Their curriculum consisted of sewing, laundry, cleaning, and cooking. Each school followed more or less this structure; "girls worked their way up from doing the lowliest jobs of cleaning to the most prestigious of cooking, and through that time they will do every job for at least a month rotation. There is only allowed one girl to a room. Rooms are fashionable yet cost efficient to instill a sense of pride. Girls who do not do their jobs correctly will have to repeat their job until they master it. What stood out to me was I expected them to be learning the same type of education we receive considering it is an "industrial education", and because Haldeman was a female banker. Unfortunately the only folder I was able to look at was the letters, so I never got to look into her actual life or history.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Phase 1 Haldeman
During our excursion into the great unknown of the Lilly library I looked at the Haldeman collection. The collection I had were responses she had to letters that she sent to other women's schools, asking about the curriculum and other basic questions about the running of the school. From what I read she was attempting to set up her own school that would take young girls who were from broken homes or bad situations and instill in them abilities to become an "industrialized" wife, which I assumed was what we call stay at home mothers.
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I find it interesting, if Haldeman was a banker and clearly an educated woman herself, that she was promoting the foundation of a school which would offer girls only a domestic education, rather than a complete education that would allow them to hold jobs like her own, other than just a stay-at-home mother. Just from the information that Haldeman was a banker and educated writer, I would expect her to be a woman who would encourage an education for women equal to that of men. I agree with you that it would be interesting to look at her life and history, and maybe something could be found to better explain why she was encouraging the establishment of such a school. I would love to know if she was a mother and wife herself, and what type of education she had received before becoming a working woman.
ReplyDeleteCharles, I'd be interested in seeing specific passages from these letters that carry the argument or thesis, just so we can be sure we know what exact language the letter writers used to describe the education. It might also be interesting to know what arguments were made in which letter. Were these all letters written by her, to her, for her? I remember you saying that they were written by other school affiliates who were weighing in on their opinions of how a girls' school should focus its curriculum (but I may be remembering incorrectly ...)
ReplyDelete-Dr. Graban
I also read information from the Haldeman box, and I think it's very interesting to see what type of correspondence she had been having with these schools. In the essay I read, the author (some relation of S.A. Haldeman) talked about the life of Jane Addams's mother, Sarah Weber/Addams. Sarah was well known for her amazing cooking and sewing skills-- mothers would actually send their daughters to kind of work in Sarah's house in order to pick up on some of these skills. I think it would be interesting to see how S.A. Haldeman felt about this type of education. Obviously working in the home with another woman is not the same as attending a school, but both learning outlets focused primarily on sewing, cooking, cleaning, etc.
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