The Open History of American Education project is now more than halfway done! Here’s four more chapters to wet your whistle.
Chapter Nine, The Cult of Scientific Management, talks about the widespread hype around Frederick Taylor’s ideas of “scientific management” in the 1910’s and how it provided rhetorical cover for removing academic material from the school curriculum. He also dives into the Fabians a bit, an influential group of British technocratic-modernist-socialists. Some great sources from this chapter are Education and the Cult of Scientific Management, and The Open Conspiracy, a Fabian manifesto from one of their prominent members, H. G. Wells.
Chapter Ten, My Green River, talks about Gatto’s childhood growing up in the Monongahela Valley and how it shaped his world-view.
Chapter 11, The Crunch, talks about the rise of racial eugenics theories among the intellectuals and upper class. A great source from this chapter is Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism in 1860-1925.
Chapter 12, Daughters of the Barons Of Runnemede, talks about the various ways the upper class began to erect stricter barriers to entry towards the end of the 1800’s, starting with an increase in heredity societies and a huge growth of elite private boarding schools. Some great sources from this chapter are The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America, and Preparing for Power: America’s Elite Boarding Schools.
That’s all for this week!
Stay Lucky
Well done!