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Noah Webster
Noah Webster was a teacher in Connecticut. He wanted to eliminate British textbooks from the American classroom.
He was often called the school master of America. He believed there needed to be a national history, creating a unified culture, which was built from the founding fathers. In 1783, he published the “Blue Back Speller” and it soon became America’s textbook and was the forerunner to Webster’s “American Dictionary of the English Language.” -
Common School
Horace Mann became known as a leading advocate for the common school. Mann decided he wanted to better public education better by teaching a common body of knowledge. The school would be free to attend so that the poor could attend but also of the highest quality so that the rich would want to attend. The school would be funded with tax dollars. He also standardized the school system by setting the standards of what should be in a classroom. -
John Hughes
John Hughes, a bishop at St Patrick’s Cathedral, launched a protest stating the catholic children in those schools faced an indoctrination to the protestant faith. The teaching in schools was anti- Irish and anti- Catholic. Hughes wanted city funds available for catholic schools. The city denied his request. In 1850, John Hughes was named arch bishop of New York and he used his power, as arch bishop, to create a national system of catholic schools. -
Catharine Beecher
Catharine Beecher promoted female teachers and viewed teaching as a woman’s moral calling. She also founded colleges to educate women in serving out in the west.
She advocated that this was an appropriate behavior for a young woman to leave her family and teach students outside of her community. She sought to create a profession for women, this created a new ethic for teachers in the school. -
Law abolishing segregation in Massachusetts
Benjamin Roberts vowed to sue the city of Boston because his daughter was denied education and in 1849, his case reached the supreme court. He was represented by his lawyer, Robert Morris and Charles Sumner. Later, Benjamin Roberts ,along with a group of supporters, took the case to the State Legislature.
In 1855, a law was passed that abolished segregation in Massachusetts. This law was the first such law in the nation.
