Project proposal for Fall 2023 Introduction to Public History Seminar.
Abstract
My project is an online article/interactive website analyzing historical debates in America for and against traditional and non-traditional education. “Traditional education” refers to higher education as promoted by W.E.B. Du Bois while “non-traditional education” refers to the industrial education mode favored by Booker T. Washington. This article uses the term to refer to non-military public service programs as well. These programs directly and indirectly taught and continue to teach participants occupational and interpersonal skills alongside civic knowledge. The major programs used as examples for this definition of “non-traditional education” are the Civilian Conversation Corps of the 1930s and early 1940s and AmeriCorps. This article builds on Fannie Barrier Williams’ 1904 essay, “Industrial Education—Will It Solve the Negro Problem?” This essay’s clever maneuvering of both positions as Williams refuses to commit wholly to either Washington’s or Du Bois’ camps helps underscore the point that these two paths need not be pitted against each other. Williams’ refusal will also highlight this article’s ultimate point that decisions regarding a person’s future should be informed.
How can Fannie Barrier Williams’ refusal to commit to a purely Washingtonian or Du Boisian belief in education help people today weigh their options for their future? This is my project’s foundational question. In “Industrial Education – Will It Solve the Negro Problem?” Williams boldly asserted that “The demand for colored artisans of all kinds is always in excess of the supply. The supply of lawyers, doctors and ministers and other professions always exceeds the demand.”[1] Here, Williams gives space to a sentiment that has long been harbored in American culture. That sentiment is the idea that one could do well for themselves by pursuing the types of hands-on jobs that get passed over by people following an academic path. My project’s fundamental question also elicits a multi-pronged discussion once one plugs race back into the equation. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois’ disagreement over the correct educational path toward racial equality was no small event. An article building an analysis of American education on such a disagreement needs to remain mindful of how institutions have forced lower quality and misleading academia onto Black Americans. What often accompanied such developments was a very real expectation that Black Americans could only hope for manual careers. With this thorny side in mind, this project would emphasize how non-traditional education, namely non-military civic work, can empower communities when done well and that manual labor has intrinsic dignity. This point is at the heart of Williams’ piece. An online article, a reasonably accessible medium, bringing Williams’ tightrope act between the two camps to a bigger audience could strike a chord within targeted publics.
The key theme in this project is that some pursuits can be both educational and exercises in community building. Instead of putting the traditionally posed enemies of college and vocational training head-to-head, this project will focus more on non-military civic service work. This orientation brings it into the context of Williams’ life as a social advocate involved in service work in turn-of-the-last-century Chicago. In her essay, Williams hints at manual work as a tool of community building with the line, “An intelligent blacksmith is worth more to a community than an incompetent doctor, a hungry lawyer or an immoral minister.”[2] By focusing on education as a means of fostering social cohesion instead of only suggesting social advancement, the proposed article casts the enduring legacies of the Washington-Du Bois debate in a new light. In this way, it is almost a continuation of Williams’ own rejection of that binary. Her rejection alights new patterns of thinking about education in her readers. The concept of learning by doing is not always identified with Washington amidst accusations of him being an accommodationist, but his four-point plan for the students of Tuskegee suggests that it was at the core of his vision for industrial education. With goals like creating industrial leaders and giving students a means to offset educational costs, Washington could be reconsidered and fleshed out to something more than a backwoods foil to Du Bois’ “Talented Tenth.” This reconsidering of one of the most identifiable Black men in the history of American education could be empowering indeed. The other major historical arm of the discourse at hand is the Civilian Conservation Corps. While this program’s main goal was to alleviate the suffering caused by the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, it did impart impactful values to its participants. By covering a multitude of episodes in American history not often considered together, readers could stand to gain valuable new insights into their own futures.
Some of the publics this article would ideally reach would be young people currently deciding what the next portion of their life will look like, the parents/guardians/people of influence in the lives of such young people, and possibly older people weighing a life change. For young people staring down the astronomical price of college, an article suggesting that there are alternative paths would be interesting. Parents/guardians/people of influence who are either dreading footing the bill or are sympathetic to their young person’s future spent paying off loans could be inclined to read such an article. An older person who has been out in the world and is now looking for a new experience could be enticed into reading about the different routes Americans before them have taken. One final public might be people concerned with building and strengthening their community. There’s a wealth of literature touching on all the previously mentioned points of interest that can be employed to write this article. Williams’ essay can be used as a sort of road map for navigating the twisty corners of either educational path. Her piece also speaks to the importance of being in and working in a community.
A study published in September 2023 found that, “about 50 percent of Americans report feeling lonely,” and that community participation in America has been falling for several decades.[3] This study, done on older adults, found that social isolation was more influential on physical health than loneliness.[4] In the chapter, “Higher Education and Society,” from his book The Dream is Over: The Crisis of Clark Kerr’s California Idea of Higher Education, Simon Marginson argued that higher education in America is increasingly stratified.[5] It is then not unreasonable to suggest that young Americans are in a position where they might be suffering from similarly dire levels of community involvement. Civic work could put Americans into closer contact with one another, thus addressing social isolation. Indeed, this has been one of its major strengths each time such programs have been instituted. A legacy of civic work belongs to America, from colonial efforts to construct commonwealths to the “free labor” republicanism that had a chance at plotting post-slavery America.[6] Arguably, such emphasis on the efforts of the individual has fed into America’s highly individualistic nature that is in part propelling the loneliness epidemic, but service work should still be seriously considered as an antidote. A 2014 study found that participation in AmeriCorps intensified individuals’ “commitment to public interest and civic awareness.”[7] It should be noted that this study’s sample group was overwhelmingly White women and 64% of the participants had some college education or had an undergraduate degree.[8] This is an interesting demographic shift from the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps. While the CCC was decidedly undemocratic by excluding women and maintaining racially segregated camps, it did bring young men from disparate parts of the nation together for the sake of community service.[9] The democratic and civic power of such experiences cannot be discounted. Crucially, working with the federal government gave these young men democratic knowledge and a sense of duty to the community where they worked.[10] A joint effort by the Centers for Disease Control and the Well Being Trust published in 2020 further encouraged community-led work to improve community health in a variety of areas.[11] As has been suggested, a similar emphasis on community influenced Williams in her own life and work. The fact that Williams took such an approach to her service work may have informed her unwillingness to constrain her approach to education to the Washingtonian or Du Boisian camp.
In terms of the practical side of this project, it seems as if it would be a rather low-maintenance project to complete as it is not something more intensive like curating an exhibition. To write this article, one might want to interview people involved with higher education, AmeriCorps, and maybe even surviving CCC participants if they can be identified. Getting all these perspectives would help with conveying the article’s ultimate point that the decision regarding a person’s future should be an informed one. Inherent in this is the idea that there are many valid paths to take. Funding may be required to travel to interview aged CCC members who may struggle with online interviewing methods. The actual numbers for this would depend on the mode of travel, time of year, and location of such an interview subject. Tracking down former CCC members could be done by contacting historical societies local to CCC sites/projects to see if they know anyone who might be willing to be interviewed. The article could be published on a website the author might make for the sole purpose of getting the article out. An accompanying digital layering tool, such as a timeline of significant related events, could help people navigate the article. The webpage could also be set up with a patchwork of visual elements, like a picture of Williams or a CCC recruitment poster, that once clicked on would redirect to the related portion of the article. An option to skip to a plain text version would also be offered to increase accessibility or to give an alternative viewing method to people uninterested in such bells and whistles.
The major concern with this article is nailing down the exact way it will be disseminated. A free website building site, Wix, was used to create the accompanying digital materials preview. Being a preview, this material is not fully fleshed out, but already one can see how the site’s free version could be limiting if the entire project were to come to fruition. Additionally, the author is not too adept at digital tools. With these two points in mind, further funding might be sought to access more of Wix’s features or to bring on a website designer. There is also the task of clearing photos for use on the website if the “patchwork” idea were to be pursued. This idea will be worth the effort as it will give visitors a more interactive way to read the article, capturing their attention longer than if they were greeted with a simple wall of text.
References
Bass, Melissa. “The Success and Contradictions of New Deal Democratic Populism: The Case of
the Civilian Conservation Corps.” The Good Society 21, no. 2 (2012): 250–60. https://doi.org/10.5325/goodsociety.21.2.0250.
Boyte, Harry, and Trygve Throntveit. “Reframing Service as Public Work.” National Civic
Review 109, no. 4 (2021): 19–29. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.32543/naticivirevi.109.4.0019.
Marginson, Simon. “Higher Education and Society.” In The Dream Is Over: The Crisis of Clark
Kerr’s California Idea of Higher Education, 178–92. University of California Press, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1kc6k1p.26.
Turner, Catherine. “‘A Gentleman Is No Sissyְ’”: Reading, Work, and Citizenship in the Civilian
Conservation Corps.” In Education and the Culture of Print in Modern America. Eds. Adam R. Nelson and John L. Rudolph. 150-169. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central
VanderWeele, Tyler. “How Social Isolation, Loneliness Can Shorten Your Life.” By Alvin Powell. The Harvard Gazette. October 3, 2023. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/10/how-social-isolation-loneliness-can-shorten-your-life/.
Ward, Kevin D. “Cultivating Public Service Motivation through AmeriCorps Service: A
Longitudinal Study.” Public Administration Review 74, no. 1 (2014): 114–25. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24029386.
Williams, Fannie Barrier. “Industrial Education – Will It Solve the Negro Problem?” In The New
Woman of Color. Ed. Mary Jo Deegan. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002.
[1] Fannie Barrier Williams, “Industrial Education – Will It Solve the Negro Problem?,” in The New Woman of Color, ed. Mary Jo Deegan (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002), 81.
[2] Williams, “Industrial Education,” 81.
[3] Tyler VanderWeele, “How Social Isolation, Loneliness Can Shorten Life,” by Alvin Powell, The Harvard Gazette, October 3, 2023, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/10/how-social-isolation-loneliness-can-shorten-your-life/
[4] VanderWeele, “How Social Isolation.”
[5] Simon Marginson, “Higher Education and Society,” in The Dream Is Over: The Crisis of Clark Kerr’s California Idea of Higher Education, 179, (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1kc6k1p.26.
[6] Harry Boyte and Trygve Throntveit, “Reframing Service as Public Work,” National Civic
Review 109, no. 4 (2021), 24, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.32543/naticivirevi.109.4.0019.
[7] Kevin D Ward, “Cultivating Public Service Motivation through AmeriCorps Service: A
Longitudinal Study,” Public Administration Review 74, no. 1 (2014), 120, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24029386.
[8] Ward, “Cultivating Public Service,” 119.
[9] Melissa Bass, “The Success and Contradictions of New Deal Democratic Populism: The Case of the Civilian Conservation Corps.” The Good Society 21, no. 2 (2012): 251, 253. https://doi.org/10.5325/goodsociety.21.2.0250.
[10] Bass, “The Success and Contradictions,” 254.
[11] Boyte and Throntveit, “Reframing Service,” 26.
