| This dissertation examines rural school reform in Wisconsin during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries focusing on the significant position of county superintendents. Their work was pivotal to top-down reform measures despite their allegiance to the local electorate. County superintendents embodied the persistent tension between centralized reform initiatives and local control representing the significance of the individual in generating educational change.;Focusing primarily on distinctively rural school reforms, this investigation pursues several questions: What were forces for and against rural school reform and how did county superintendents mediate conflict? Were these officials simply ill-equipped, "unfit" politicians, without real understanding of educational needs (as their critics contended) or did they have an interest, perhaps an agenda, for the improvement of rural schools? How did local control compromise their efforts? Were they simply cogs in an imposing machine or did they exhibit individual agency in their work? And, how did women superintendents perceive their unique positions in the educational hierarchy?;Archival materials from across the state were central to this investigation. Items of chief importance were letters and correspondence of teachers, school board members and county superintendents. Official school reports, professional journals, and personal interviews helped provide a framework for understanding relationships, rhetoric and controversy surrounding local school management and development.;The paradox of county superintendents was their actual existence. Although they were a critical component of every rural school reform measure legislated, suggested, or requested, they were widely criticized largely due to their ties to local control. Nonetheless, Wisconsin county superintendents saw themselves as relevant to the cause of rural school reform and not only performed their jobs responsibly, but often went well beyond legal requirements. Not content to merely observe schoolrooms and the work of the teachers, superintendents aspired to instruct, advise, commend and reprove teachers and school boards in an effort to uplift rural education. County superintendents were men and women who held essential positions in the history of rural school development linking the ideologies of the educational elite with the real lives of teachers and students in rural schools. |
