Caption: pen air school for children with tuberculosis, Philadelphia, PA, circa 1900.
From Pennsylvania and Its Manifold Activities, 1912.
Caption: Pioneer School House, Northwestern Pennsylvania, c. 1900
McKnight, W.J., M.D., A Pioneer Outline History of Northwestern Pennsylvania,
Caption: "In the early part of this century, and probably before the close of the last, there was a school near Darby, taught by Alexander Wilson, afterward celebrated as an ornithologist. He was a Scotchman who came over to this country about the year 1794 and while living near Darby was on intimate term with the famous botanist, William Bartram. The building in which he kept school was situated on the Darby road, a short distance west of its intersection with Gray's Ferry road. Wilson, who was of a roving disposition and who had not yet written the book which gave him renown, abandoned the school in 1804, about which time he contributed to the Literary Magazine a long poem of upwards of two hundred lines, recounting the experience of "The Solitary Tutor." Its opening verse was,–
'Whoe'er across the Schuylkill's winding tide,
Beyond Gray's Ferry half a mile, has been
Down in a bridge built hollow must have spy'd
A neat stone school-house on a sloping green.
There, tufted cedars scattered round are seen,
And stripling poplars planted in a row;
Some old gray white-oaks overhang the scene,
Pleased to look down upon the youth below, Whose noisy noontide sports no care nor sorrow know.
* * * * * * *
Here many a tour the lonely tutor takes,–
Long known to solitude, his partner dear,–
For smiling woods his empty school forsakes
At morn, still noon, and silent evening clear.'
"
Scharf, Thomas J., and Thompson Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884.
Caption: Friends Select School, Log Cabin, Sixteenth and Race Streets, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA
Library of Congress
Caption: Known also as the Mount Jackson or Potato Point School, and originally built in 1865, this building has been authentically reconstructed on the grounds of Shippensburg University. Now an historical artifact to a bygone era, the one room school house was once an icon of American education and social life.
Little Red Schoolhouse, Shippensburg University
Caption: In the early 1800s, Pennsylvania Quakers and other abolitionists founded a number of fledgling institutions to provide free blacks the educational opportunities denied them in the state's private academies and colleges, and its public schools. Named for African-American scientist and inventor Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806), the Banneker School educated black children in Germantown before it closed in the early 1890s.
Courtesy of the NYPL digital gallery, New York Public Library
Caption: First Moravian School in Pennsylvania, by Harry Winslow Fegley, 1742.
Courtesy of the NYPL digital gallery, New York Public Library
Caption: An icon of American rural public education, the proverbial one-room school combined all grade levels into a common open room surrounding a coal stove. Learning occurred under the direction of a single teacher who was equally adept in the 3-R's and other subjects taught in the normal school.
Courtesy of Joyce M. Tice, Tri-Counties Genealogy and History
Caption: Daggett One Room Schoolhouse
Courtesy of Joyce M. Tice, Tri-Counties Genealogy & History
Caption: First Log College, West Allegheny Mt., Canonsburg, Pa. Log College was the name given to a school that William Tennent, an Irish-born, Edinburgh-educated Presbyterian minister, conducted at Neshaminy, Bucks County, Pennsylvania from 1726 until his death in 1745.
Courtesy of Millersville University, Helen A. Ganser Library, Archives and Special Collections
Caption: Open Air School, Hill District, Pittsburgh, February 1923.
Irene Kaufmann Settlement, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
Caption: Old Octagonal Schoolhouse, Newton Square, West Cheater, Pa.
Courtesy of Millersville University, Helen A. Ganser Library, Archives and Special Collections
Caption: After an 1854 state law required districts to create separate schools for African-American children, "whenever such schools can be so located as to accommodate twenty or more pupils," many black children in Pennsylvania continued to attend the local public schools. Three of the children in this photo of Belle School classmates were African American.
Library of Congress
Caption: Well into the twentieth century, one-room schoolhouses dotted the Pennsylvania countryside. Some buildings were simple frame structures with no architectural embellishment. Other, more ornate schools had Classical or Victorian details. By the time of district consolidation during the Great Depression, the one room school house was a fading presence across the nation.
Built in 1861, at a cost of $315, this one room school was one of nine in the Township of Forest Lake, Pennsylvania. Located in Northern Pennsylvania's Susquehanna County, on Route 267, a half mile south of Birchardville, and five and a half miles north of Lawtown, the school has been turned into a museum.
Courtesy of the Birchardville School Historical and Educational Association
Caption: River Schoolhouse, River Road (Smithfield Township), Shawnee on Delaware vicinity, Monroe County, PA., c. 1900. This is one of four similar late nineteenth century school houses built in Smithfield Township. Constructed of stone, the one-room school house contains an interesting roof framing system, composed of a combination of wood and iron-truss members.
Library of Congress
Caption: Main Street School, One Room, Waverly, Lackawanna County, PA., Stanley Jones, Photographer September 30, 1936.
Library of Congress
Caption: Westtown Friends Meeting House, Westtown School, east side, Westtown, Chester County, PA., 1929 initial construction.
Library of Congress
Caption: A back country seminary founded by William Tennent, the Log College had an influence on American Presbyterianism that surpassed its brief existence in rural Bucks County. Its graduates helped found Princeton University and other denominational schools.
Thomas Jefferson University Archives
Caption: Lutz-Franklin One Room Schoolhouse, located in Lower Saucon Township, 4216 Countryside Lane, Hellertown, Pennsylvania.
Courtesy of the Lower Saucon Township Historical Society
Caption: This one room schoolhouse is the oldest extant building in Delaware County erected specifically for educational purposes. It also was the location of the first public school in Haverford Township.
Library of Congress
Caption: Federal School House, End of Allgates Drive (Haverford Township), Havertown vicinity, Delaware County, PA.
Library of Congress
Caption: Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Interior of Letitia Penn school
Library of Congress
Caption: Alexandria School, Second Street, Alexandria, Huntingdon County, PA
Library of Congress
Caption: Hinkletown, Pennsylvania(vicinity). Crossroads school. There are eight grades in one room.
Library of Congress
Caption: The one-room schoolhouse, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
Library of Congress
Caption: Hinkletown, Pennsylvania (vicinity). Mennonite teacher holding class in one-room, eight grade school house
Library of Congress
Caption: Weeping Willows school house, Chester Co., Pennsylvania, ca. 1860.
Library of Congress
Caption: The Birchardville School, Birchardville, PA, interior.
Courtesy of the Birchardville School Historical and Educational Association
Caption: School house, Tioga Co., Pa., c. 1860.
Courtesy of the NYPL digital gallery, New York Public Library
Caption: Cornplanter School
Courtesy of the State Museum of Pennsylvania, Archaeology
