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Forbidding teaching people in slavery to read
Most southern states have laws forbidding teaching people in slavery to read. Even so, around 5% become literate at great personal risk. -
William Homes McGuffey
The first of William Homes McGuffey's readers is published. Their secular tones sets them apart from the Puritan texts of the day. The McHuffeys Readers, as they came to be known, are among the most influential textbooks of the 19th century. -
Bored of Education
Horace Mann becomes Secretary of the newly formed Massachusetts State Bored of Education. Horance Mann has wokred very hard to help the education of teachers. As editor of the Common Schools Journal, his belief in the importance of free, universal public educatuion gains a national audience. He resigns his position as Secretary in 1848 to take the congressional seat vacated by the death of John Quincy Adams . -
Funding Schools
The first state funded school specifically for teachers education opens in Lexington, Massachusetts -
Irish Immigrants Arive
Over amillion Irish immigrants arrive in the United States, driven out of their homes in Ireland by the potato famine. Irish Catholics in New York City striggle for local neighborhood control of schools as a way of preventing their children from being force-fed a protestant curriculum. -
Reform Schools
Massachusetts Refrom School at Westboro opens, where children who have refused to attend public schools are sent. This begins a long tradition of "reform schools," which combine the education and juvenile justice system. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The war against Mexico ends with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which gives the US half of what was then Mexico. The treaty guarantees citizenship rights to everyone living in these areas mostly Mexicans and Natives. In 1998, California beaks the treaty by passing Propositon 227, which would make it illegal for teachers to speak Spanish in public schools. -
First Compulsory Education Law
State of Massachusetts passes its firat compulsory education law. The goal is to make sure that the children of poor immigrants get "civilized" and learn obedience so they make good workers and don'd contribute to social upheaval. -
First Kindergarden
The first kingergarden in the U.S. is started in Watertown, Wisconsin, founded by Margarethe Schurz. Four years later, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody opens the first "formal" kindergarden in Boston, MA. -
National Teachers Association
The National Teachers Association(now the National Education Association) is founded by forty-three educators in Philadelphia. -
Origin of Species
Charles Darwin's The origin of Species is published on November 24, introducing his theory that species envove through the process of natural selection, and setting the stage for the controversy surrounding teaching the theory of evolution in the public schools that persists to this day.
