In the 1898 photograph below, 24 children of various ages are seated barefoot and wide-eyed ready for another day of class. This, the original Fairhope Public School, which was established just two years prior, had been held in a repurposed store building located on the northwest corner of Section Street and Fairhope Avenue. A few years later, the school would be moved into what is now known as the Bell Building, employed by Marietta Johnson for her innovative School of Organic Education. Johnson’s untraditional curriculum exchanged grades and exams for folk dancing, cooking and woodshop work, attracting attention nationwide. Upton Sinclair, author of “The Jungle,” moved into a bay-front cottage in 1909 to enroll his son, David, in the school. But for this 1898 colony of students packed together on firm, upright benches, posing for the rare photograph was only a short break before returning to arithmetic lessons on the blackboard.
Lessons on Late 19th-century Schools
- Before 1900, rural schools had two schooling terms during the year: the summer term from May until August and the winter term from November through April. It wasn’t until after 1900 that nine-month school terms from September to May came into effect.
- Students were seated according to their general level of ability. Usually, this meant that the younger students were in front and the older ones sat in the back.
- Older students sometimes helped instruct the younger ones, freeing the teacher to perform other duties.
- When the school day began, children were required to file into the one-room school in silence, girls first in a line from youngest to oldest, followed by the boys.
- As the children entered the schoolhouse, they would curtsy or bow to the teacher.
“My schoolroom is a funny little place, built wholly of round, unhewn logs, notched at the ends to receive each other… to this lodge in the wilderness, this boundless contiguity of shade, I went my lonely way every morning, rising to an early breakfast, and arriving in time to open school by eight o’clock…”
— an excerpt from “Letters from Alabama” an 1838 book full of observations by Phillip Henry Gosse, an English schoolmaster, during his eight-month residence in a small Alabama town
By the Numbers
$1
A student’s typical tuition fee in 1896 to attend the Fairhope school. That is equivalent to approximately $37.39 today.
1799
The year that Alabama’s first public school was established near Boatyard Lake, on the Tensaw river in north Baldwin County, by John Pierce.
3
The number of subjects that were stressed in late 19th-century education: reading, writing and arithmetic, also known as the three Rs (reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic).
69%
The percentage of young American children who attended school in 1890. By 1910, the number was 72%, with half of the the nation’s children attending one-room schools.
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