CONTEXT
The Situation, Stereotype, and Rationale
The history of the Civil War and Reconstruction includes thousands of individuals traveling south in the educational service of the Freedmen. The education of the freedmen began as a black endeavor, when the desire of African Americans to be educated exploded publicly in the south from a secret existence where it was once prohibited by law and customs the education (Butchart, 2003) Numerous benevolent societies, both secular and religious, stepped into this project, sending teachers south to educate in day, night and Sabbath schools. White teachers soon entered the fray, sharing only some goals with African Americans, many from the north holding more missionary and alternative motives for their educational work; bringing the freedmen into churches and maintaining white norms and goals. (Small, 1979; Currie-McDaniel, 1992; Butchart, 2010) The concern was for souls more than political, secular or societal needs, a focus on learning to read the bible, as they saw the desire of African Americans in a shallow sense. The white teachers became mediators between those who sought to maintain southern customs and white supremacy and African Americans seeking “scholarly fortresses of education” for political and social gain in a post slavery environment. (Butchart, 2009) It is into this context that Indiana women from across the state traveled south.
STEREOTYPE
The Yankee Schoolmarm
Despite being primarily known by the persistent stereotype of the “Yankee schoolmarm,” inclining readers and students to think the majority of teachers in the South during reconstruction were white Northern women from New England, the majority of the teachers from the north were from the middle and western states (Butchart, 2010) and while primarily women, came from all class and educational backgrounds. Hardly the invasion written of, at the most numerous years it peaked around 1300 and declined after that while black Yankee teachers from the North rose in number. The men and women who did come from the North to teach were sponsored by aid societies, mostly religious with a few secular in nature, their main priority being missionary work first – to evangelize and convert the souls of African Americans within their particular denomination, and education considered in this sense “broadly” (Currie-McDaniel, 1992). The only group not focusing on evangelizing, according to Butchart (2009), was the Quakers- though it may depend on his definition of evangelizing. The rest had a keen focus for spreading their versions of Christianity.
Small (1979) writes of the teachers being described as “determined to introduce racial equality” and “Opinionated, quoting Cash’s The Mind of the South (1941), providing us with the stereotype:“Generally horsefaced, bespectacled, and spare of frame, she was, of course, no proper intellectual, but at best a comic character, at worst a dangerous fool, playing with explosive forces which she did not understand.”Currie-McDanile (1992) adds to this the idea the women often came down as single, loaner women, and Small (1979) wraps up her paper states how the women were viewed by the south, seeing them as “a dangerous do-gooder who had rejected Victorian norms of behavior for women in order to interfere with an existing political-economic order.“
Despite scholarship presenting alternative and complex understandings of these teachers, the stereotype persists. A simple question – do the 123 women who came south from Indiana fit the stereotype?
RATIONALE
Reconstruction is a crucial time in American history (Currie-McDaniel, 1992) and provides an entry point for those interested in the convergence of Reconstruction, Education, and African Americans, and Religion to address a few, are of interest to educational historians. In particular at this event, “Education was a social, political, and religious issue, united by the one goal of helping former slaves” (Currie-McDaniel, 1992)
Some educational textbooks, such as Teaching on Principle and Promise: The Foundations of Education by Mary-Lou Breitborde and Louise Boyle Swiniarski are very general about the thousands of teachers briefly mentioning the Freedmen's Bureau schools "staffed mostly by Northern white teachers armed with Websters's spellers and McGuffeys' readers" (p. 236) leaving pedagogical and motivational question's open. While educational historians, such a Urban & Waggoner (2009), write institutional historical views of the time period, addressing the macro view of the educational aspects of reconstruction. Firstly using the term “Yankee schoolmarm” and then generalizing their motivations and actions through a look at the societies who sent them south, overlooking the rational actors themselves, who are at work within the institutions, embedded and influencing the very societies represented in the grand narratives. Currie-McDaniel (1992) explains how often the women lived in the shadow of their husbands who they traveled with, though “with new research, these women and their contributions to southern history during this crucial period have become more visible” (p. 284) The new research can work to challenge general statements like those from Urban and Wagoner (2009) that presents the Yankee schoolmarm as “drawn mostly from new England states” and being on a “holy crusade” looking to impress how south was wrong, and seeking to “deliver blacks form ignorance and ignominy through the puritan way of life. (p. 160) Even using a military metaphor – as they engaged in “moral warfare.” In the book there is also no mention of Quakers involvement in reconstruction education, and or of specifically Indians contribution. (p. 149)
Other historians have addressed reconstruction teachers through state specific or religious specific lenses. Georgia (Carrie-McDaniel, 1992); and Iowan (Butchart, 200X) contributions have been documented in the scholarship, and the contribution of Quakers has been written about previously by Linda B. Selleck (1995), however this account is not specifically focused on Indiana, and presents an image of the teachers as “Gentle Invaders” whereas a different look might be showcased from a broader and more complex approach. These state specific and Religious group studies open the door, lending credence to an investigation of the wider Indiana contribution to the education of the newly freedmen from 1862 – 1875 rooted in both individual women, and grouped by religion.
As a way of challenging and cracking open the grand narratives, and re-conceptualizing the Yankee schoolmarm, from an Indiana perspective, this research is a look at the intersection of war and reconstruction, religion and educator, stereotypes and individuals. It is a chance to develop, through the letters and diaries and reports a rich, thick description through both digital and thematic means which will allow readers to generalize their own understandings based in the claims and evidence made. Small (1979) explains that these women were actually "pioneer[s] in education and social welfare work, the female teacher of freedmen in the onetime slave states from 1861 - 1871" (p. 381), which makes them historically worthy of investigation and research.