Abstract

"Confronting the Teacher Problem in Antebellum New York State: State-building for Public Participation"

Gail Radford, University at Buffalo (radford@buffalo.edu)

This paper traces the campaign by leading politicians in New York State to upgrade the level of instruction in the early years of the state’s public school system by constructing administrative structures that would encourage increased grassroots involvement in local schools. The campaign began in the 1820s, about a decade after the state legislature established the country’s first state-aided elementary school system. State-level political officials hoped that greater involvement would lead local residents to desire – and be willing to pay for – more educated and pedagogically skilled teachers. While much scholarship on 19th century institutionalization of public education emphasizes administrative centralization and hierarchical control, the story told here traces attempts to construct government agencies that would increase public participation.
The paper is part of a project that seeks to contribute to two historiographical conversations. First, the long-running debates concerning the nature and extent of popular political engagement in the early republic and antebellum era (with their implications for more participatory forms of governance going forward). Second, the recent wave of institutionalist historiography of the 19th century US, which starts from the premise that government agencies should not be conceptualized primarily as expressions of forces in the larger society, but taken seriously as in themselves “agents of change,” to borrow the phrasing of Richard John. While much of this scholarship has brought to light a more accurate portrayal of the role of the federal government in the early years of the nation’s history, little work in this vein (with the notable exception of that of William Novak) has been done at the state and local level. It is at the sub-federal level that the bulk of state-building happened in this era, with education the largest single sector as measured by expenditures.