HAINES NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE AND PENN NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL: A PROSPECTIVE ON BLACK AND WHITE EDUCATIONAL INVOLVEMEN

Much has been written on educators in general and white educators in particular. However, there have been relatively few biographies, monographs, or scholarly works written about black female educators of the past. While there are legitimate reasons for this lack of attention, with the recent availability of source materials, these persons can now be studied for their contribution to the field of education.;While Penn School and Haines School have been studied individually, the two schools, founded around the same time and led by women of different ethnic backgrounds, have never been studied together for their similarities and differences, successes and/or failures as early institutions of learning.;This study sought to compare and contrast both schools, their curricula, and the principles involved to determine what contributed to the success of the schools at a time when many other attempts at founding private schools for the education of ex-slaves were either unsuccessful or of limited duration.;The main conclusions of this study are: (1) That black women experience much of the same problems as white women. However, because of the prevailing conditions, during and after the Civil War, the black woman was able to rise above the current stereotypes of womanhood and race to realize the same successes as the white woman. (2) That the color or sex of the founders or leaders of early private schools had no bearings on the success of those schools. (3) That when comparing two black teachers with the same stated aims, background and environment play a large role in their self-identity and self-gratification. (4) Industrial education was the lever through which many early schools became funded. (5) Given the current status of the economy, black women may be called upon again to provide the education base for this generation's poor and middle-income blacks.