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SCHOOL REFORM AS PROGRESSIVE STATECRAFT: EDUCATION POLICY IN NEW YORK UNDER GOVERNOR ALFRED E. SMITH, 1919–1928*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2016

Robert Chiles
Robert Chiles*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland
*
rchiles@umd.edu
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Extract

Since the Progressive Era itself, scholars have exhibited strong interest in the connections between progressivism and education. Historical studies have elucidated countless ways that such reformist impulses as the settlement house movement, the country life movement, the progressive education movement, the “cult of efficiency,” and battles against social ills like child labor influenced early twentieth-century education policy.1 Indeed, as historian Lawrence Cremin has contended, “the Progressive mind was ultimately an educator's mind, and … its characteristic contribution was that of a socially responsible reformist pedagogue.”2

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , October 2016 , pp. 379 - 398
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2016 

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Footnotes

*

Research for this essay was funded, in part, by a New York State Library Cunningham Research Residency and by a New York State Archives Partnership Trust Hackman Research Residency. The author thanks Leslie Chiles, Richard Hamm, John Buenker, Tom Pegram, David Sicilia, Ethan Hutt, and the two anonymous peer reviewers for their insights and support.

References

1 Foremost among these studies is Cremin's, Lawrence A. The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876–1957 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962)Google Scholar. Other relevant works include Callahan, Raymond E, Education and the Cult of Efficiency: A Study of the Social Forces That Have Shaped the Administration of the Public Schools (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1962)Google Scholar; Keppel, Ann M., “The Myth of Agrarianism in Rural Education Reform, 1890–1914,” History of Education Quarterly 2 (June 1962): 100–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stambler, Moses, “The Effect of Compulsory Education and Child Labor Laws on High School Attendance in New York City, 1898–1917,” History of Education Quarterly 8 (Summer 1968): 189–214 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berrol, Selma C., “William Henry Maxwell and a New Educational New York,” History of Education Quarterly 8 (Summer 1968): 215–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Spring, Joel, “Education and Progressivism,” History of Education Quarterly 10 (Spring 1970): 53–71 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Maxcy, Spencer J., “The Idea of Consolidation in Southern Education during the Early Decades of the Twentieth Century,” Peabody Journal of Education 53 (Apr. 1976): 216–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Doherty, Robert E., “Tempest on the Hudson: The Struggle for ‘Equal Pay for Equal Work’ in New York City Public Schools, 1907–1911,” History of Education Quarterly 19 (Winter 1979): 413–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Danbom, David B., “Rural Education Reform and the Country Life Movement, 1900–1920,” Agricultural History 53 (Apr. 1979): 462–74Google Scholar; Madison, James H., “John D. Rockefeller's General Education Board and the Rural School Problem in the Midwest, 1900–1930,” History of Education Quarterly 24 (Summer 1984): 181–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Link, William A., “Privies, Progressivism, and Public Schools: Health Reform and Education in the Rural South, 1909–1920,” The Journal of Southern History 54 (Nov. 1988): 623–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weiler, Kathleen, “Women and Rural School Reform: California, 1900–1940,” History of Education Quarterly 34 (Spring 1994): 25–47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ravitch, Diane, Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 88–129 Google Scholar; Reese, William J., “The Origins of Progressive Education,” History of Education Quarterly 41 (Spring 2001): vi, 1–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Perrillo, Jonna, “Beyond ‘Progressive’ Reform: Bodies, Discipline, and the Construction of the Professional Teacher in Interwar America,” History of Education Quarterly 44 (Autumn 2004): 337–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Cremin, Transformation of the School, 89.

3 Steffes, Tracy L. demonstrates well national trends in state-level school reform in “Solving the ‘Rural School Problem’: New State Aid, Standards, and Supervision of Local Schools, 1900–1933,” History of Education Quarterly 48 (May 2008): 181–220 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and School, Society, & State: A New Education to Govern Modern America, 1890–1940 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2012), 18–25 Google Scholar.

4 On “equal opportunity,” see Steffes, “Solving the ‘Rural School Problem,’” 181, 183, 188, 189, 193.

5 Cremin, Transformation of the School, 184.

6 Progressive Era governors in states ranging from Wisconsin to North Carolina also made educational reform central to their progressive reforms; see Unger, Nancy C., Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 134–35Google Scholar; Cremin, Transformation of the School, 161–168; Buenker, John D., The History of Wisconsin: Volume IV: The Progressive Era, 1893–1914 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1998), 367 Google Scholar; Harlan, Louis R., “The Southern Education Board and the Race Issue in Public Education,” The Journal of Southern History 23 (May 1957): 189–202 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kousser, J. Morgan, “Progressivism—For Middle-Class Whites Only: North Carolina Education, 1880–1910,” Journal of Southern History 46 (May 1980): 169–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Steffes, School, Society, & State, 7–10, 207.

8 Smith's gubernatorial progressivism on questions of labor regulation and social welfare is well documented; see Perry, Elisabeth Israels, Belle Moskowitz: Feminine Politics and the Exercise of Power in the Age of Alfred E. Smith (Boston: Northeastern University, 1992), 115–60Google Scholar; Chiles, Robert, “Working-Class Conservationism in New York: Governor Alfred E. Smith and ‘The Property of the People of the State,’” Environmental History 18 (Jan. 2013): 15–83 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Pegram, Thomas R., One Hundred Percent American: The Rebirth and Decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2011), 89–90, 94, 100Google Scholar.

10 Pegram, One Hundred Percent, 101–18; Steffes, School, Society, & State, 57, 183.

11 Hofstadter, Richard, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to FDR (New York: Vintage, 1955), 135 Google Scholar; McGerr, Michael, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870–1920 (New York: Free Press, 2003), xiv, xvGoogle Scholar.

12 “Smith Tells Work for State Schools,” New York Times, Oct. 21, 1926, 1, 3.

13 “Tribute Given to Alfred E. Smith at School Dedication,” New York Times, Dec. 13, 1966, 51.

14 Ellis, David M., Frost, James A., Syrett, Harold C., and Carman, Harry J., A Short History of New York State (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1957), 590 Google Scholar; Tyack, David B., The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 149 Google Scholar.

15 The Democrats controlled the Assembly and the Senate each for a single, separate term during the Smith years. Malcolm, James, ed., The New Red Book (Albany: J .B. Lyon, 1928), 370–79, 545–46, 586–87Google Scholar.

16 Steffes, “Solving the ‘Rural School Problem,’” 188, 191; Steffes, School, Society, & State, 25–30, 33, 36–44; Tyack, The One Best System, 127–47.  .

17 “Full Text of the Annual Message of Governor Smith to the State Legislature,” New York Times, Jan. 3, 1924, 10.

18 Cremin, Transformation of the School, 119.

19 “Governor Smith Takes Office Amid Crowds’ Acclaim,” New York Times, Jan. 2, 1919, 1, 4; “Governor Smith Takes Office Amid Crowds’ Acclaim,” 4; “Governor Smith's Views In Regard to Education,” box 5, folder 65, Alfred E. Smith Papers, New York State Library, Albany, New York (hereafter Smith Papers), 1.

20 Smith, Alfred E., Up to Now: An Autobiography (New York: Viking, 1929), 276 Google Scholar.

21 “School Teachers and Small Pay,” New York Times, Mar. 2, 1919, 41.

22 “Teachers Fight for Salary Increase,” New York Times, May 9, 1919, 14.

23 “Vetoes Bill To Give Teachers More Pay,” New York Times, May 8, 1919, 18. Under the New York State Constitution, the Mayor of New York had veto power over any state legislation dealing exclusively with the city. Cole, James D., “Constitutional Home Rule in New York: ‘The Ghost of Home Rule,’” St. John's Law Review 59:4 (Summer 1985): 713–49Google Scholar.

24 “Governor Signs Teachers’ Bill,” New York Times, May 20, 1919, 22.

25 “See Hylan Hostile Now to Gov. Smith,” New York Times, May 21, 1919, 15.

26 “Teachers Hear Governor,” New York Times, June 1, 1920, 20.

27 “Governor Smith's Views In Regard to Education,” 2.

28 Smith, Alfred E., “Ten Years of Educational Progress” in Progressive Democracy: Addresses and State Papers of Alfred E. Smith, ed. Moskowitz, Henry (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1928), 361 Google Scholar.

29 Chase, Josephine, New York at School: A Description of the Activities and Administration of the Public Schools of the City of New York (New York: Public Education Association of the City of New York, 1927), 256–59Google Scholar; Rousmaniere, Kate, City Teachers: Teaching and School Reform in Historical Perspective (New York: Teachers College Press, 1997), 76–79 Google Scholar; “‘Bunk,’ Says Hylan of Schools Plan,” New York Times, Dec. 5, 1922, 40; “Hylan on the Radio Tells of Schools, New York Times, Sept. 5, 1924, 5; “Hylan Lauds Smith for Aiding Schools,” New York Times, Oct. 2, 1924, 13.

30 “Public Education in New York,” New York Times, Jan. 5, 1923, 10; “Reports on Idle Teachers,” New York Times, Mar. 20, 1928, 24; “Board Seeks Posts for Idle Teachers,” New York Times, Oct. 25, 1928, 15.

31 “The State and the Schools,” New York Times, Jan. 18, 1923, 14.

32 “Governor Smith and the Schools,” New York Times, Oct. 28, 1924, 22. The bill extended provisions of the 1911 equal pay law that had applied only to New York City. Doherty, “Tempest on the Hudson,” 430.

33 Smith, Up to Now, 277.

34 “The Committee of Twenty-One,” New York Times, Jan. 24, 1923, 14.

35 Smith, Up to Now, 277.

36 The Joint Committee on Rural Schools, Works, George A., Chairman, Rural Schools Survey of New York State: A Report to the Rural School Patrons (Ithaca, NY: Joint Committee on Rural Schools, 1922), 23 Google Scholar.

37 Barron, Hal S., Mixed Harvest: The Second Great Transformation in the Rural North: 1870–1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 66–67 Google Scholar; Ellis et al., Short History of New York State, 591.

38 Barron, Mixed Harvest, 67.

39 “Public Education in New York,” 10.

40 Works et al., Rural Schools Survey, 37, 42–43.

41 Cremin, Transformation of the School, 169; Works et al., Rural Schools Survey, 51–52.

42 Works et al., Rural Schools Survey, 87, 90, 91, 95.

43 Cutler, William W. III, “Cathedral of Culture: The Schoolhouse in American Educational Thought and Practice since 1820,” History of Education Quarterly 29 (Spring 1989): 1–40, 33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 Works et al., Rural Schools Survey, 93, 102.

45 Works et al., Rural Schools Survey, 129–42.

46 Works et al., Rural Schools Survey, 152–68.

47 Works et al., Rural Schools Survey, 13–16, 19, 21, 22.

48 Works et al., Rural Schools Survey, 145.

49 “The Committee of Twenty-One,” 14.

50 “Governor Smith Gives Legislative Chart of His Proposals and the Action Taken,” New York Times, May 7, 1923; “Women Urge Passage of Rural School Bill,” New York Times, Apr. 2, 1924, 21; Barron, Mixed Harvest, 68–74.

51 “Governor Recalls Schoolboy Days,” New York Times, Mar. 6, 1924, 3.

52 “Full Text of the Annual Message of Governor Smith to the State Legislature,” 10.

53 “Women Urge Passage of Rural School Bill,” 21.

54 Alfred E. Smith, “Speech at Carnegie Hall,” Nov. 2, 1924, box 27, folder 274, Smith Papers, 7; “Davis and Smith, Closing Campaign, Cheered by Throng,” New York Times, Nov. 2, 1924, 1, 16.

55 Alfred E. Smith, “Speech of Acceptance,” box 27, folder 274, Smith Papers, 4.

56 Alfred E. Smith, “Campaign Luncheon Democratic Women's Organizations of Greater New York, Hotel Commodore, Saturday,” Oct. 25, 1924, box 27, folder 274, Smith Papers, 4–5.

57 “Rural Schools Again,” New York Times, Jan. 9, 1925, 16.

58 Smith, “Ten Years of Educational Progress,” 365.

59 Ellis et al., A Short History of New York State, 591.

60 Smith, “Ten Years of Educational Progress,” 365; Works et al., Rural School Survey of New York State, 14–15, 21.

61 According to one study, beyond the many social and cultural objections to consolidation, “Mostly, [rural New Yorkers] resented the higher taxes that township control represented.” Barron, Mixed Harvest, 67.

62 L. H. McCluen to Ray P. Snyder, Oct. 8, 1930, box 5, folder 66, Smith Papers.

63 Smith, “Ten Years of Educational Progress,” 365.

64 N.Y. State Department of Education et al., “First Conference Central District Boards of Education,” box 5, folder 66, 5–11.

65 The University of the State of New York, The State Department of Education, and the Rural Education Bureau, “Second Conference Central District Boards of Education,” box 5, folder 66, Smith Papers, 9–14.

66 Ellis et al., A Short History of New York State, 591; Barron, Mixed Harvest, 74.

67 One critical analysis of New York school consolidation is a good example of such studies, presenting an especially unflattering look at the ostensibly tyrannical State Commissioner of Education, Frank P. Graves. Joseph M. Balducci, “Defending Our Community: Rural School Centralization in New York State, 1915–1930,” (MA Thesis, University at Albany, 2003), passim.

68 Tyack, David B., “The Tribe and the Common School: Community Control in Rural Education,” American Quarterly 24 (Mar. 1972): 3–19, 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Barron, Mixed Harvest, 73.

70 Fuller, Wayne E., The Old Country School: The Story of Rural Education in the Middle West (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 235 Google Scholar.

71 Madison, “John D. Rockefeller's General Education Board and the Rural School Problem in the Midwest,” 195.

72 Bowers, William E., The Country Life Movement in America, 1900–1920 (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1974), 104 Google Scholar; Fuller, The Old Country School, 103–9; 234; Link, William A., A Hard Country and a Lonely Place: Schooling, Society, and Reform in Rural Virginia, 1870–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1986), 99 Google Scholar.

73 Theobold, Paul, Call School: Rural Education in the Midwest to 1918 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995), 155, 176Google Scholar.

74 Steffes, “Solving the ‘Rural School Problem,’” 217. In School Society and State, Steffes makes a related argument: “national school reform in the era was not the imposition of any one group, but a messy, pluralistic project,” and “simple explanations for education reform that emphasize social control or professional self-aggrandizement overstate the influence that any one group had to control the outcome in such a fragmented and diffuse system.” Steffes, School, Society, & State, 199–200.

75 “To Aid Little Red School,” New York Times, Mar. 31, 1924, 18.

76 N.Y. State Department of Education et al., “Second Conference,” 9.

77 Kreitlow, Burton W., Rural Education: Community Backgrounds (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1954), 24 Google Scholar.

78 Carrol P. Streeter, “How New York Communities Are Getting a Square Deal for Rural Schools,” Farmer's Wife, (Feb. 1930): 2–4.

79 Streeter, “How New York Communities Are Getting a Square Deal for Rural Schools,” 2, 3.

80 “Governor Smith's Record in Relation to Public Health, Medicine and Public Welfare,” Smith Papers, box 13, folder 158, 3; “Asks More Rural Doctors,” New York Times, Feb. 14, 1923, 4; Smith, “Legislative Document No. 87” (Albany, NY: J. B. Lyon Company, 1923), Lillian Wald Papers, New York Public Library, New York, NY, Reel 33, 3–4; “Smith Asks for Act to Meet Drug Evil,” New York Times, Apr. 12, 1923, 4; “Text of Gov. Smith's Annual Message to the Legislature Detailing His Policies,” New York Times, Jan. 8, 1925, 20; Smith, Up to Now, 355.

81 Ellis et al., A Short History of New York, 592; Steffes, School, Society, & State, 102; Steffes, “Solving the ‘Rural School Problem,’” 205.

82 “Full Text of the Annual Message of Governor Smith to the State Legislature,” 10.

83 “Favors Income Tax to Pay School Costs,” New York Times, Apr. 8, 1926, 1, 5.

84 “Stormy Hearing on Teachers’ Pay; Smith Veto Likely,” New York Times, Apr. 15, 1925, 1; “Governor Will Veto $20,000,000 Pay Rise for City Teachers,” New York Times, May 18, 1926, 1.

85 “Full Text of the Annual Message of Governor Smith to the State Legislature,” 10.

86 “Governor Smith's Views In Regard to Education,” 5.

87 “Favors Income Tax to Pay School Costs,” 1.

88 It should be noted, however, that Steuben County Republican Ernest Cole had been a member of the commission and sponsored Smith's favored legislation in the State Assembly. “To The Legislature,” Apr. 4, 1926, box 46, folder 492, Smith Papers, 2; “School Officials Back Finance Bills,” New York Times, Apr. 14, 1926, 2; “State Must Defer Further School Aid,” New York Times, Apr. 11, 1926, 25; “Governor Smith's Views In Regard to Education,” 5.

89 Alfred E. Smith, “Speech at Utica,” Oct. 20, 1926, box 28, folder 300, Smith Papers, 2; “Smith Tells Work For State Schools,” 1; Smith, “Speech at Troy,” Oct. 21, 1926, box 28, folder 300, Smith Papers, 5; “Mills Awaits Summons,” New York Times, Oct. 22, 1926, 1–2.

90 “Col. Friedsam Sees Governor Sign Bill,” New York Times, Apr. 3, 1927, 27.

91 Dewey, John, “Why I Am for Smith,” New Republic 7 (Nov. 1928): 320–21Google Scholar.

92 Johnston, Robert D., “Re-Democratizing the Progressive Era: The Politics of Progressive Era Political Historiography,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 1:1 (Jan. 2002): 68–92 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Johnston, Robert D., “The Possibilities of Politics: Democracy in America, 1877–1917” in American History Now, eds. Foner, Eric and McGirr, Lisa (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011), 103, 114–19Google Scholar.