WHAT?
After the depression of the 1890s,
immigration jumped from a low of 3.5
million in that decade to a high of 9 million
in the first decade of the new century.
Trends and policies supporting immigration
continued until it reached a peak in the
decade between 1900 and 1910 during
which almost 1 million immigrants per year
entered the country.
SO WHAT?
NOW WHAT?
Purpose of Education:
Emergency legislation in 1921
imposed a quota system, limiting the
number of immigrants from Europe
to 3 percent of the number of
foreign-born members of that same
nationality in the U.S.
Americanize the children. Improve
the economic well-being of the
nation by producing qualified
workers for the nation's changing
workplace.
Facing the combined impact of the
dramatic transformations caused by
industrialization, immigration and
urbanization, American political and
educational leaders turned to the
nation's schools, seeking their help
in meeting the radical new
challenges to American society.
Typical Classroom:
Children worked in large numbers in
mines, glass factories, textiles,
agriculture, canneries, home
industries, and as newsboys,
messengers, bootblacks, and
peddlers.
The “older immigrants” from Protestant
Northern and Western Europe felt
threatened by the rising tide of immigrants
from the more Catholic Southern and
Eastern European countries and the
immigrants from Asia.
By 1910, Eastern and Southern Europeans
made up 70 percent of the immigrants
entering the country; therefore, a
succession of discriminatory laws was
passed adding restrictions to immigration
policy. For example, a literacy test for
immigrants was passed and became law.
Memorization of assigned passages
from textbooks, drill, and recitation
were the standard teaching methods.
During the decade 1900 to 1909,
these well-worn educational
practices were increasingly attacked
by critics who adamantly opposed
The National Child Labor Committee, them; in time, pressure from these
in 1904, shared goals of challenging critics and sweeping social forces
prompted most schools across
child labor including through antiAmerica to begin a process of
sweatshop campaigns and labeling
dramatic change which occurred in
programs.
the name of expertise and efficiency.
The National Child Labor
Changes:
Committee’s work to end child labor
was combined with efforts to provide Introduction of vocational education
free, compulsory education for all
children, and culminated in the
Development of large urban school
passage of the Fair Labor Standards systems
Act in 1938, which set federal
standards for child labor.
Change in school governance-large
So, what are these children going to
do?
bureaucracies sprang up, decisionmaking became the function of
faceless and anonymous managers
Age-graded schools
Lockstep curricula
Curricula in American university
differed from traditional curricula by
being more oriented to practical,
technological, even economic
concerns.
New institution demonstrated a
renewed interest in research and
aimed to extend the benefits of
education to a greater portion of the
population.