Everyone is heading or has headed back to school. In honor of the start of a new school year, I posted my great-great grandmother Stella Bowling Cunningham’s letter to her son Alvin about what school was like when she was a girl over at my education blog.
I was surprised and happy by the reaction to the letter. The post appeared the in 81st Carnival of Education. College professor Cyril Kesten plans to ask his students to read the letter and write about their own school memories (link to his comment). Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub linked the post so that other history teachers in Texas might be able to use it as an educational tool. I think that Grandma Stella would be very happy that so many people enjoyed learning about her school days.
I do want to clarify that while the picture I provided is of a class of Stella’s, it was a college class at the Parker Institute. She attended the equivalent of grade school in the 1880’s and not the 1890’s.
Thanks to everyone!