling, and phonics” (Brown, 1910, p. 42). Inthe seventh, eighth, and ninth grades only a fifth of theday was given to English, but the teachers hoped that thepreparation in the lower grades, and the amount of read-ing required in the upper grades, justified less in-classtime spent on reading. Several key features of this latteremphasis were

English, including reading, language, story telling, spelling,phonics, and, in the upper grades, grammar. To these sub-jects is devoted from one-third to two-thirds, according tograde, of the entire school week…Bible study now beginsin the fifth grade and continues through the ninth. This isgreatly needed, for there is no book used so much as thisby the pupils. (Thorn, 1911, pp. 48–49)

Students also could read many different materials lo-cated in the expanding school library. Frances Lord, a for-mer professor from Vassar and Wellesley Colleges, and hertwo sisters assumed the duties of the library following thesudden death of Sophie Thorn. Although Lord spent thewinters away from the school, the library was in constantuse throughout the year. Lord’s influence on the impor-tance of reading was to “arouse enthusiasm for readingand to guide the girls and boys in their desire for knowl-edge” (Thorn, 1910, p. 14). The library held 2,800 booksalong with current magazines, periodicals, and daily news-papers, but as most were donated many were in poor con-dition. Thorn (1910) made a special request to securemore books, “works of reference, general literature, poet-ry, biography. We also hope to secure a good collection ofbooks written by Negroes” (p. 15). This was among thefirst acknowledgments by Thorn that the selection of read-ings for the students at CCS was especially limited in na-ture and did not include a collection of materials written


by African Americans, with the notable exception of worksby Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass.

Thorn’s request for more books written by AfricanAmericans suggests that the school administrators wereattempting to meet the desires of the African Americancommunity. Her response, in part, drew upon the self-interest of CCS to keep the school in operation as theever-increasing popularity of the state-supported countyschool system resulted in a decline of enrollment at CCS.Although in Lowndes County the state collectedUS$36,000, with US$28,000 returned to whites andUS$8,000 returned for the education of roughly 12,000colored school-age children, the county system continuedto grow popular among African Americans. Ironically,graduates of CCS were often called upon by the state toteach in the county system. Thorn (1911) described theinfluence of CCS graduates as follows:

Calhoun touches the larger group mainly through hergraduates and ex-students living in the State. During thepast twelve months twenty-one of our graduates havetaught in Alabama, mainly in public schools, giving toabout eight hundred girls and boys what they had re-ceived at Calhoun. Besides this body of graduate teachersthere is a large number of Calhoun ex-students teaching inseveral counties of Alabama. (p. 7)

Thus the Hampton-Tuskegee edict to carry the ideas intothe countryside was fulfilled.

Jessie E. GuernseyThe General Education Board Records (1994) noted

that Jessie Guernsey received her bachelor and master’sdegrees from Columbia Teachers College, prior to arriv-ing at Calhoun. Upon her arrival, Guernsey (1912) ob-served that Calhoun’s Academic Department “impressesthe new-comer as a well-organized school, comparing fa-vorably in equipment and standards with progressiveschools of the North” (p. 21). She implemented severalchanges to the curriculum by consolidating study periods,increasing weekly recitations, reinstating spelling, andteaching grammar in the context of writing in the uppergrades. She characterized her changes as follows:

The seventh grade has been given work designed espe-cially to produce freedom and pleasure in writing, and hasdone some excellent work. Magazine material, touchingsubjects of general interest, has been used in the Englishclasses as the basis of some of the work. (Guernsey, 1912,p. 22)

Guernsey also mentioned the need for grade-level booksthat would be of interest to the students that might“greatly help to develop a liking for and a habit of read-ing” (p. 23). Finally, she hired several new teachers, grad-uates of Hampton, Fiske, and Mount Holyoke.

A new disruption in the goals of the Hampton-Tuskegee model occurred as graduates of CCS were tornbetween teaching at the outpost schools of CCS, SandyRidge and Lee Place, and teaching in the county schoolsystem. Those who did teach in the outpost schoolsspoke of their work in the community. One unnamedteacher stated, “I teach in a reliable place. It is filled withpeople who mean to strain every nerve to give their chil-dren an education, and their children are more than anx-ious to have one” (Thorn, 1913, p. 14). However, theexpansion of the free county colored school system, andthe requests for CCS graduates to teach in them, strainedCCS’s efforts to continue to establish outpost schoolsfashioned after the Hampton-Tuskegee model. Moreover,the State Supervisor of Colored Rural Schools requestedthat CCS add a year of schooling for those students inter-ested in teacher training. This shifted the focus of CCSaway from its goal of offering an elementary school acad-emic course as more students needed increased academictraining to meet the state teacher requirements. The ad-ministrative response from CCS was to add another yearas an option for interested students.

Although the preparation of teachers at CCS wasconsidered exemplary and became a model program foracademic and vocational training for colored children inthe South, graduates needed more training as did thecounty school teachers who were not CCS graduates. Toimprove the quality of teacher education offered AfricanAmericans, in general CCS administrators expanded theirannual Colored Teachers’ Institute Conference to includea Summer Normal School. The course was a 2–week ses-sion in a CCS schoolhouse for demonstration lessons and“practice teaching under a critic teacher” (Thorn, 1912,pp. 6–7). As not all teachers in the county system weregraduates of CCS, nine public school teachers attendedthe first course and were given special instructions in “thespoken and written language of teachers” and the “aimsand methods of presentation of subjects” (p. 42). It is notclear exactly what these instructions entailed, other thana replication of the CCS teacher-training program.

The 20th anniversary for CCS came in 1912, andThorn highlighted the school’s tremendous growth, stat-ing that, “Twenty years ago four class-room teachersspent most of their time trying to accustom the youngpeople in school to the ‘strange talk of the teachers,’ forour language was as strange to them as theirs was unin-telligible to us” (Thorn, 1912, p. 8). In recognition of theschool’s accomplishments, The Southern Workman pub-lished a celebratory article entitled “A Community School”(Hallowell, 1913). It chronicled the early years of theschool’s academic and community outreach programswith stories and photos connecting the changes to thewisdom of the Hampton-Tuskegee model. Importantly,


Hallowell explained how CCS graduates, who wereteachers in the African American community, shouldserve as exemplars for others to follow. Specifically, shewrote, “training them to become valuable in the commu-nity and making it more profitable in every way for themto stay at home rather than to seek employment in thecities” (p. 87). In this manner, the Hampton-Tuskegeemodel would affect not only the students at CCS, but alsothe entire African American community.

The expansion of academic and outreach programsstretched the school’s budget, and by 1915 administratorsat CCS faced a dire financial crisis. In an effort to return tosolvency, school personnel made home visits appealing toparents to send their children to school and pay as muchof the tuition as possible. Many families responded posi-tively to their appeals, which caused Thorn (1915) to note“our ‘unique relation to our neighborhood’ was madeeven more close and helpful. Assistance from the commu-nity was given to us beyond our suggestion…the senti-ment of the people was felt by the pupils” (p. 9). Inaddition, two CCS graduates were able to open a commu-nity store, The Colored Store, to help in this time of need.

In spite of the financial crisis and the events ofWorld War I, the school’s library holdings continued to

grow. At the school library students and community folkcould see the pictures published in large city newspa-pers, read of the country’s war effort, and learn the fateof former CCS students at war. However, many of theschool’s largely donated materials were censored for suit-ability. Thorn (1915) wrote that “The reading of thepupils is carefully directed and encouraged. We earnestlyrequest additional gifts of interesting and valuable books,and subscriptions to periodicals” (p. 15). Which materialswere unsuitable is not known, but since they werepassed on to churches it is difficult to fathom the reasonfor the censorship. Nevertheless, students continued toparticipate in literary societies, debates, informal lectures,musical training, and social gatherings. As CCS was apopular site for international and national leaders and ed-ucators, students also were encouraged to attend formallectures given by guests and visitors.

The passing of Booker T. Washington, one of themen responsible for the founding of CCS, was met withgreat sorrow. In a memorial to him, Dickinson (1916)wrote,

Calhoun holds an important place in Dr. Washington’s vastplan of education for his race. That organization extendingfrom the great institutes like Hampton and Tuskegee to

Outpost or one-room schoolhouse. Jackson Davis Papers (#3072), The Albert H. Small Special Collections Library,University of Virginia Library.


the public school system of the Negro South, includes theindispensable mediation of the schools and settlements ofwhich Calhoun is representative. Such schools, when con-ducted in accord with his plan, specialize for the needs ofthe people around them. Their community and extensionwork he judged equally important with their instruction ofpupils, for it is the direction of Negro industry and the re-generation of Negro life…. He required each to adapt it-self continually to its enlarging opportunities, thusmoulding the life of all the region which it serves.Nowhere has his programme been followed more faithful-ly than at Calhoun. (p. 8)

Washington’s death came at a time when Thorn wasgravely ill and confined to bedrest by her physicians. Ayear’s leave of absence was voted for Thorn, whose ill-ness was brought on by “continued over-strain”(Dickinson, 1916, p. 9). Hallowell served as co-vice princi-pal in Thorn’s absence. The school’s work also was hin-dered by the death of one of CCS’s strongest supporters,Mrs. Joseph Prince Loud, who was Emily Hallowell’s sis-ter. Mrs. Loud had been the president of the BostonCalhoun Club for 18 years and, like her other family members, Colonel Norwood P. Hallowell and ColonelEdward N. Hallowell, she was committed to the work atCCS.

When Thorn’s health began to improve she soughtand received funding from the Slater Fund to continue thework of the school as the financial crisis lingered on. Thetrustees of the John F. Slater Fund (1917) published an oc-casional paper entitled “Suggested Course of Study forCounty Training Schools for Negroes in the South.” (CCSbegan receiving funding from the Slater Fund in 1901,which continued through 1925.) The paper grew out ofthe 1913 Southern Sociological Congress and suggested acourse of study for elementary and secondary industrialtraining; primary, elementary, and secondary (academic)instruction; and teacher training. Although the literacyprogram at CCS had been established for several decades,it is important to note that the Slater Fund’s course ofstudy closely resembled the Hampton-Tuskegee model.

The Slater Fund was quite specific in its outline of asuggested primary English course of study during the first4 years of school, which were the traditional first 4 years,not the first 4 used in Calhoun’s unique leveling. Thesuggestions were as follows:

oral and written language work, reading, spelling, andwriting. The principal aim of teaching language is to trainthe child so that his use of correct language shall becomea habit. The work should be centered around the child’sinterests and activities in the home, school, playground,and industries. (Trustees of the John F. Slater Fund, 1917,p. 32)

In addition, the paper declared that “The first aim shouldbe to make the child a literate person, able to commanda fair use of the ordinary forms of speech which he willneed in his daily life” (p. 32). The elementary course ofstudy also suggested the use of state-adopted texts andsupplementary readings. Suggested student textbooks in-cluded Elson’s Eighth Grade Reader (n.d.), Emerson andBender’s Modern English II (note: No reference informa-tion available for this publication), and Clippinger’s(1917) Written Course in Spoken English: A Course inComposition and Rhetoric. Literacy instruction was to in-clude “composition, grammar, use of reference materials,and interdisciplinary writing from history, geography,agriculture, and field trips” (Trustees of the John F. SlaterFund, 1917, p. 33). The secondary course included thedevelopment of the use of good literature, reading news-papers and magazines, and an “appreciation of Negro au-thors and poets” (Trustees of the John F. Slater Fund, p.33). The Fund did not list supplementary readings. Selectteacher reference books were also on the list: LanguageWork in Elementary Schools (Leiper, 1916), Farm LifeReaders Books IV and V (n.d.), Modern English, Book I(n.d.), Word Lessons (Reed, 1909), and Hampton Outlinesin Language and Spelling (note: No reference informationis available on this publication). The CCS administratorsdo not mention use of any of these titles in their Reports.

The efforts of CCS teachers to improve the educa-tion of their students did not need to change significantlywith the reward of funding from the Slater trustees.Nevertheless, in Thorn’s (1918) report, she praised theAcademic Department for the “new and interesting meth-ods” that were being introduced to improve work inEnglish, claiming that “good results were obtained” (p.10). Although she did not specify what methods were be-ing used or how the results were measured, she did com-ment that many of the new ideas and teaching methodscame from returning teachers as well as new northernteachers who had joined the faculty.

Thorn’s enthusiasm for the school’s improved acad-emic program was described in a circular (Circular ofInformation, 1919) promoting the courses of study atCCS. The circular advertised the school’s educational andcultural offerings and included, for example, informationon the boarding school requirements, academic and in-dustrial training, tuition rates, and clothing. Important tothis discussion, it also listed the academic courses andmaterials for all subjects:

First grade—Riverside, Free and Treadwell, methods in-cluded the use of rhymes, simple stories printed on thechalkboard or on tagboard, phonics (initial consonantsand common phonograms containing most frequentlyused vowel sounds), spelling was given the second half ofthe year (oral and written).


Second grade—Riverside, Free and Treadwell SecondReaders, Blaisdell and Blaisdell’s The Child Life Primer,Aesop’s Fables, Baker and Carpenter’s Second Reader(methods not explained).

Third grade—Riverside Third Reader, Robinson Crusoe,Hiawatha Primer, Eggleston’s Stories of Great Americansfor Little Americans (methods not explained).

Fourth grade—Jones Readers Book Four, Charles Kingsley’sThe Water Babies, Shaw’s Discoverers and Explorers,Eggleston’s American Life and Adventure (pp. 12–14).

Three examples from this list suggest the methodsused by CCS teachers. In The Riverside Reader (VanSickle & Seegmiller, 1911) teachers were encouraged tointroduce new words in script and by pictures, teach newwords using phonics, use silent reading exercises, reviewlessons, and incorporate a strong recommendation thatteachers read aloud to students. The Child Life series (seeBlaisdell & Blaisdell, 1913) was meant to supplement theregular reader. It included stories that were deemed of in-terest to children, phonics drills, and review lessons.Finally, Eggleston’s (1895) Stories of Great Americans forLittle Americans was to supplement a class reader andencourage reading interest by offering anecdotal informa-tion on national figures. This list of readers suggestedmovement toward a progressive model of education.

The African American community in Calhoun beganto shrink as people joined the great migration north.Thorn (1924) noted that many former CCS students, nowlandowners, did not do so. Likewise she discouraged oth-ers in the community from joining the great mirgration.She observed that “the increase of the general movementof the Colored people of the South toward the cities, es-pecially Northern cities, has inevitably affected this com-munity” (pp. 16–17). Moreover, she informed those whowere planning to leave of the “difficulties and the advan-tages, who may hope to succeed, and who are likely tofail” (p. 17). The plan for the school and community fromthe beginning was to keep African Americans in theSouth working the land; the movement north affected theschool’s ability to do so.

ÒThe continued devotion to the task:Ó Literacy in thewaning years 1927Ð1945

The year 1927 marked the 35th anniversary of theschool and caused Thorn to reflect upon the role of theschool within the African American community ofCalhoun:

During the past thirty-five years, the hopes and aims ofmany have been centered on Calhoun. Life took on a dif-ferent hue when, in what seemed to them to be a directanswer to their prayers, Calhoun dropped down into their

midst. Through clouds and sunshine they looked to thisplace for their inspiration. What was true then is still true.“I do not know what we would have done had Calhounnot come” is a constantly heard testimony, as these whocame through those early days constantly tell us; and,“What would we do now without Calhoun!” is the presentday testimony that comes to our ears continually. (Thorn& Yoder, 1927, p. 1)

Edward M. AllenEdward Allen was the first male to assume the du-

ties of the head of the Academic Department. His planwas to put even greater emphasis on the intellectualgrowth of students and a closer alignment with state re-quirements for high school graduates. His changes weremet with the approval that “Changing conditions arefound, and changing programs must be inaugurated tomeet them” (Thorn & Yoder, 1927, p. 12). Further, thechanges were justified in the school’s academic course asthe school responded to the ever-changing needs of theAfrican American community. They emphasized not onlythe improvement of instruction with “newer and better

Children of Calhoun. Courtesy of the Gilder LehrmanCollection on deposit at the Pierpont Morgan Library NewYork. GLC 5140.03#13.

methods,” but also the importance of giving “Calhounyouth the very best we possibly can provide” (Thorn &Yoder, 1927, pp. 19–20). In the late 1920s their goal ap-peared within sight, even if contrary to the Hampton-Tuskegee model.

Interestingly, the faculty at CCS included a greaternumber of academic and industrial teachers who wereCCS graduates. Under their guidance, many former stu-dents raised funds to purchase a motion picture projectorand to send Thorn abroad for the InternationalMissionary Conference in Le Zoute, Belgium. In addition,funds were raised by the former students to purchase 224supplemental readers for the lower grades to help im-prove the school’s literacy program and expand the num-ber and type of reading materials available to CCSstudents. In general, the importance of supplementalreading materials was noted as “every effort is made tocultivate in the pupils the power of thinking clearly andof accustoming themselves to public presentations ofcompositions of merit—either their own or those of moremature minds” (Thorn & Yoder, 1928, p. 14). This state-ment suggested that the faculty of CCS desired to impartmore than basic reading skills. They were attempting todevelop higher order thinking skills, a major departurefrom the Hampton-Tuskegee model, which preferred stu-dents to continue to memorize selected works than tothink for themselves.

The changes in academic course of study at CCShelped to move it toward a more traditional education.However, as a privately funded school CCS had a rela-tively small enrollment and was finding it more difficultto compete with the growing state-supported county sys-tem, despite the historic gap between the financial sup-port given to white and African American schools inAlabama. Beyond the unending need for funding and thepopularity of the county school system, CCS was facedwith the flight of African Americans from LowndesCounty to the North. Once more the administrators, facul-ty, and students called upon the African American com-munity to continue their support of the school, and thecommunity answered the call.

R. Luella JonesR. Luella Jones replaced Edward Allen as head of

the Academic Department a year later. The academic re-port in the annual Report, however, was a summary ofthe year’s work in this department written by the coprin-cipals, Charlotte Thorn and Charles Yoder. This shift inresponsibility marks a major change in how the reportingof the work of the school was represented to the Board.The coprincipals repeated their explanation of years past,that changes in the courses of study were necessary, inpart as a positive response to changes nationally, and in

part as a respectful response to the desires of the AfricanAmerican community. Specifically, they wrote that “theattitude which Calhoun has had from the very beginningtoward the needs of the people to whom it ministers—needs ever changing and ever growing” (Thorn & Yoder,1928, p. 17).

The coprincipals acknowledged that CCS needed tobring its academic course in line with the state and thatstudent performance must improve, though they suggest-ed these have always been goals. However, these weretroublesome goals for the administrators, writing to aBoard of Trustees that supported dual courses of study(academic and vocational training) that would not lead tothe pursuit of higher education. Thorn admitted that thedual program had been a hardship on some studentsand, therefore, “opportunity classes” were created for stu-dents struggling with their studies as well as for thosewho had to travel long distances to reach CCS. The op-portunity classes met during the summer to help “thosewho especially need help and are available for it” (Thorn& Yoder, 1928, p. 11). It is not clear from the Reportwhat curriculum in these classes offered. The remainderof the school’s educational and literacy program re-mained consistent with the school’s more recent efforts tocreate a rigorous program of study in order to gain stateaccreditation. For example, CCS added 2 years (11th and12th grade) to the academic course of study. These addi-tions required changes in the Academic Department,namely college preparatory classes that included extracourses (Latin, additional science and mathematics, andan elective of industrial work) to assure CCS graduatesadmission to (postsecondary) schools.

A result of the expanded curriculum was a series ofstudent publications, such as The Calhoun Courier, firstpublished by CCS in 1929, that described the happeningsat the school. The publications were supported by a hostof advertisements from black and white merchants in thesmall towns surrounding Calhoun (e.g., Fort Deposit,Greenville, Hayneville) and the city of Montgomery. Thefinal publication of the 1928–1929 school year includedan editorial by the coprincipals and one by each of thestudent editors. There also was a complete copy of eachpresenter’s speech delivered at Senior Class Night, a copyof the school’s Commencement Program, and essays,book reviews, poems, and words of wisdom written bythe graduating students. The students wrote commen-taries of Margaret Slattery’s (1914) He Took It UponHimself, E.R. Haynes’s (1921) Unsung Heroes, and BookerT. Washington’s (1901) Up From Slavery. Several bookswere also reviewed by students: Vernon Kellogg’s (1924)Evolution, Jessie Redmon Fauset’s (1924) There IsConfusion, and works by Henry Van Dyke including TheMansion (1911). The reprint of the Commencement


Program listed several recitations of works byWashington, Shakespeare, Longfellow, Whittier, Slattery,and Tennyson. The students’ exposure to this impressivelist came from the classwork and library readings.

The library at CCS had more than 6,000 books,many of which CCS graduates helped to purchase, alongwith new encyclopaedias for the junior and senior highschool classes in 1929. Importantly, the graduates insistedthat funds designated for the library be used to purchasebooks about and by Negroes. The coprincipals respond-ed by claiming that

“special attention” is being given “to the study of theNegro”; we seem to note more interest than ever before inthis subject, which is so very vital to all our pupils andworkers, and, indeed, increasingly so throughout ourwhole country. (Thorn & Yoder, 1929, pp. 18–19)

The coprincipals’ sensitivity to the wishes of the CCSgraduates and the community was in accord with theirearlier responses and markedly ahead of similar actionsand responses at Hampton or Tuskegee.

Ever mindful of the support of the community, the co-principals again mentioned the importance of their efforts:

from the beginning the touch between the school and com-munity has been one of the most unique features of thework. A School, is…more than a place,…[it] is the channelthrough which flow those ideals of opportunity, co-operation,intelligence, loyalty and citizenship which make, or the lackof which unmake, a community. (Thorn & Yoder, 1929, pp.7–8)

It is important to note that many of the Reports writ-ten in this era seldom made direct reference to the philos-ophy, life, or work of either Samuel C. Armstrong orBooker T. Washington. Yet, the message of the importanceof academic and industrial training remained in the goalsfor the majority of students as well as encouragementto stay in their community. This tempered message isbest illustrated by Thorn and Yoder (1929), who claimedthat CCS always had a twofold task: (a) guide those whowere able to attend postsecondary schools, that is,Hampton, Morehouse, Spelman, Tuskegee, and others, todo so; and (b) prepare students for life in their communi-ty. Thorn referred to the increasing “problem” created as


Black county school teachers. Jackson Davis Papers (#3072), The Albert H. Small Collections Library, University of VirginiaLibrary.

“college and professional life call strongly” (p. 7), and shereiterated that most students should expect to work “inshop and factory, in the home and in the field, and theyare those who by their sturdiness of character and excel-lence of work go to make up the backbone of the race”(p. 7). Finally, she asserted that the distinctiveness of ed-ucation at Calhoun was the coupling of academics andindustrial training: “The explanation lies in the continueddevotion to the task of bringing classroom and home,classroom and farm, and classroom and life closer togeth-er” (p. 11). Oddly, these statements by Thorn were writ-ten at the same time that CCS had extended its academicprogram to include the 12th grade and was conferringhigh school diplomas.

Butler Wilson (1930) attended the commencementat CCS and wrote his impressions of the school:

I did not spend my whole time in the schoolrooms andother departments, because I have for thirty years knownof the high academic standard insisted on by Miss Thorn,and because I know that the trustees, men of integrity andstrict accountability, would not permit poor teaching, orindifferent department work, or waste of resources. (p. 4)

In a further reference to the academic character of theschool, he thoughtfully added, “It was a bold undertakingto plant an oasis of New England conscience and culturein a Southern community…. There was resentment in theNorth as well as the South at white women teaching blackgirls and boys” (p. 4). There are only suggestions here asto the type of academic program that was created at CCS,with what appears to be a strong academic interest.

The death of Charlotte Thorn on August 29, 1932,was a great loss to the school and to the community. Shehad unselfishly served both during 40 years of her life. Inher absence, Yoder, who had served as coprincipal withThorn, assumed principalship at CCS. The school re-mained private for several years immediately afterThorn’s death; however, it was not quite the sameschool. Support for the school began to wane, althoughloyal supporters in Calhoun Clubs and Sunday schoolscontinued to send what little they could spare. In addi-tion, and quite unexpectedly, support came from theWhite House when First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (1937)appealed to Americans, in Readers’ Digest, to activate aChristmas spirit of giving by housecleaning and sendingtheir no longer useful goods to a variety of charitableagencies and to schools like CCS.

Several efforts to retain CCS’s private school statusbegan following Thorn’s death. For example, numerousreligious denominations (i.e., American Church Institutefor Negroes, Episcopal Church, Quakers), which had pre-viously approached the General Education Board or theCCS Board of Trustees, renewed their requests. However,

none of the offers worked to the satisfaction of all partieseven as the school administrators struggled unceasingly tokeep the school in operation. Thorn Dickerson, long-standing treasurer of the Calhoun Board of Trustees and aconstant source of support for Thorn, approached T. JesseJones at the County Board of Education in 1935 seekingto end the private elementary education at CCS and allowthe county to offer a free public education to its students(personal communication, September 23, 1935).

In 1938 the new CCS principal, Jerome Kidder, re-linquished the primary grades to the county school sys-tem, while retaining grades 4–12. Later, when Jesse Joneswas with the General Education Board, he wrote alengthy letter to N. Penrose Hallowell outlining a propos-al for the takeover of Calhoun Colored School by theAmerican Church Institute for Negroes and the state ofAlabama. The letter said in part that CCS was, “to be op-erated as a laboratory school for the training of ruralteachers by the State Teachers College in Montgomery”(personal communication, March 24, 1944). In 1945 theschool was deeded to the state of Alabama’s publicschool system. In 1975, in a lasting tribute to the dedica-tion and work at the school, Calhoun Colored School waslisted on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Atthe present time Calhoun High stands on the samegrounds of the original school site.

DiscussionThis “genealogical” analysis of literacy at Calhoun

Colored School and in the surrounding African Americancommunity adds information to our understanding of lit-eracy access and opportunity in the United States throughan examination of literacy in one southern rural AfricanAmerican school and community from 1892 to 1945.Conversations with my relatives and interviews of formerstudents who attended CCS revealed that they continueto recall with great fondness their experiences, seeminglyunaware of the power/knowledge relations of those whosought to control their access to literacy and even theirvery lives. By way of contrast, this study

re-reads the surface of cultural activity to find a meaningin it different from that which it seems, itself, to offer andapprove. Realignment of cultural phenomena availablepublicly discloses the lines of force in a culture organizedtowards certain ends and proceeding through certaintransformations. And genealogical redistribution of surfacefragments, not only demystifies the veiling, legitimatingideologies of a system, but produces a new reading. (B.Attais, http://www.csun.edu/~hfspc002/fouc.B1.html#author)

My application of Foucault’s genealogical mode of analy-sis began with official historical information several



decades before the founding of CCS that serves as abackground for the study and to contextualize the found-ing of CCS and to illustrate also the power/knowledgerelations at work, nationally and locally. Further, I exam-ined the discursive formations that inextricably tied litera-cy access to notions of white domination; racialsuperiority; eugenics; pseudoscientific claims of the in-heritability of intelligence, morals, and beauty, and mostimportantly social control.

Lowndes County, Alabama, in the late 1890s was aplace where the southern white economy and govern-ment were recovering from the aftermath of the U.S.Civil War and Reconstruction. It was also a place whereracism and government worked together in the interestof the white economy and local customs to maintain asubjugated laboring class of uneducated and illiterateAfrican Americans. During the Post-Reconstruction era,access to literacy was constrained by history, custom,and politics, and these circumstances made possible,permissible, and acceptable to whites a model of educa-tion for addressing the Negro problem in the Hampton-Tuskegee model, without upsetting the economy or thewhite way of life. In terms of education, this meant thatin 12 years of schooling whites could expect to receive aclassical education and African Americans at CCS and inthe county system could expect to receive the Hampton-Tuskegee model—half-day instruction in the basics of el-ementary education and half-day instruction in industrialeducation.

The philosophies and principles espoused bySamuel C. Armstrong and Booker T. Washington in theHampton-Tuskegee model were instrumental in sustain-ing political, economic, social, and racial control in theSouth. In strict Foucaultian analysis, the notion of humanagency, either individually or collectively, is not empha-sized. However, I believe that these two individuals wereimmensely powerful in shaping African American educa-tion, and acknowledging their individual and collectiveroles and power relations in the education of AfricanAmericans in the South helps us to understand their influ-ence beyond Hampton and Tuskegee to schools likeCCS. As Best and Kellner (1991) argued, Foucault’s posi-tion “occludes the extent to which power is still con-trolled and administered by specific and identifiableagents in positions of economic and political power” (p.70). Clearly, these two individuals and the power/knowledge relations that supported the Hampton-Tuskegee model, financed by northern white philan-thropists and promoted by political figures, created morethan an educational model. The Hampton-Tuskegee mod-el was a moniker for a form of social control founded onthe idea of economic gradualism, social accommodation,educational segregation, and political isolationalism.

This genealogy of literacy at CCS is but one possi-ble interpretation; as Best and Kellner (1991) argued, “nosingle theory or method of interpretation by itself cangrasp the plurality of discourses, institutions, and modesof power that constitute modern society” (p. 40). Further,my mode of analysis includes human agency as well as afocused discussion of the interests of a specific group ofpeople: poor African Americans living in the rural South.Typically, genealogical analysis explicates social prac-tices and the power/knowledge relations that shape andmaintain “systems of social control” (Gutting, 1995, p.276). Herein I have examined the literacy programs andpractices of Calhoun Colored School in the annualReports of the principals, the Academic Department re-ports written by the various heads of the AcademicDepartment, and supplemental material from secondarysources. These documents indicate the founders’ alle-giance to the philosophies and teachings of Armstrongand Washington and the goals of the Hampton-Tuskegeemodel. Although it is difficult to determine the depth ofallegiance from the documents reviewed, the text of theReports suggested an image of compliance with theHampton-Tuskegee model. It is clear that the school ad-ministrators initially were fervent adherents and used therhetoric of the model throughout the school’s indepen-dent years. The Reports also helped to account for andexplain shifts in the school’s literacy programs over time,beginning with adherence to the Hampton-Tuskegeemodel to a gradual redefinition of the model at CCS, to adesire to be more like northern white schools, to a strug-gle to meet state accreditation. The academic reportswritten by the heads of the Academic Department of-fered descriptions of the multidimensional literacy pro-grams of CCS, and, as part of the official records of theschool’s curriculum, they make visible informationheretofore unacknowledged as part of U.S. literacy histo-ry. The inclusion of this additional information disruptstraditional notions of universal access and opportunitythrough its examination of the complex conditions thatsurround literacy access and opportunity for AfricanAmericans.

The aggressive campaign to bring literacy to CCSand to the surrounding African American community isevinced in the school’s four-part literacy program: (a)school literacy; (b) free night classes, an ungradedcourse, and opportunity classes; (c) a community out-reach program that taught older people to read andwrite; and (d) a school and later community library sys-tem. In addition, CCS’s version of school literacy (meth-ods and materials) was spread throughout the county bygraduates of CCS who became teachers in the CCS out-post schools and in the county school system.

Initially, the school literacy programs at CCS reflect-ed the Hampton-Tuskegee model of offering the basics ofliteracy in an odd system of grade levels that found stu-dents taking 12 years to complete eight grades. Duringthe first few years of the school’s existence, there did notseem to be a consistent use of specific strategies beyondrote memorization, recitation, spelling, and penmanship.As more college-trained heads of the AcademicDepartment were hired, they began to use specific meth-ods (phonics; good literature; word, sentence, and story;and building on the students’ life experiences) and mate-rials (canonical texts, popular basal series, supplementalreaders, and books written by African American authors)that generally reflected national trends in literacy. Theconnection between the methods and materials used atCCS and national literacy trends appeared to support thefaculty’s desire to offer CCS students the best available lit-eracy instruction and to improve literacy performance.However, this desire was restricted under the Hampton-Tuskegee model, where it was never the goal to encour-age intellectual growth or to offer literacy opportunitiesor materials for critique of society.

As more college-trained teachers were employedwho were not indoctrinated in the Hampton-Tuskegeemodel, the school literacy program began to resemble lit-eracy programs in the best northern schools. The listingof materials, especially readers, in the Reports suggestedthat teachers had available to them knowledge of nation-al trends in literacy. Given that there were several occur-rences in the Reports that claimed new methods werebeing used and it was hoped they would improve litera-cy, teachers may have used the methods outlined in thereaders. Although improving literacy was a constant re-frain throughout the school’s Reports and despite theshift from the Hampton-Tuskegee model to one that re-sembled the best of the northern schools, students stilldid not make the progress in literacy desired.

At first glance the reasons for the lack of progress inliteracy seem simple—the shortened school calendar andmaterials that were not age-appropriate (written and de-veloped for young white middle-class children). The CCSadministrators and teachers, however, interpreted the slowprogress by students as a lack of interest and motivation.Over time the school calendar and the amount of classtime dedicated to literacy were extended; the methods re-sembled those used in northern white schools with chil-dren who were approximately the same age, and morebooks written by African American authors were secured.However, the Reports continued to call for improved liter-acy. Disinterest in education, lack of familial support, andother more contemporary reasons for slow studentprogress in literacy were not options in this setting. Therewas great community interest in the school as African

American community leaders had helped to establish it,and the Reports of the coprincipals steadfastly attested tothe support of the families of CCS students. What then canaccount for the lack of progress in literacy?

What this article proposes is that in the case of CCS,there is another possible and plausible answer to the lackof literacy progress: The nexus of power/knowledgerelations within social institutions and their discursivepractices controlled how people constructed AfricanAmerican intelligence and worthiness, so as to normalizeAfrican Americans as inferior. What I am suggesting isthat the episteme of the age delimited the thinking of thefaculty. More specifically, the

habits of knowing peculiar to given social groups whohave managed to suppress rival groups in practice andwho continue to maintain power by instituting symbolicmechanisms which masquerade as disinterested knowl-edge, but which are really systems intended to keep subju-gated those peoples who are uninitiated or excluded.(Belton, 1996, n.p.)

Under these circumstances, methods and materials madelittle difference in the hands of teachers who saw thechildren as less than human and intellectually inferior.

The Hampton cofounders and coprincipals of CCSheld preconceived notions about African Americans, andit took many years before they could envision educationand literacy differently for them. Initially, the white admin-istrators and faculty found the dialect of English spokenby the African American students to be nearly unintelligi-ble. In addition, letters published in The SouthernWorkman evidenced their limited understanding of theways of knowing used by the African American studentsand community. They referenced all African American stu-dents as children who were willing but unable to followsimple directions and in need of discipline and moraltraining. By way of contrast, a letter from an AfricanAmerican teacher offered a more respectful perspective ofthe African American community and students; she ac-knowledged their humanity as well as their ways of un-derstanding the isolated world in which they lived.

After 10 years of living and working among theAfrican American community, the coprincipals’ Report(Dillingham & Thorn, 1902) hinted at their understandingof the larger context in which their work at CCS fit. Theyseemed to grasp how discourse “controls individuals andtheir knowledge” as well as how “power reaches into thevery grain of individuals, touches their bodies and insertsitself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses,learning processes and everyday lives” (Foucault, 1980b,p. 39). The coprincipals, however, could not alter thethinking or the attitudes and behaviors of the onslaughtof teachers from the North, whose tenure at CCS was


roughly 3 to 5 years. In part, the teachers needed to be-lieve that the students at CCS were incapable of attainingand using literacy in meaningful ways when the methodsthat had proven helpful in teaching white children toread were less successful with African American children.Similarly, Foucault (1980a) argued that “in any society,there are manifold relations of power whose existencedepends on the production and circulation of a certaineconomy of discourses of truth” (p. 93). Presumptively,the academic teachers from northern white elite collegescould teach and held high expectations for their students,although there are no records that indicate exactly howwell the teachers taught or how well the students per-formed. Nevertheless, no method or material was able topenetrate some teachers’ responses to these children in away that improved their literacy performance apprecia-bly. I suggest that this thinking was such a part of thelives of some Americans, white and black, that it hin-dered their ability to envision African Americans as usersof literacy; that is, while minimal access to literacy wasmade available, opportunities to use literacy in meaning-ful ways were delimited.

The history of literacy is replete with remnants ofcomparable thinking beginning with Huey’s (1908) land-mark text, The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading.Huey made reference to the savages of Africa and theirevolving culture, to literacy studies that suggested biolog-ical, genetic, and racial differences in students’ ability toread, and literacy methods and tests that privileged thedominant culture. In the field of literacy there seems tobe a pattern of disconnecting literacy theory, research,and practice with discursive practices and social control.Yet, research in our field is filled with deficit languageused to describe and characterize students by race, class,gender, and language, especially those who are differentfrom the dominant group. By so doing, literacy is consti-tuted by discourse that “becomes both the basis for pow-er and merely its manifestation in a different form”(Seidman & Wagner, 1992, p. 338) as evident in our cur-rent body of literacy research.

Today it is fashionable to look to science, medicine,and psychology for answers to questions of literacy per-formance when the literacy development of any group ofchildren differs from the white mainstream. Then, there isa clarion call to find methods and materials that work wellwith every child to solve the literacy problems in theUnited States. However, the methods and materials usedcontinue to privilege the discourse of middle-class whites.Again, as Foucault (1980b) argued, “each society has itsregime of truth, its ‘general politics’ of truth: that is, thetypes of discourse which it accepts and makes function astrue” (p. 131). Not surprisingly, when methods and mate-rials fail, students, their families, their communities, and

their language are blamed. Or, social conditions of pover-ty, cultural mismatch between home and school, and poorteacher training are blamed for student failure, albeit with-out accompanying suggestions for ameliorating social in-equities. Are these the only possible answers?

The history and politics as well as the culture ofschooling in any given geographical and social contextoffer insight on the role of power/knowledge relations,how literacy is understood, and who has access to it andfor what purposes. The glibness of contemporary discus-sion regarding the kind of literacy needed by childrenwho live in poverty, and by children who are culturallyand linguistically different from the white mainstream,continues the thinking of the past century as it promotesdiscursive practices that “pathologize” the lives of all oth-er children.

What is our role as a community of researcherswho declare to have the best interest of all children inthe nation at heart to promote change? (Chomsky &Foucault, 1974) suggested that

the real political task in a society such as ours is to criti-cize the working of institutions which appear to be bothneutral and independent; to criticize them in such a man-ner that the political violence which has always exerciseditself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so thatwe can fight them. (p. 171)

The acknowledgment in this aricle of the failure ofcountless attempts of well-intended folk to discoverthrough science, medicine, psychology, or other fields ofstudy the best reading method(s), strategy(ies), or tech-nique(s) that offer all children literacy access with compa-rable levels of success and opportunities to use literacy inmeaningful ways does not resolve these problems. Whatthis article does is point to a history of power/knowledgerelations within the field of literacy and to one of possi-bly thousands of local struggles for access to literacy.Foucault (1988) implored us to acknowledge how we ar-rived at our present state and to unmake the process.Given our understanding of the way in which power/knowledge relations work, a question for the new millen-nium is which political, economic, and social institutionsas well as which individuals should authorize literacy ac-cess and opportunity and for what purposes? We shouldcontinue to question and demystify the discursive forma-tions that delimit access and opportunity and to ask why.

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Colored School, of Calhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama. Boston: Geo. H. Ellis.THORN, C. (1912). Twentieth annual report of the principal of the Calhoun

Colored School, of Calhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama. Boston: Geo. H. Ellis.THORN, C. (1913). Twenty-first annual report of the principal of the

Calhoun Colored School, of Calhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama. Boston: Geo.H. Ellis.

THORN, C. (1915). Twenty-third annual report of the principal of theCalhoun Colored School, of Calhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama. Boston: Geo.H. Ellis.

THORN, C. (1918). Twenty-sixth annual report of the principal of theCalhoun Colored School, of Calhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama. Boston: Geo.H. Ellis.

THORN, C. (1919). Twenty-seventh annual report of the principal of theCalhoun Colored School, of Calhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama. Boston: Geo.H. Ellis.

THORN, C. (1924). Thirty-second annual report of the principal of theCalhoun Colored School, of Calhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama. Boston: Geo.H. Ellis.

THORN, C., & DILLINGHAM, M. (1892–1894). Report of the work of theCalhoun Colored School, Calhoun, Alabama, from October, 1892, to May, 1894.(No publisher or city listed)

THORN, C., & YODER, C. (1927). Thirty-fifth annual report of the principalsof the Calhoun Colored School, of Calhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama.Boston: Geo. H. Ellis.

THORN, C., & YODER, C. (1928). Thirty-sixth annual report of the princi-pals of the Calhoun Colored School, of Calhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama.Boston: Geo. H. Ellis.

THORN, C., & YODER, C. (1929). Thirty-seventh annual report of the prin-cipals of the Calhoun Colored School, of Calhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama.Boston: Geo. H. Ellis.

THORN, S. (1904). Library report. In P. Dilllingham & C. Thorn (Eds.),



APPENDIX AA day in CalhounÕs Academic Department*

Some children begin to arrive as early as 7:30. The school-rooms are open to the older children who care tostudy. Many plan for a half-hour study before school.

Gymnastics and drill from 8:30 to 9. On Friday morning there is a King’s Daughters meeting for the girls instead ofgymnastics. Saturday morning the school marches and forms in concentric rings around the flag-pole, pledges alle-giance to the flag, and sings “America.”

Opening exercises, 9 to 9:15.Class-room work until 12:30. One room has a work period of two hours. This means going for sewing and cook-

ing, carpentry, farming, etc., in the Industrial Department.Noon intermission, 12:30 to 1:45. Primary and kindergarten children go home now. If it is unpleasant outdoors,

the girls eat their dinners in the assembly-room. There are games and some lessons learned during the morning.Afternoon session, 1:45 to 3:30. On nearly every day of the week one class is getting industrial instruction and

training during the afternoon session.Boarding pupils in day-school work from close of afternoon school until five o’clock, as also in the morning be-

fore school.Night school, 7 to 9, for boarding pupils who work all day.Night school includes also study hours, 7 to 9, for boarding pupils who go to day school, and teaching for those

in the community who care to come. Few of the cabins have lamps, and it is hard for those in the older classes to dotheir work at home.

Prayer-meeting on Thursday evenings from 8:30 to 9.The usual county school session is from 9 A.M. to 4 P.M., with an hour at noon. Calhoun’s time runs from 8:30

A.M. to 3:30 P.M., and is followed by night school, 7 to 9.

*Reprinted from Dillingham & Thorn, 1902, pp. 27–28. Courtesy of Hampton University Archive.

Twelfth annual report of the principals of the Calhoun Colored School, ofCalhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama (p. 69). Boston: Geo. H. Ellis.

TRUSTEES OF THE JOHN F. SLATER FUND. (1917). Suggested courseof study for county training schools for Negroes in the South (OccasionalPapers, No. 18). Lynchburg, VA: P. Bell.

VAN DYKE, H. (1911). The mansion. New York: Harper & Brothers.VAN SICKLE, J., & SEEGMILLER, W. (1911). The Riverside reader.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin. WASHINGTON, B. (1901). Up from slavery. New York: Doubleday.WASHINGTON, B. (1903). Character building. New York: Doubleday.WASHINGTON, G. (1893). Letters from Hampton graduates: A letter from

the Calhoun School. The Southern Workman, 23, 11.WILSON, B. (1930). What I saw at Calhoun. The Southern Workman, 6(1),

3–10.

YODER C. (1933). Forty-first annual report of the principal of Calhoun Col-ored School, of Calhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama. Hampton, VA: HamptonInstitute Press.

Received February 16, 2000Final revision received November 14, 2000

Accepted March 6, 2001

AUTHOR NOTEFunding for this project was made available from the National Academy

of Education, Spencer Foundation, Small Grant Program, the Center for Advanced

Study, and the College of Education’s Bureau of Educational Research Summer

Grant Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.


KindergartenConnecting work

PrimaryC Class

B Class

C Class

From the board thelast few weeks.

From the board.Finch Primer, other

primers.

Cyr’s First.Æsop’s Fables, etc.

Cyr’s Second.

Harper’s First, NatureStories, HiawathaPrimer, etc.

Counting.

1 to 10. Writing.

10 to 20. Writingnumbers to 100.

to 100.

Story-telling.Learning use of new

words.

Copying.Oral Work.

Copying, Dictation.

Copying, Dictation.Reproduction.

Written Spelling.Oral Lessons.

Stories, observation,songs, “sunshine”calendar,gardening.

Stories and talks onreading lessons,and objectsbrought by thechildren, such asleaves, flowers,pollywogs,turtles, etc.

Germination–seedsplanted andstudied.

Fourth gradePrimary work

is done with grownpupils.

Third grade

Chart, Harper’s First.Other first readers.

Stickney’s Second.

Same as Primary.

MultiplicationTables, OralDrills, SimpleProblems.

Copying,Reproduction.

Copying, Dictation.Drill on Punctuation,

Oral Lessons.

List of flowers inblossom. Childrenlearn to knowcommon ones.

Birds.Germination of corn.Study of cotton plant.

Reading Number Language Nature

Reading Arithmetic Language Nature

APPENDIX BOutline of work

Singing, one period a week.Drawing, in connection with reading and nature work. Session: Half-day, 9 to 12:30.

Half-day Session. Work, two hours a week.Singing, two periods a week. Girls: sewing or laundry class. Boys: shop and farm alternate weeks.

Fourth grade

Third grade

“Brooks andBasins.”

Sand moulding ofthese lessons.

“Brooks andBasins.”

Sand moulding ofthese lessons.

The Stories of theHolidays.

The Stories of theHolidays.

Oral Lessons onHealth.

Oral Lessons onHealth.

Drill on forms ofletters.

Copying.

Drawing.First year, solids.Surfaces, lines, angles.Nature drawing.

Geography History Physiology Writing

(continued)


Second grade

First grade

Junior

B Middle

A Middle

Stickney’s Third.Robinson Crusoe.Seven Little Sisters, etc.

Harper’s Third.Eggleston’s History.Water Babies, etc.

Stickney’s Fourth.Harper’s Fourth.Black Beauty.King of Golden

River, etc.

Selections fromLongfellow andWhittler.

Dicken’s ChristmasCarol, etc.

Have read with BMiddle this year.

Bible part of theyear.

Through U.S. moneyin Princes No. 3.

Finish No. 3Fractions to 12th.

Fractions.(Speer’s Arithmetic.)

Review Fractions.Decimals.Compound numbers.

Review compoundnumbers.

Mensuration.Percentage.

First part of Metcalf’sLanguage.

Metcalf’s Language.

Metcalf’s Languagein connectionwith work basedon other lessons.

Written Lessons.Description.Report of obser-vation, etc.

Begin grammar.Parts of speech.Parts of a sen-tence.

Composition andgrammar.

In connection withgeography.

List of flowers kept.Germination of corn.Weather record.

Study of insects.

Agriculture.

Agriculture.

Reading Arithmetic Language Nature

APPENDIX BOutline of work (continued)

SENIOR.-There has been no class this year.

Singing, two periods (40 minutes each) each week. Drawing, once a week.Work, Boys: 4 hours a week–carpentry, 2 hours; farm, 2 hours. Girls: sewing, 4 hours; or, cooking, 2 hours; laundry

class, 2 hours.

*Reprinted from Hart (1900). Courtesy of Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama.

Second grade

First grade

Junior

B Middle

A Middle

Forms of land.Water and air.County geography.

Parts of Frye’sElementary.

The World’sDrainage.

Lowndes County.Alabama.North America.

First part of Frye’sComplete.

Review Alabama.Japan.Hawaii.Russia.

In connection withreading andholidays.

Montgomery’sElementary.

Sheldon’s UnitedStates.

Sheldon’s UnitedStates.

Oral Lessons.

Blaisdell’s.

Geography History Physiology

Literacy at Calhoun Colored School 18921945

Documents

Transcript of Literacy at Calhoun Colored School 18921945